Book Report: Radical Love

Confession: I dabble in celebrity gossip. It's a horrible waste of time; I don't know why it's so fascinating to me. That being said, this book, is not celebrity gossip.

My interest in Zachary Levi stemmed from the five story high billboard across the street from our house promoting Shazam 2. As my devoted blog readers know, we are on a superhero movie kick. We've made it through 30 of the 40 or so Marvel movies between October and March. For those calculating at home, that number of movies equates to about 30 sick days in six months for Hugo. A Kita mom gave me a hot tip to try salt inhalation rooms to help getting over coughs. Crosby wasn't such a fan of sitting in a dark room with "baby toys" for 45 minutes but Hugo...

Tongue out salt angel.

Hugo's lowlight shared at dinner, "I wish Carmen could have gone to the salt room with us." She managed to dodge this round of colds. It appears that Hugo has seasonal allergies, so he'll likely spend some more time in these salt rooms this season. Thus a new hobby is born: salt room hoping around Berlin.

Back to the book, somehow Zachary Levi's book ended up in my "this might interest you" menu on Amazon. I am a sucker for recovery stories, the reviews were good, and it was available on the PDX Library App. Initially, some of the family context reminded me of one of my other favorite memoirs by Laurel Mathewson. Sadly Laurel's book is not available in print...not yet. The insight into his inner thoughts and lessons from therapy felt Donald Miller-esc.  His spiritual truths mixed with F-bombs reminded me of the writings of Anne Lemont. 

My biggest take-away from the book is that one of the most important things I can do as a parent is take care of my mental health. Sometimes I feel "less than" other moms because I can't sanely have a career and parent. Heck, I can't even throw a culturally accepted proper child's birthday party and mother without loosing my mind. 

Some parents are born and/or raised with parental instincts. I was blessed to be on the receiving side of their mothering during this trip to the US. While my survival/self-sufficiency skills are on point, developing the skills to nurture my kids to help them develop healthy emotional ranges requires a lot of work. That work, in my opinion, coupled with teaching my kids about faith is the most important part of my parental job description. In summary, I am in a job for which I am not naturally gifted or groomed. I have to put in more research, more time, and more tears than the average Jo. But, Levi's story of a broken person trying to put his life back together is the reminder of why I need to keep striving and prioritizing getting my head and heart healthy. 

As an aside, the other interesting part of this book was insight into one person's negative self talk. I'd heard the term self-talk but never really been able to hear someone's inner thoughts so clearly. As a person in the world, it is a good reminder of the John Watson quote, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." As a mom, it's especially heartbreaking. It makes you want to scoop up any little people you can to remind them they are loved. Thankfully, I have a couple willing snuggle participants at the ready.

Crosby, "Mom, why don't you have some chill time at home while Daddy takes us to ice cream." You know the ice cream benefactor based on the number of scoops.