Chapter 7 (The One)

January 8, 2025 / Callie Page / 2 Comments

As a part of the “not enoughness” feeling that I often carried with me throughout my life, I had this assumption that the “man of my dreams” would fix it. I imagined that he would fill those places that felt empty within me. I romanticized the thought of him being perfect, and I ached to meet him so that I could stop feeling so empty. So I searched. I prayed (to what i’m not sure, maybe the universe?). I thought about it daily. Honestly, probably most minutes of most days when I hit jr. high.

I dated a few boys in high school. I was pretty lucky, they were great boys. They all treated me very well and respected me. I couldn’t have asked for more.

None of them, however, were the missing piece. None of them were the link to my happiness that I so desperately needed them to be. They didn’t complete me. So I kept searching.

Years later, when I found my missing piece (more on that in a later post), I realized that the things I thought he was supposed to fix, he couldn’t. From the time I was too young to even understand, I had a need that hadn’t been filled.

The realization of Brad, my husband and missing piece, not being the answer to all of my “not enoughness” parts of myself was excruciating. I REALLY didn’t understand what I was supposed to do with this feeling of emptiness inside of me. I was so confused. He couldn’t have been more perfect for me. He couldn’t have done anything better. We couldn’t be better friends. He was my soulmate, and I knew that. How could that not be enough?

I was so confused and so hurt. This feeling led me to struggling for years in silence, because he was supposed to be all of my answers before I realized he couldn’t be.

I was back at square one.

I just wanted so desperately to feel full.

There’s much more to this story and it gets laid out later throughout the remaining blog posts. The important part of this part of the story for me was that I realized I had this initial need for someone to fix the parts of me that I couldn’t seem to fix myself.

My high school self was looking for “the one” because I just knew that would be my answer. Someone would fill that for me. I just had to find the right person.

Learning that wasn’t possible, was one of the most formative and difficult experiences of my life.

Years and years later I watched a video posted on social media by Will Smith talking about the very same thing that he walked through with his wife, Jada. It’s amazing how this need and feeling lives in all of us. It doesn’t matter if you are just a simple girl from the midwest or an international superstar, our human needs and desires seem to come back to one place.

We all just want to be loved unconditionally, understood, and cared about. We want to feel “full”. It’s human nature. And there is a larger reason for it. I’m grateful for the need because it makes this life bigger than us, and I’ve learned, none of us can fill it alone.

Chapter 6 (The Game)

January 1, 2025 / Callie Page / 3 Comments

I’ve always been a very passionate person. Sometimes I like this quality about myself, and other times it can be a bit ridiculous. Nevertheless, I think I was given this quality for reasons that I don’t even fully know about yet. The reason I say that is because I’ve already seen the fruits of that thus far in certain areas of my life.

I remember in high school a weeknight softball game was canceled because of the rain, and I was devastated. And yes, I actually mean, devastated. I went to my room and cried after school because I wanted to play so badly. I LOVED softball. It was an obsession for me. However, to be fair, everything I did was an obsession for me. When I love something, I go all in. 150%.

I do realize that it’s a bit silly to cry over a missed game, but that’s the only emotion I could feel at the time. I knew, even then, that it was an immature thing to do, but I was so caught up in the feeling of playing, I forgot about everything else.

I do that still.

When I pour my heart into something, I get tunnel vision. I can’t even imagine a way that it could go other than the way I created it in my head. I only imagine one scenario. And because I am a notoriously optimistic person, my way is always slightly more positive than the reality. So, I tend to enjoy things on a deep level.

Even with parenting I imagined the situation slightly different than it has gone. Sleepless nights? That wasn’t going to happen to me. Business? Well, I’ll just open the thing, and money will flow in.

Like I mentioned earlier MOST of the time the optimism and obsession with my current situation has been a blessing. It makes me get up in the morning and expect my best. It makes it a little easier for me to take the next step, whatever that might be at the time. It shows me a world in which most things are good. It keeps me in a positive state of mind. I need it. Maybe, more than air sometimes. I’m grateful I have that quality, but sometimes…it gets me into trouble.

Obsessions have two sides to them. The difficult part is when I can’t let go of something that I know I need to let go of. I may hold onto dreams a little longer than I should. I create expectations of others when I don’t have the right to, including my own children. When I have a plan for my kids’ life in my brain, and they don’t take the same steps I’ve imagined, I have to go through a process of letting go. When Brad sees something different than I do, I have a hard
time letting go of my vision. I forget that we don’t necessarily need to agree.

The whole experience is a constant reminder to me that I only get to control my own response to the world. I do not ever get to control what others decide to do. And thank goodness for that, because that means that I get to choose my path, even if someone else doesn’t choose the way I do. The way I see things is up to me, and me alone.

Chapter 5 (The Deer)

December 25, 2024 / Callie Page / 2 Comments

Compassion. It’s an interesting thing, some people have it, some people really don’t have much of it. It seems like it’s not something that can be taught, but maybe observing it is the most impactful way to learn it? I don’t know. It’s a concept that is a little more cumbersome to explain. There are several parts to it.

The first time I realized that compassion was going to be a blessing and a curse for me was when my grandpa and uncle were hunting at my house.

Yes, I’m one of those people who hate seeing death in any capacity, however, I do understand it differently as an adult. At that time though, I was probably 12 or 13 and seeing a gutted, strung up deer carcass on my tree outside my house hit me a little harder than it probably should have.

My first thought was “oh that poor deer never gets to see its mom again.” “It probably left behind a wife or a girlfriend. They are probably looking for him right now, and they’ll never find him.” I personified a deer. And then I stood there for 20 minutes sobbing uncontrollably because of the pain the deer family would have to go through. Yes, I realize now how ridiculous that was, but at the time, it was all consuming in my brain.

My heart broke for the family of that deer.

My heart broke for anyone, at any time, that experienced any kind of trauma or pain. For many, many years I couldn’t move past the sorrow. In some ways, I still can’t. I’ve had to learn how to use that compassion to the best of my ability.

It’s probably ok to let go of one less deer in the world, but it’s also ok for me to feel things a little deeper than what’s socially acceptable. So if I see you in the crowd, and ask you a question about your life, just know I genuinely care about your answer. And chances are, I’ll keep that response with me throughout my day. I will hurt for you, or smile for you, whatever the case may be. I will keep it with me for some time.

Throughout my life I’ve been told that those reactions aren’t acceptable and are considered naive and ideal. For example, in the mental health world, when I was working as a counselor, I was advised several times to “not get too close”. I was warned away from crying over a situation I heard about that day. And although I understand the reasoning behind this, I couldn’t change my natural reaction. I couldn’t change it only because I realized I didn’t want to. Instead of changing, I removed myself from the industry. I had to.

I think sometimes in life, we find ourselves being told by a societal norm that we need to conform in order to follow protocol or to do things the “right” way, and even though rules need to be had, there comes a point in time when you have to decide for yourself if you’re willing to make that concession. In my case, changing that piece of me would have been something that changed the fabric of who I want to be. And that wasn’t worth it for me.

I choose now to look at that compassion quality as a strength and not a weakness, and that has made all the difference.

Chapter 4 (The Gift)

December 18, 2024 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

One of my biggest memories of childhood was something my sister taught me.

When I was sad she would take me down to our basement with cement walls and find the little spots where the rebar was visible, and tell me stories about the make-believe animal families that lived there. There were probably hundreds of them and she came up with a different story every time.

Sometimes the Rabbit family would live next to the Fox family and they would all play together at the park. Sometimes the dog family would be best friends with the cat family. No matter what the story, there was always a happy ending that took my mind off of everything else.

I remember this one time in particular when I broke the head of the ceramic doll that my mother told me NOT to play with on the concrete floor (oops) and my sis came to my rescue. I was terrified to tell my mom, so I told my sister. She couldn’t fix the ceramic doll, but she could distract me from my fear.

It was a beautiful gift.

She taught me that even in the scariest moments, there’s a way to proceed. Even if it’s just distraction that saves you, a moment worth of distraction opens up possibilities to move past the fear.

What she doesn’t know is that I’ve used that thought so many times over the past 40 years that it’s now second nature to me. It’s become part of who I am. I’m grateful for those moments with her, and that memory she gave me.

Chapter 3 (The Gut Punch)

December 11, 2024 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

I had a pretty sheltered childhood. My parents loved each other. They taught me wrong from right. We had a lot of support from friends and family. I’ve always felt loved.

My first experience with the opposite of that was in 5th grade. There was this 6th grade boy, out on the playground, that called my brother a retard.

My brother is autistic and he was certainly different from anyone else in my school, so it was not uncommon for people to talk about him. The shock came when I realized that hate and dismissal was also going to be present in my life, because of him.

I hadn’t thought, up until that point, that anyone would ever be mean to me. It’s not that I didn’t know it existed, it was just that I didn’t think it was meant for me.

The gut punch was real.

I didn’t know how bad it hurt to be put on the outside of the “inside”, if that makes sense. I immediately felt aware of my shortcomings and the things that made me different. I DID have a brother that was autistic, and maybe he was what that kid said he was.

So what does that mean for me?

Does that make me less? I started questioning everything. My bubble was broken. I was no longer perfect. I had to make up for that imperfection. So I got to work. I started caring about clothes, and who I hung out with. Were they cool enough? Were they athletic enough? Was I smart enough? Was I nice enough?

I started practicing all of the sports I had loved, for the sake of loving up until that point, with a different endgame in mind. I needed to stand out. I needed to be “good” in some way that was noticeable to others. I needed to make up for the fact that my brother was different. If I could do that, then maybe I could mask the pain for him and for myself.

I know we all go through something similar to this in our lives. I know the valley creates the human, but I hadn’t thought about the ramifications of these lessons in our personalities.

For example, BECAUSE I can feel this story on every level, I have intense reactions to things related to “not enoughness”. At this point, for me, the physical reaction I have when I see a person being ostracized feels overwhelming, and almost innate. Now, I know it isn’t, but it feels like it could be, and that’s the point.

If I’m not very aware of how I feel about something, and where it comes from, then my reactions to you might not be what I would choose them to be. I have to always be aware of the fact that we all come into relationships with our own set of stories. It’s of the utmost importance to me that I learn how my backstories affect my reactions because I don’t want to react to you in a way that feels innate. I want to react to you, in a way that I CHOOSE.

It’s a discipline. It’s a practice. I’m not perfect. I screw it up a lot of the time, but I am trying.

Chapter 2 (The Foundation)

December 4, 2024 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

One of the first memories that I have is when I was 7 years old, being dropped off at vacation bible school, standing at the back of the church, and being completely confused as to why I was there. I remember thinking, “why do these people say things like this? Who made up this story? Why do we talk about it every year in the summer?”

I promise I wasn’t judging (not that I’m not guilty of being judgmental). It was simply that I couldn’t and didn’t believe. But, my fascination wasn’t with my unbelief, it was more geared towards why humans put on this persona. Why did people tell this story, act like it gave them peace, and then preach it to others?

At the time I probably just chalked it up to “this whole God thing” being a profession, so someone had to do it. It wasn’t unlike being a teacher or an electrician. Someone had to tell these unbelievable stories about this Jesus guy, and so the job was filled.

It never occurred to me that it could be true, because the same people that preached about Jesus being love, and only love, would also criticize and dismiss unfortunate souls at school. That’s the reality I lived in.

So clearly, (I thought) it’s not truth. I mean, that woman talking right now about love, literally just chastised a kid for not being clean when he came to school.

Obviously love and outright dismissal of a human don’t go together.

Jesus is clearly just a story that someone gets appointed to tell.

My next thought was, “I’ll just go out and kick the ball now.” And there it went. The need to understand Jesus was pushed to the side for several years. I put it in the same mental folder as Santa and the tooth fairy because I was already beginning to understand that those things weren’t possible either.

Over the next several years I filled that place within me that needed to understand things by observing and contemplating humans and human behavior. That need continues still. I am a lover of humans. I deeply care for people. Deeply.

This may sound like I’m bragging on myself, I’m not. I just feel the need for you to understand that my reactions to pieces of my story are connected to this moment, and this experience of observing humanity.

I quickly fell into the trap of trying to please humanity because of my first need to understand it.

Some of you might connect with that idea.

I have no way of tying this up with a pretty bow and allowing you to let go of the stress that comes with the need to please, but I will say this, you are not alone. I’ve been struggling with this need for over 40 years.

I’m in the trenches with you.

Chapter 1 (The Intro)

November 22, 2024 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

New blog. New message. New mission. It just felt like the right time for this. You’ll have to bear with me. I’ve been pulled in a direction that I’ve never fully gone before, and this blog is the representation of that. I’m nervous, and excited, but mostly I’m absolutely sure this is something I am supposed to do at this point in my life.

My entire goal for this blog is to share my story. Not just my current story, but the entire thing. From the beginning. Every experience that sticks out in my brain, every hurt, frustration or deep deep sorrow will be shared. I will also share the peaks. The moments in this life that make the valleys worth the struggle.

My hope is that sharing who I am will be a blessing to others. Not because of my story, but because of the way that it makes you more comfortable with your own. I’m a mental health counselor and my ultimate hope is that you can somehow gain a Hope for your own life by witnessing the failures of mine.

I’ve screwed up and it’s important to talk about it.

My vulnerability won’t be about you feeling sorry for me, it will be about my needing to let go of a social standard that I’m no longer interested in. I think it’s ok for my life to be imperfect. I think it’s ok for ME to be imperfect. I think it’s ok that my house is messy and my cars aren’t new. I think it’s fine to be a struggling entrepreneur, and to have struggling finances. I think it’s ok when your kids screw up and your parenting values are threatened. I think it’s ok to be lost.

I’m not afraid of sharing the imperfection, I’m afraid of how it will be received. But alas, this is a practice in letting go of that. This is a practice in understanding that being who I am and who I’ve been called to be, is ok even if it doesn’t match the norms.

I’ll share my heart. I hope you’ll stick around for the full story. I’m honored to share it with you.

Reclaimed Living