Messy, Mundane, Miraculous Middles

After last week’s mountain vacation story, I started thinking about everyday life, specifically, what happens in the quiet kind of chaos that doesn’t make headlines, appear in photo albums, or really ever make it into my blog stories. Things like daily letdowns, or the moments that sting for a second but somehow leave us stronger and wildly more compassionate.

We don’t talk about those much, but maybe we should. Because that’s where life actually happens—in the middle of everything, between the peaks and the valleys, where resilience and understanding quietly take root.

We spend so much of life celebrating the bookends (the births, the graduations, the weddings, the funerals). The beginnings and endings make the scrapbook, but the middle pages get left out, even though the truth lives deep within their margins.

In my family, we’ve had no shortage of middle-moment disappointments: the burnt casseroles that were supposed to be “foolproof,” the love letter that went unanswered, or the vacation that started with optimism and ended with Mom accidentally eating pot brownies. These tiny episodes and recoveries—the ones that don’t come with sympathy cards or casseroles—define us far more than any big, cinematic tragedy ever could.

Because life isn’t primarily made of beginnings or endings. It’s made of messy, mundane, and miraculous middles. No one exemplifies this to me more than my family.

Mom is the keeper of our family’s history. Not in a dusty-scrapbook way, but through bingo cards and crossword puzzles she handcrafts for every major holiday and life event. Each square or clue captures something only we’d remember: a long-running joke, a catchphrase, a near-disaster that’s become legend. While the rest of us are eating meat pies or arguing about politics, Mom is quietly turning our shared chaos into a record of who we are to be celebrated on some near future gathering.

Mom’s disappointments are primarily about the whole of humanity. She mourns how fast everything moves now, how people scroll past beauty and shout over moments of tranquility. She wonders when “being right” started mattering more than being kind. But instead of growing bitter, she doubles down on devotion. She laughs, prays, and keeps stitching together meaning with the same patience she’s demonstrated our entire lives. Her gift is that she never lets any of it steal her joy. She laughs, shrugs, and says (literally), “Que Será, Será.”

From Mom, I’ve learned that remembering alone can be an act of love—and that disappointment, when tended to with love and grace, can become an archive of hope sketched out in puzzle clues.

Mom’s superpower: Forgiveness

If Mom is the family historian, Dad is the philosopher who gives the archives meaning. He’s the extroverted friend to all—part theologian, part storyteller, part personal hotline to God. His love for Mom and his kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids is unmatched.

His disappointments come quietly, like the sigh when his reel snarls into a knot the size of a hamster. His patience with tangled fishing line is…aspirational. He mutters under his breath (sometimes cussing), fixes it, and goes right back to casting when most of us would have become so frustrated we would have broken the rod over our knee and called it a day.

It’s the same way he handles people—steady, patient, and with all heart. And while Mom preserves the stories of us, Dad prays them forward.

From Dad, I’ve learned that frustration doesn’t have to end in surrender. Sometimes it just means you pause, squint at the tangle, and keep working it until something finally gives.

Dad’s superpower: Prayer

Julie is the most intelligent child in the family in terms of IQ. More than smart, she’s a compassionate yet hardcore advocate for health and wellbeing; except if you’re mean. She will unapologetically throat-punch you if you hurt a child, animal, or anyone helpless. She is a storm-weatherer beyond comparison, and an equally funny storyteller. 

My sister’s disappointments arrive with flair: a backed-up sewer from decades of odd trinkets being crammed into the plumbing, learning that the very thing she was so hardcore and unbending about nearly killed her, or in times when she’d swear the universe was testing her when someone is chewing too loudly. But to restore balance, she will do something wonderfully ordinary, like rearrange her entire house. It’s her way of reminding the world that when you can’t control the big stuff, you can always find a vintage lamp at an estate sale that will light up the room—and your life.

From her, I learned that small order can restore big peace—in our minds or in our homes—and that laughter in the face of it all is truly a spiritual discipline.

Julie’s superpower: Compassion

Jerrod has the biggest heart of all of us. He feels everything deeply but lives with unshakable happiness and integrity, like our mother. He is the epitome of actions speak louder than words.

Jerrod’s middle disappointments usually entail something practical like a broken tool, a flat tire, a kid who “forgot” they needed $200 for something by tomorrow at dawn. He might initially grumble, but he’ll Venmo the money, fix the thing, and somehow still remain lighthearted about it all. Beneath the sawdust and sarcasm, though, is a heart that can’t help but show up. He’s been through the kind of disappointments that don’t capture headlines—saying goodbye to beloved pets, watching his kids grow faster than he can catch up, working his fingers to the bone (literally) to build a business from absolutely nothing to something incredible, while carrying the weight of it all with a quiet endurance that looks like love every single time.

From Jerrod, I’m reminded that the hard work that no one applauds might just be the holiest kind. 

Jerrod’s superpower: Family

Jason is a paradox—a blend of academic precision and tender soul. He’s the reason we all have a dictionary app, and the only one who could make a joke about existentialism land at a family dinner.

Jason’s disappointments run deep. They live in the gap between how the world could be and how it insists on being. He’s the brother who reads footnotes for fun, and who believes higher education is a calling, not a business model. The world keeps trying to cut corners, cancel nuance, and bulldoze curiosity, and it breaks his heart a little every time. Yet, he keeps showing up—teaching, explaining, arguing gently with his students and anyone who cares about the state of humanity.

Jason’s disappointments aren’t about failure; they’re about persistence. I’ve learned from him that if we choose to keep believing that knowledge and empathy still matter, even when it feels like no one else got the memo, then we can make a difference.

Jason’s superpower: Charm

Lastly, I am the proud firstborn. Despite my tell-all blog, I am the keeper of secrets for my siblings—a vault containing hilarious and equally gut-wrenching truths that will go with me to my grave. One of my greatest joys is being a cheerleading sounding board for my sister and two brothers.

As for me, I’ve spent a lifetime trying to turn life’s minor heartbreaks into humor and meaning. Whether it’s a love relationship that didn’t pan out or feeling misunderstood because of my differences, I’ve learned that disappointment is usually an invitation to rewrite the story, to choose grace over pain, or to laugh at how beautifully bizarre life can be.

My in-the-middle disappointments have taught me that small heartbreaks build muscle for the big ones.

My superpower: Positivity

So yes, the big events will likely continue to get all the credit, but it’s the small stuff that fortifies us.

In my family, the small stuff is also proof that love can survive accidental cannabis ingestions, tangled fishing lines, mismatched wallpaper, and the occasional severing of a fingertip. Because the stuff in the middle isn’t the filler, it’s where our best stories unfold.