Notes to My Siblings

 Notes To My Siblings is now The Smattering on Substack! Visit moriahchastney.substack.com

With Memorial Day approaching I’m starting to have flashbacks... to... the sailboat. I think I can safely speak for my siblings when I say... we do not miss that boat. If you’re bored tonight, here’s a story for you. Once upon a time, my dad bought the largest sailboat you can legally trailer and haul yourself. And because we are Richetts, naturally, we trailered and hauled it ourselves. Because why pay someone who can do it faster and safer than you can when you can do it yourself, right? Right. Memorial Day! The start of summer! The best time to launch a 10,000lb sailboat for the first time ever with only the help of your children who know nothing about boats! For five hours following the Memorial Day parade in a tiny coastal town in Maine, we provided entertainment to nearby hotel guests, lobstermen, and tourists as we prepped and launched Three Stooges style. It is no exaggeration when I say that we backed the boat down the ramp, tried to get it off, got it off a little but got it ...

As a result of Lyme and other trauma, I’ve developed “checking” (a combo of OCD and anxiety) over the last few years. For me, the root of checking is the need to be sure. Really, really sure. Beyond sure. Is the door locked? Is it really locked? What if it just looks locked, I’d better push on it to be sure. What if it felt locked that one time but it’s not actually locked? I’d better push on it again and try the knob. What if my brain is tricking me and making it look and feel like it’s locked but it’s actually not? Better check again. From locking the door and beyond, things that have risk involved or a way they could turn south send my mind into crazyland trying to think of all the possibilities and control the outcomes to safe ones. Which is, of course, impossible. Living in uncertainty is part of being human. We can’t be sure of what will happen in the next minute, forget about the next week (as the COVID freak out has taught us) and we will work ourselves into an exhausted mess i...

May is #lymediseaseawareness Awareness Month, and I just wanted to take a minute to say thanks, Lyme, for literally changing my life. Lyme is horrible and painful and terrifying and I would have never volunteered for the physical symptoms I have experienced, but it’s forced me to reevaluate so much and given me a priceless education on many subjects... Health: health doesn’t just happen and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Health is not as simple as if A, then B, it’s complicated and takes unraveling and digging. I am responsible for my health from small daily choices like diet and toxin load to larger ones like choosing to follow a doctor’s recommendations or not and researching and asking questions when things don’t sound right. Compassion: I had no idea how hurtful casual, dismissive remarks could be until I was told that I wasn’t that sick, it couldn’t hurt that bad, and I was probably just faking it to get what I wanted. Now I know that remarks like that can leave you scarred for...

Sunrise and sunset. Seasons. Ocean tides. There’s something soothing as an adult about the fact that there are some things we can count on. We might think we don’t need a routine as much as a child does, but perhaps I’m a large child because I melt into a pile of figurative snotty tears when my usual life rhythm is upset. The difference between me as a child and me as an adult though is that now, creating a rhythm for my daily life is all up to me, no one creates it for me. The easier route is to do whatever I feel like at the moment... isn’t that what we always dreamed of doing as kids?! But it doesn’t take more than a day or two for me to start to feel unsettled, and like a child it’s only a few days more before everyone around me knows it! The harder route is to intentionally choose what my daily rhythm looks like, and to have the discipline to do the things that are good for me, even if they aren’t what I feel like doing. . . . A few notes to my fellow overachievers and perfectioni...

Being present is hard for me. I feel like I’ve been waiting for something my whole life. I’m always trying to reach ahead into the not-yet to live in the someday. If I just get THERE, then I’ll be satisfied, I think. But life is happening now, today, this minute. Life isn’t paused because of a stay home order. It isn’t paused because I’m flaring and have to cancel plans. It isn’t paused because I don’t have that job yet, that house yet, or haven’t taken that trip yet, or any of the plethora of things I think will complete me. Living in the Now requires discipline and hard work, but it brings peace to the Waiting. We’re always going to be waiting for one thing or another, but waiting doesn’t mean living is on pause. Your life is happening now, as you’re reading this. Strive to grow in the discipline of waiting with peace and purpose ♥️.

2020 has given you all a wonderful gift: the resurrection of the Notes to My Siblings blog! (I kid, I kid. I mean, the blog is actually getting resurrected, but my opinions are not always a treat lol.) Since I haven't written on here in several years, I've copied over some significant Instagram posts to make it look better :D. I've left (most of) my old posts on here. I'm happy to say that the last 5 years has significantly tamed the snark (if you've only known me for the last couple years you missed a *delightful* stage of my life and you're welcome), but I still mostly agree with the majority of what I wrote. I just would maybe say it differently now. Happy reading!

When I first started having health challenges, one of the original challenges was severe claustrophobia and crowd anxiety. I mean, I used to be the girl who spoke practically no Spanish, flew to the Dominican in the middle of the night, cleared customs and took a taxi an hour ride to a missionary’s house by herself, no sweat. But when Lyme happened, if someone so much as got in line behind me at the grocery store, I had a panic attack because it was too crowded and I felt trapped. Sheesh. I went nowhere but work and home for a very long time. I thought I was reasonably over my fear of the grocery store, but lately it’s circled back around to freak me out. Lines. Waiting. Crowds. Being at other people’s mercy. I get sick to my stomach just knowing I have to go. (I know, it’s dumb. But tell my body that because it says it’s a VERY REAL DANGER RUN RUN RUN 🙄.) While trying to hype myself up to make the next grocery run, I realized... so far, I have not had to stand in more than a reasonab...

30 random things I’ve learned (or continue to learn 🤦🏼‍♀️) in 30 years in no particular order. 1. Life is hard. 2. Most of the time, there is more than one right way to do things. 3. The ocean is a place where everything is ok. 4. While excessive spending is not good, extreme saving will not make you happy or solve your problems. 5. Do not waste your singleness by having a one track find-a-spouse mind. DO something with your life that matters. 6. Try stuff. Don’t be a chicken. 7. Experiences > stuff. 8. Individual suffering is a soul refining process. 9. Achievements are not as measurable as American culture would have you think. 10. Suffering will either push you away from God or push you towards God, your choice. 11. Suffering as a family can either push you apart or knit you together, your choice. 12. When “they” say something, DO YOUR RESEARCH. Too many things are not as they appear or as people would like you to believe. 13. Believe your people even when you can’t see it. Abu...

With health challenges, I’ve sometimes wished for someone to say “wow, I’m impressed” when I do normal and mandatory things like go to work or go grocery shopping because honestly, sometimes accomplishing this feels like I’ve just finished an Iron Man triathlon or hell week with the Marines 🙄. I don’t think I’m the only one that normal things can feel like Mt. Everest for. I think the mom who’s baby is teething and hasn’t slept in a week and still manages to do the laundry and cook dinner wants to hear “good job, keep going”. I think the person struggling to get up in the morning, weighed down by depression wants to hear “good job, keep going”. I think the person who’s applied to a million jobs and still can’t find one wants to hear “good job, keep going”. Because “good job, keep going” means “I see you. I know what it took for you to _____.” And who doesn’t want to be seen?? Text someone right now whose life is a being a little extra and remind them that you see them ♥️. It matters.

As I’ve been thinking about what I want my focus to be this next year, the two words that come to mind are remember and expect. Currently, I don’t have a great relationship with those words. When your whole life (ok that’s a LITTLE dramatic but sometimes it sure feels that way can I get an amen 😫) seems like it’s been one. thing. after. another, it’s easy to get to a place where you can only remember the hard and you start to expect that the rest of life will continue to suck. You become apathetic. Cynical. And a delightful ray of sunshine to be around 🙄. I was reading Deuteronomy 8, in which Moses reminds the Israelites what God did for them in the forty years since leaving Egypt- forty years that, from a human point of view, seemed like a pointless, dead-end waste of time. It was miserable. It made no sense. And yet, God was in the details: they did not lack anything they needed. Moses also reminded them to expect what God had promised them, even though at that moment they were sti...

A big concept I’ve been wrestling with this year is the idea that in life, good and bad coexist. One does not cancel out the other. Good and bad can share the same space. They each stand on their own two feet and are evaluated independently. It’s not about deciding whether there was more good than bad and labeling it as “good” if the good points outweigh the bad (or visa versa). It is now past 6pm the day after Thanksgiving, and it has taken me about 24 hours of emotional turmoil and feeling decidedly not thankful to apply this concept to thankfulness and try using the word “and” instead of “but”. For example: 🍁 I’m grieved that my body still fails me AND I’m thankful for my husband’s love, stability, and goofiness. 🍁 I’m so over being tired AND I’m thankful for my family. 🍁 Chronic pain freaking sucks AND being an aunt is the best. ‘But’ says that the one cancels out the other. ‘And’ says that they are both independent and true things. So the thankfulness thing is going a little be...

I used to run 3-4 miles no sweat. Today I ran .5 miles and I’m currently on the floor in pain 😂. How times have changed lol. But you know how I know the whole me is healing? Today my first thought wasn’t “wow you’re so lame, remember when you ran a 5k three times a week 🙄”. My first thought was “DUDE you just ran a half mile! You’re totally getting better!” My physical self may not be (and may never be) what it used to be, but the fact that my first reaction wasn’t a criticism of myself means the rest of me is making great progress. Celebrate your accomplishments today, no “even ifs”, no “compared toos”. ♥️ 🎉

The first picture was taken a year ago. My body had started reacting to building air quality (CIRS), and that triggered several major life changes that people were very rude about (definitely Smashers 🙄). I had daily terrifying symptoms from CIRS. I was severely depressed and at this point had lost 15lbs in two weeks. My muscles were shockingly atrophied and I remember thinking my arms were going to fall off while holding the vegetables. A common thing people have said to me during my illness years is, “Well, you look great!” I think it’s maybe a reactionary phrase people use when they are confronted with an illness they can’t see clear indicators of and they want to add some positive encouragement but have no clue what else to say. (I think it’s also an indicator of what our society says we’re supposed to look like in order to “look great”. Hello people, I did NOT look great last summer, I looked like I’d narrowly escaped Auschwitz 🙄.) I’ve never struggled with the stereotypical bod...

Vulnerability is a fragile gift people give to one another. “Here’s a piece of me, it’s really important and very breakable and it means a lot to me.” You have the power take that piece and hold it gently with them, or to smash both the shared thing and the share-er with the words you choose to respond with. Don’t be a smasher, y’all.

The story I thought I would write with my life has been edited so much by hard things and suffering that I don’t even recognize it anymore. The story I thought I would write was centered around me: what I would do, what I would accomplish, how I would change the world. The story that I have is instead a story of what God has done, what He has accomplished, how He has changed me. I’m still learning to like this edited version, but I also know the Master Storywriter isn’t finished yet ♥️.

I’ve already heard people criticize @nfrealmusic new album, saying that he should have been more hopeful and positive. As someone who has been battling for mental health the past year and walked closely with others struggling with OCD, depression, anxiety, and the like, I can tell you... This album is FULL of hope for those who are struggling. Full. Of. It. I almost cried at least three times as I listened through. For myself, for the friends who are struggling, for the reality that I’m not the only one. You see, hope can come in all forms. Hope is not just fluffy pink bunnies and sunshine. Hope can be gritty and rough and a single beam of light hitting the back wall of the deep, gross, seemingly bottomless cave we find ourselves in. We follow it, up and down, over rocks, gaining ground, then sliding off cliffs. We lose sight of the beam for a while, but we keep struggling in the direction we last saw it. And eventually, we find it again. Finding true and deep internal peace in Christ...

I’ve been pondering the theology of healing and health a lot lately. Four years ago, I would have told you that health had to do with what you did for your body: food intake, exercise, rest, treating infections, supplementation. Today, I would tell you that wellness encompasses not just physical aspects but also emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects. When Jesus interacted with the people he healed, he didn’t ask physical doctor-y questions, he asked soul questions and gave soul explanations. .“Do you want to be healed?” “Do you believe I am able to do this?” “Your sins are forgiven.” Science backs up the idea that physical ailments are not only physical. Childhood trauma (trauma can be much less obvious than the things that first come to mind) sets people up for a 70-80% increase in the possibility that they will develop an autoimmune disease later in life. Absolutely no disagreement from me that you have to take care of your physical body with good food, reducing toxins, getting en...

Sometimes I struggle with being joyful for others’ joyful life events. Sometimes it feels like life is moving on without me. Maybe you read that and I already have the thing that you so badly want and you wonder, how could I feel that way when I already have the thing that fills the ache? The thing that if you could just get there, life would feel complete? Hard truth: That good thing you’re wanting- Landing that job, getting that house, meeting the right person, having that baby, taking that trip, making your dream a reality- that thing that you think will fix the ache or fill the void or be the missing piece? It won’t. It might fill you for a moment, but ultimately you will always, always be left wanting until Jesus becomes the thing that you want above all other things. Preaching to myself.

All throughout scripture, God is referred to as “Father”. Often our experiences trump our head knowledge when we draw conclusions, and it’s a lot easier to assume that God is like our dad, because we’ve experienced in a tangible, visible way what our dads are like and assume from that experience that we know what a dad does. But here’s the thing, God can not be “like” anyone, because he IS. Instead of looking to your earthly father to understand God, look to God to understand what a father should be. Our Father is gracious and kind, slow to anger. Abounding in love, steadfastly faithful. In control but not controlling. He is mercy and grace. He never leaves. He is good, He is untainted by sin. He is protector and defender, provider and giver of good gifts. Maybe your earthly father is as clear a reflection of God as a human can allow, or maybe his own brokenness shattered the mirror to bits. Or maybe his mirror is cracked in a few places, but the reflection is still there. Spend a few ...