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Chapter 24 (The Run)

May 7, 2025 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

My first three children were a much different experience for me than my last three. I had my first when I was 22 and my second and third followed quickly after. I had 3 kids…3 and under. It was something else.

At the time, Brad, my husband, was teaching and coaching. He would leave at 6:00am and usually come home around 6 if it was a practice day or 10 if it was a game day. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken care of 3 kids under three by yourself while also trying to run a photography business, but it’s not really all that easy.

There are much harder things in the world for sure, but these years in my life weren’t a cake walk. Not only were the day to day needs of 3 babies difficult to satisfy, but somewhere along the way, I forgot who I was apart from being a mother. My kids didn’t go to daycare at all, so every single part of my day was centered around them. For a while I was just trying to make it through the days. I was always so tired. I tried to nap when they napped, but if I did that, my house was a complete disaster 24/7. That added a level of “not enoughness” to my mental game as well. My business was always the thing that came last, and that was difficult for me to accept because my business was the only part left of the me that I recognized.

I had no friends, because I didn’t have time for friends, and my only conversation with an adult was my sister on the days that she spent with me and her 3 young children. We looked like we had a daycare when we would go on walks or to the mall. People would always say, “Wow. You guys have your hands full.”

I remember once when Brad arranged for a day all to ourselves. He got us Cardinals baseball tickets and asked my mom to watch our children. It was a great idea, in theory.

The only way I could perceive that at the time was that I was escaping for the day, but the break wasn’t able to “fix” anything in my overwhelmed brain. Now I LOVE Cardinals baseball, but escaping for the day, to be surrounded by thousands of other people wasn’t exactly what I needed. On top of that, I didn’t have any children attached to me, and it was taking me a while to decompress after we left them. There was also this thing running through my head that was telling me, if I was going to escape for the day, I wanted my husband to be the one taking care of our kids. Leaving them with someone else just felt like more pressure because they still weren’t getting to spend time with daddy.

Because of everything above, I had to have Brad pull over to the side of the interstate. I was having a major panic attack. When I have panic attacks, I have to run. I NEVER run. Running isn’t even a goal for me. I hate running. I’ve always hated running. But on this day, with this panic attack, all I could do was run. So…I ran along the interstate as far as I could go.

I tried to run away from myself and my body. I know it’s hard to believe, but it didn’t work. I just needed some peace. I needed a break from every thought running through me.

Eventually I got back in the vehicle. I think Brad probably thought I was crazy. I wouldn’t blame him. There’s just no way that I could explain it to him. It was too much to understand if you’ve never felt it. I know there are some momma’s out there who have experienced almost exactly the same thing.

To those mommas I would like to say, I get you. I believe in you. There are better days coming. Just kiss your babies and hold them even when you want to cry from overwhelm. Be still. You are not crazy. You are not weird. You have a place in this world. You are loved.

Chapter 23 (The Lesson)

April 30, 2025 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

Being the sister of an autistic brother affected my parenting style more than most other things I’ve experienced in my life. I lived in a small tight knit community where the school supported and welcomed my brother with open arms. The most important part of that acceptance though, came from his peers.

Jacob was in a class with wonderful, wonderful people. The most popular kid in school was one of Jake’s biggest supporters and he made sure everyone knew that they couldn’t mess with him. We only had a couple of instances when people reacted negatively to Jacob, and those were remedied quickly without our interference. They took care of him.

I’ll never forget that kindness. In a world where everyone talks about bullying and how mean kids can be, I am privy to different information. Being kind, thoughtful, and loving IS absolutely possible and even the “cool” kids can show those qualities.

One of the rules in our house when I was a kid was that we weren’t allowed to say “no” to a boy who asked us to a dance, unless we had already said yes to someone else previously. That meant if we had a boyfriend and really wanted to go with him, we made sure to ask him as soon as we could. We knew that if someone else asked us that we would be going with them. My mom, bless her heart, couldn’t stand the thought of someone like my brother asking a girl to a dance and her saying “no” only because she was waiting on someone “better” to ask.

She made us aware of her fears of that happening to Jake and wanted to make sure we weren’t the cause of that pain for anyone else.

My sister and I adopted that rule, and it became no big deal to us. We didn’t mind at all who we went with. In our heads, no one was better than anyone else. Our parents made sure that was a value for us. I naturally adopted that as I began having children.

The idea that comes from that way of thinking about humanity may be one of the most important values I have as a parent. It means more to me than almost anything else. Being nice is always a priority, but the idea that no one is better than anyone else remains one of the truths I hold onto above most other things.

My hope is that people can feel that from me, but also from everyone else in my family. I understand my kids will make their own choices when it comes to how they treat people, but my wish is that they follow my momma on this one.

Thanks for the lesson, Jake. You sure are a good teacher.

Chapter 22 (The Parenting Experience)

April 23, 2025 / Callie Page / 2 Comments

Parenting. Are you ready for this next group of blogs?

Parenting is a subject that most find difficult to talk about. It’s a topic I can’t genuinely discuss with very many people. Everyone has emotional opinions tied to the parenting decisions they’ve made. Me included.

Parenting is hard, and there is no hard and fast rule book. We all wish there was one “right” way to do it all, but the truth is, there’s not. Life is different for everyone. Yes, we all have our painful experiences and we all experience joy, but the way we interpret those pains and joys is filtered through our very own childhood experiences.

We parent in direct reflection of those memories.

Some choose a way completely different from how they were parented and some fall in line with their upbringing almost exactly. Sometimes we do that subconsciously, and sometimes we are aware of the reasons behind our choices, but we all embrace what we “know”.

For example, when my girls asked to color their hair, my immediate reaction was “no, not until you’re 18.” Now, if I wouldn’t have taken a step back and considered why I immediately said no, then it would be law in my house. However, I was aware enough at the time to do a little soul searching on this subject. I realized that my mom didn’t let us dye our hair before we were 18 and she had several reasons for it.

I fell right in line, and chose the same path. After some reflection, I realized that I didn’t value her reasons the same way that she did, and that I didn’t need to say no to dying hair. I didn’t actually care at all.

Now, dying hair doesn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of life, but imagine that kind of reaction with something of importance. I made a vow to myself that (as much as I could) I would not allow myself to only act on gut reactions any longer. I would think through my answers with my kids. I want to make sure that I answer based on what I want to value and not on the values of others.

Parenting my 6 children has taught me that lesson over and over again. My assumption is that God led me through those instances so that I would see Him a little clearer (LONG before I knew Him). He presented me with something I truly cared about (parenting) so that He could show me the importance of thinking through deeply meaningful life situations. Ultimately, through those stories and those experiences, it led me one step closer to Him.

Chapter 21 (The Other Possibility)

April 16, 2025 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

When I was a sophomore in college I had to do an internship over Christmas break at a child behavioral center in Des Moines, IA. I was currently going to school in Canton MO. The distance between the two is around 200 miles.

When I called to tell my parents that I would be doing this internship, my mom immediately said, “well dad and I will buy you a plane ticket so that you can fly there and not have to worry about driving all that way.”

At the time we didn’t have GPS on our phones. I would have had to read a map, and navigate on my own across a couple states in places I’ve never been. I’m not sure it would have been a good experience for me to struggle through that without a cell phone, but at the time, I really thought I should have been old enough to try.

I’m 100% aware that my parents didn’t mean any harm when they suggested that I fly, but it felt like they were saying that they didn’t trust me and that I wasn’t smart enough or capable enough to figure it out. That’s the way I had interpreted it anyway. They just bought me the ticket and took me to the airport.

For over 20 years, I equated their buying of the plane ticket with them not having any confidence in me. Just recently, while sitting in Hawaii with some of my friends sipping coffee in the cool hours of the morning, I was able to let go of that interpretation of that experience.

My friend, Brandi, said, after she heard the story, “Callie, that’s not how I see that at all. I think your parents meant nothing more than they didn’t want you to have to be nervous about driving all that way, and that they could fix that for you with a plane ticket.”

I know it sounds crazy, but her interpretation of that set me free. I had never thought of it in that light. Brandi couldn’t believe that I had seen it any other way. That’s the only way that she was able to see it. And for me, there was no other reality other than the way I had been viewing for the previous 20 years.

The realization of my potential misinterpretation of that event, changed so much for me. I started thinking of all of the experiences of my life and my assumptions about how others felt in those stories.

I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to assume that I knew everything about everyone’s actions and motivations anymore. Most of us hope that we aren’t that way, but think back to the last time you were upset at someone else. Is it possible that the other person didn’t have the intention that you assumed they had? Is it possible that the whole situation came from something they were dealing with and had nothing to do with you? Is it possible that they said/did those things because they assumed that you wanted them to? Is it possible that there was no malicious thought at all? Is it possible?

I now think it’s always a possibility.

There’s a shirt in our store that may be one of my favorite ideas because of exactly this. The shirt is a simple 3 dots on the front for the points of ellipses, and the back says, “There’s Always More.” This little card comes with every shirt. It’s my reminder of who I want to be…

Chapter 20 (The Losing of Life)

April 9, 2025 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

Losing a baby is hard. Hard isn’t the right word actually. I’m not sure there is a word that could do the feeling justice. Losing a baby is something I wish no one ever had to understand.

I’ve had a couple of miscarriages over the years, and the pain from the miscarriages both physically and emotionally have left a scar. I have 6 children and I cherish each of them in their own unique way. Which means the way my heart works, the two that I lost will never be able to be discovered by me, and that hurts deeply. The way they laugh, or cuddle, or fight back, their favorite books or food, I’ll never know any of that about them. That hurts my heart. They needed to be known by their momma.

The moment I found out about their existence in the world, I started making a place for them in my heart, my home, and our family. They already had an identity, and they couldn’t even really be seen on a screen yet. They were my babies. Just exactly like my other babies are my babies. How does a person let go of that?

Maybe I don’t. Maybe that’s ok.

One thing I thank God for is the ability to be a woman. Those babies don’t get to exist in the human world, but I was the person that God chose for them to be with for as long as they were here. I got to carry them, and love them, and make a place for them. He chose me for that. I’m so grateful that He chose me.

Even though my heart hurts without them here, my joy is greater than my pain. They belonged to me and to God. I got to be a part of that equation. That makes me feel like I was special to them too even though I never got to tell them how much I cherished them.

I had NONE of that peace and joy around my losses before I had Jesus in my life. There isn’t anything more difficult than going through those losses without faith. There just isn’t. The pain is magnified by 1000.

To anyone who has to live in this kind of pain currently, I’m sorry. I love you.

Reclaimed Living