Balancing It All: My Story of Juggling Priorities and Purpose (5 page)

My parents’ marriage—through the good times and the bad times—has made a huge impact on my life both when I was a kid and today. I saw the struggle, I saw them take the steps they needed to take to change and make it work, and I saw them never give up. I believe this illustrates that when you put in the time and effort and strive to follow God, He will bless your actions when they fall in line with His will.

Mom and Dad’s story gives me an amazing amount of hope when it comes to my own marriage. There’s just no way I could quit, even in an especially hard season of marriage, because I’ve seen firsthand what God can do when both parties have open hearts and are willing to change.

Changes of Heart

That principle plays out in all parts of life. When we know something is off track in our lives, typically something inside us needs to change in order to get back on the right path. If your life is out of balance right now and your priorities aren’t right, consider how you might need to change on the inside. Maybe your sense of identity is tied to your job or your boyfriend. Maybe it’s all about being a mom. There are definitely seasons in our life when we need to focus on a particular area of our lives, but we end up in trouble when our identity is tied to what is just supposed to be a priority. Life will definitely end up out of balance. At that point, we need to step back and consider what changes we need to make. But it’s not just about changing our choices related to balance, it’s about changing the way we view ourselves and our lives so that balance flows out of a right heart.

Just as the changes I saw in my family helped lead me to evaluating my own heart for change, the example of our lives is hugely significant to those around us. We learn from those around us—both the good and the bad. And I believe there is no better person to model your life after than Jesus Christ. So as my husband and I work to keep our marriage strong, guide and lead our children, and make wise decisions, my desire is for us to grow just like Jesus did and to be imitators and followers of Christ. It’s the example of Jesus who balanced mercy and justice, humility and strength—and ultimately being both God and man. To the degree that my life has had any balance it is all because of principles that tie back to Him!

Chapter 4

You’ve Got a Friend in Me

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up.

—Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 (hcsb)

I
f you’re a blogger, you know the scenario all too well. You post your article and if there’s something for someone to challenge, the comments come streaming in. That was the case with an interview I gave that was published on a very popular magazine’s website. They had asked me about baby advice and what my go-to recommendation was for a first-time mom. I casually answered with the title of a book that I used to help me get all three of my kids sleeping through the night and on an eating, sleeping, and playing schedule by twelve weeks old.

Little did I know that in some mom circles the book wasn’t very popular, and I had more than my fair share of hate comments pouring in. I didn’t even know the article had been posted until my best friend Dilini called me. She was audibly upset and told me she had my back. She was outraged over the attacks. True to best friend form, Dilini commented alongside everyone else, defending my statement, my character as a mom, and my choice of parenting style, even though she didn’t have kids, because she’s seen it work firsthand with me and with several other mom friends. You have to love your BFF standing up for you, even when you don’t even know you need it!

The verse from Ecclesiastes at the beginning of this chapter beautifully sums up one of the greatest reasons friendships are important. We enjoy friends during the good times, but we
need
them during the bad times. When you read that verse, which of your friends came to mind? I’m sure somebody did—whether it’s somebody who is currently in your life or someone from the past that you wish was still in your life.

We all know that friendships take work, especially at the beginning. Like most things, we get out of relationships what we put into them. If we don’t invest a lot of time into a friendship, it either won’t last or it won’t be satisfying. Sometimes life gets hectic with family, work, church, volunteering, and a million other things, and we’re tempted to put our pals on the back burner. But without relationships with other women, I don’t think our lives can be truly balanced. God created us for connection with others, and not just with our families. Friends can give us a different perspective on life, can see things in us that family members may be too close to see, and can often get away with saying things to us that spouses, kids, or parents can’t. I will admit that siblings might be an exception to that last statement, which is why they make some of the best friends!

I don’t know what I would do without Dilini, my best friend of more than twenty years. We talk every few days, if not more often. If there’s exciting news, she’s the first person to hear it, and vice versa. If I’m upset, Dilini’s who I call. She is always there for me and has lifted me up more times than I can count. If you don’t have an ally and supporter like Dilini, I pray that you’ll find one soon.

School Days, School Days

I met Dilini at school when we were in tenth grade. Wait a minute . . . wasn’t I tutored on set? I was, with a few exceptions.

When I was in junior high, I decided to go to public school for two hours in the morning in order to try to create a little bit of normalcy in my life. Then I’d head to the set and do a couple of hours of tutoring until it was time to get to work in the afternoon. However, instead of creating normalcy, that setup created a ripe environment for bullying. You know how it can be in junior high. Kids are brutal, and they didn’t give me a break because of my TV-star status. In fact, that just made it worse. I was picked on all the time. My one saving grace during those years was my best friend Alli, who I met in seventh grade. We had slumber parties too numerous to count, and in the summertime we’d lay out by her pool and prank call boys. Once we were old enough to drive, we spent most of our time at the mall shopping and eating sushi.

By the time ninth grade came around, I couldn’t take public school anymore because of the teasing, so I was tutored on set again. Even though I didn’t miss actually going to school, I did miss hanging out with my friends. I recall one night when Mom and I were driving home from work. I hadn’t hung out with friends in what felt like months. I didn’t get home until 7:00 or 8:00 every night, and Friday night tapings usually lasted until 11:00 p.m. It was hard to find time to spend with friends. I just wanted to go to a movie. To my surprise, Mom was really supportive even though it was a work night for me and a school night for everyone else. She let me call as many friends as I could to see if anyone was able to go out with me. Unfortunately, none of them were, but knowing my mom understood and tried to help me make it happen is a memory that has stuck with me to this day.

It was a pivotal moment for me when I realized that Mom was on my side and understood that “normal” was not in my future. I appreciated her willingness to go against our traditional household rules for once and allow me to try to spend some much-needed time with friends, even though it didn’t work out.

For tenth grade, my parents and I decided I would try integrating my on-set tutoring studies with a private school. Because it was so small and the students were few, it was a much better fit for me than public school had been. The kids were great and I made several lifelong friends. The only drawback was that since it was a college prep school, it ended up being too much of a challenge for me to handle along with a full-time job.

I remember one time during tenth grade when I was called into the dean’s office. I had been skipping first hour homeroom one day a week because I was tired in the mornings and didn’t see the importance of sitting in the classroom with nothing to do. It was really for attendance, and not much else was accomplished during that time. I had plenty of other things I could be doing instead, like sleeping, catching up on homework, or learning lines. When I was honest with the dean about why I’d been skipping that class with my parents’ approval, he was concerned by my attitude; it seemed as if school wasn’t a priority to me. I took a deep breath and boldly told him as respectfully as I could that getting into an Ivy League college was of no concern to me. My job was my main focus at that time in my life. I explained that I could be tutored on the set but had decided to go to school simply to have friends and a sense of normalcy along with a good education. But I was not there to compete for a coveted spot at an excellent university. He was dumbfounded, and for good reason! He had never encountered a teenager who had a full-time job! Due to my atypical lifestyle, my priorities were quite different than those of nearly every other high schooler he had ever known.

Halfway through my eleventh grade year, I convinced my parents to allow me to be tutored full-time on set once again. But even though my time at Viewpoint School was challenging, it gave me one thing that tutoring on the set of
Full House
couldn’t have given me: Dilini.

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

When I started at Viewpoint, it was a bit awkward because most of the other kids had attended the school since kindergarten. They all knew each other, and I was the new kid on the block. Dilini was the student in charge of greeting the “newbies,” which is how we first connected. Viewpoint was very small at the time—about thirty kids in each grade—and at the end of the summer each class would have a party so the students could reconnect before school started. Dilini got the class list so she could invite everyone and she discovered that her new classmate was Candace Cameron from
Full House.
Needless to say, she was very nervous about calling me because, well, I was on TV. (Who knew I could be so intimidating?) We chatted for a few minutes, and she was really sweet, but it turned out that I wouldn’t be able to attend the party because of work.

I did meet Dilini once school started, because we had classes together, but it wasn’t until a couple of months later that we began hanging out. We discovered that we lived less than two miles from each other, so one night we decided to study together. From that moment on we were fast friends.

Dilini’s parents were a lot like mine: strict and protective. They had a rule that they wouldn’t let her hang out with a new person until they had met the friend and her parents. I learned they were even more skeptical of me because I was in show business. I honestly don’t blame them, considering the culture in which most Hollywood kids are immersed. But they hadn’t yet met my parents. When Dilini’s dad came over to meet my dad, he realized he had met his match! The two of them completely hit it off and chatted for an hour that first night. Over time, our families became very close, and we celebrate Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day together every year to this day.

Once I left Viewpoint, I made a point to keep my friendship with Dilini a priority. If I was on location for a summer job I would fly her in so we could spend several days together. When we were seventeen, I was asked to be the Grand Marshal of the 4th of July Parade and festivities in San Diego. It was a three-hour drive from L.A., with events that would require a two-night stay. My parents talked with Alli’s and Dilini’s parents and decided that we were mature enough that they would allow us to go on the trip without them as chaperones. Talk about girl time! We still reminisce about all the fun we had on that trip, like singing our guts out to SWV and Boyz II Men on the limo ride home. I have that on video somewhere, but I promise I’ll never share!

During the last year of
Full House,
after we had graduated from high school, I’d go hang out with Dilini and her friends at college, or she’d come have lunch with me on the set. Even though we were still fairly young, we did whatever we needed to do in order to foster and maintain our friendship, even though our life paths were very different.

Fax Machines and Spice Girls

On August 18, 1994, Dilini moved into her dorm room at the University of Southern California, and I was right there with her parents and sister helping her unload, unpack her clothes, and meet her new roomies. That evening I had plans to go to a charity hockey game with Dave Coulier, who had a certain player he wanted me to meet. Dilini invited me to stay at USC and experience her first night of college life with her, but I chose to go with Dave, and am I ever glad, because that’s the night I met Val!

After I saw Val the second time (a few months after our initial meeting . . . you’ll hear more about that later!), I immediately called Dilini. You younger readers probably don’t think that’s a big deal, since your cell phone has been your constant companion since middle school, if not before. But anyone who grew up in the technological stone age like I did will understand that I had to go out of my way to make that call back in 1994. I had to use an actual pay phone at the airport in Fredericton, New Brunswick. And you will laugh at the fact that I sent her a FAX from Paris to announce my engagement!

Dilini was with me when Lev was born. I had decided to deliver in the U.S., so I had gone back to Los Angeles for several weeks. Dilini slept over at my house the night before I was scheduled to be induced because Val was still playing in Calgary. He flew in that morning and met us at the hospital, but at 4:30 a.m. my best friend drove me to the hospital and stayed by my side. She missed Maks’s birth because we were living in Florida, but I called her as soon as he entered the world. What about Natasha’s birth? Well (hold your technological snickering), I
paged
Dilini the morning I went into labor so she would know to head to the hospital. However, she didn’t receive the page until twelve hours later, after Natasha had already been born. Where was Dilini when the page finally came through? She was at a Spice Girls concert! It’s become the perpetual joke and Natasha never fails to remind Dilini that she missed her birth for a little zig-a-zig-ah.