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Kids, Thoughts

The Christmas gift that made me cry

January 2, 2024

By the grace of Amazon, we’ve come out on the other side of Christmas once again. I don’t know about you, but I’m in the phase where I’m freebasing sucrose, on a strict diet of stale sugar cookies and Emergen-C®.

The day of giving is still close enough that, when you run into people, the first thing they ask is, “Did you have a nice Christmas?” And my answer is, of course we did! This is because, much like the agonizing process that brought our children into the world, against all odds, mothers everywhere have already magically shed the angst from the relentless grind of merry-making we disproportionally shoulder. We can look our friends and co-workers in the eyes and actually mean it when we wax poetic about the joy and looks on their sweet faces as they ripped into package after package, all of us concussed by the charm of their fleeting gratitude.

Gone are the tears from back-breaking gift wrapping sessions crammed into playdate windows. Banished are the pangs of disgust over jarring grocery receipts and factoring peanut allergies into holiday party treats and rolling the dice on first-time dishes for family gatherings. Tallying who got what and elves who didn’t move and empty tape dispensers and White Elephants and Secret Santas and “Oh, Mom, I forgot …”s, all pests of the past now.

Shifting from stuff

Particularly in recent years, we’ve focused on experiences over things, in an attempt to open the girls’ eyes to the gifts you can’t wrap–the vibration of live music, the vastness of mountain summits and coastal shores. The transition has rejuvenated my commitment to Christmas.

While no one appreciates the magical anticipation unique to Santa’s light more than me, I also try to emphasize the benevolent buzz of giving over the fleeting, materialistic high of getting. One of my favorite traditions, and I’m confident the chicks would agree, is our annual Day-o-Treats.

We spend a few nights creating confections, varying combinations of nuts and melted chocolate and butterscotch. We blast my expertly curated Christmas playlist and lean into the mess and marathon of dipping, freezing and packaging. “It’s totally worth it,” JoJo will remind me at least a few times, as I scrape dried candy coating cocoa off the countertops and rotate parchment paper-lined pans in the garage.

Then, typically on the first day of Christmas Break, we load up boxes of sweets, blast the same jolly Dolly-heavy playlist and drive around surprising friends with boxes of holiday treats. I let the chicks choose our targets. This year, it took us from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. to hit all the houses. (And Santa covers the whole world in one night!)

As we pulled out of the last driveway and through the neighborhood ablaze in light displays, the timers ticked on in the early darkness of winter, I sighed, exhausted. “Totally worth it,” JoJo reminded me again. And I saw a flash–one I see quite often these days–of my oldest girl inching toward a maturity I’ve long fostered and feared. With every passing Christmas, she helps more, and gets lost in less. It’s a transition as expected and heart-breaking as any cruel side effect of aging children.

The gift that made me cry

Somewhere toward the end of our predawn Christmas unboxing, my JoJo passed me a handmade gift. “It’s from me and Spike,” she said. It was a large glass jar, draped in a soft flannel fabric, tied closed with twine and a tag that read:

“Here’s a jar of compliments to bring you light when the sun refuses to shine, to settle the sea when it continues to rage, and to remind you how amazing you are when no one else will. Love you!”


I made it to “shine” before the tears came. Maybe it was the lingering effects of seasonal stress which, let’s face it, siphons the life out of you, or exhaustion or my own baited expectations for the day. Maybe it was such how sweet it was. But the thoughtful words and generous gesture made my cocoa mug runneth over.

What the jar really means to me

Instinctually, my first reaction was guilt. I hated the thought that I’d failed to mask my anxiety or shield them from my stress. But in the lazy haze of the nameless days that fall between December 25 and the New Year, I remembered the words of the social science goddess Brene Brown, who constructed the parenting manifesto I have framed on my dresser (mentioned in JoJo and the Case of the First Grade Burdens).

Among other expertly crafted words, it says:

“We will practice courage in our family by showing up, letting ourselves be seen, and honoring vulnerability. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. There will always be room in our home for both.
We will teach you compassion by practicing compassion with ourselves first; then with each other. We will set and respect boundaries; we will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be family values, as well as family practices.”

I was reminded of why I framed the pledge in the first place; not only as a north star for me, but also as a visible promise to my girls. Something they could see in plain print. Picking up the framed words helped me shed the guilt and savor the simple beauty of their present.

The handmade gift–the fact that they took the time to fill the container with words of hope and encouragement–isn’t a symptom of their front row seats to my struggles. It’s a symbol that we are raising humans who see people. Who see me. And I love that. I need that.

As parents, more days than not, it feels like we’re just screaming corrections and commands into the wind.

Put your laundry away.

Turn off the screen.

Don’t laugh at words said at someone else’s expense.

Stand up for what’s right.

Stand tall in who you are.

Go high.

Be kind.

Pitch in.

Pick up.

Seize the sunshine.

From the moment they arrive, we start shaping and molding and instructing. And it’s hard to tell if any of it is sticking. So to get this wink of empathy from the two who will take on the world first, feels pretty incredible. And thus, the tears.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, keep going, parents. It’s working.

Happy New Year!

Thoughts

The tragedy of passing time

January 23, 2019

This weekend I woke up to one of those texts. You know the type, where one minute you’re slow dancing with sleep and the next – ding! – you’re sitting straight up, ice water coursing through your spine. An old friend of mine from high school passed away. He had been sick, which is not to say it wasn’t a surprise; that it doesn’t feel entirely impossible.

We’re in our 30s, so few of us are thinking of our mortality as the predator next door. There’s always another day, another opportunity to do better, another chance encounter where you’ll say all of the things you meant to say at the last chance encounter.  

The years took Ben and I in very different directions. It’s been easily more than a decade since we sat next to each other, likely in someone’s smoky garage, and caught up. But in the years we shared our lives, we were quite close. We fell onto each other’s maps during that period when your friends are everything. That season when the sun rises and sets with your social status and weekend agenda and you cling desperately to the people who will let you.

After I got the news, in an effort to remember and celebrate his life, I went down into my basement and pulled down a stack of photo albums. I brushed an inch of dust off the top cover and opened the one that looked the oldest. I sat on the cool, carpeted floor, my chin resting on my knee, and flipped through page after page of printed photos from one of the sweetest chapters of my life. And he was there. He was everywhere. In pictures, and in the memories my mind raced to reassemble, and then back into the place in my heart where he’d once resided. Turns out, it was just sitting there, waiting for him.

Nestled in those clear compartments, proof of proms and parties and nights spent sitting around bonfires and lakefronts paraded in front of me like a slideshow, ever so slightly out of focus. Some of the faces have changed, but are still very much in my life. Some are harder to recall. And now one is forever confined, by unthinkable shackles, to my memory.

When we experience the unique hurt of losing a loved one, no matter how close or how far apart we are from them when they go, I think a lot of that mourning can be attributed to something none of us left behind can escape – the passing of time.

I’ve cried so much these past few days. Because he was so young, because I think of his family and what they must be going through, because the non-negotiable permanence of his absence is too gut wrenching to comprehend. Our paths won’t cross some day in a pub or at a wedding – all those usual scenes of lovely coincidental encounters. We won’t catch up. It’s just this now. These photos.

But also, and perhaps mostly, I’ve cried because our happiest times together were both 15 years ago, and yesterday. When I look back through those albums, I see the faces of babies staring back at me. We were so full of false confidence and fool’s courage. We could make a memory out of a few cars full of kids and a seemingly pointless Saturday night. We were on fire for life, and none of us were awake enough to recognize it.

And now … well, it all tastes bittersweet, because a loss more tragic than we could have predicted has made our innocent past feel profoundly important and ironic. The years we spent together, like the finest sand, can never pass through our fingers again.

It may seem strange, but in many ways I’m thankful that my richest memories with Ben are forever frozen in that period of our lives. Sure, we saw each other here and there in more recent years, but when I think of my friend, those aren’t the times that will make me smile. That warmth will be eternally cradled in the space he’s always occupied. In the stories and sweet recollections of a simpler time when a group of kids danced in the flames of unbridled innocence. I’m so glad he was there. I’m so glad we shared that dance.

Thoughts

Runnin’ hard into 2019

January 2, 2019

I realize that it has been, literally, months since I’ve written in this space and for that, I apologize to any and all (two of you) who might have missed it. I mean truly, I almost forgot how to publish to the site. My paying gigs have been pretty hectic, a fun new project popped up, and my creative tank has been somewhat depleted by 9 p.m. But just like the 10 pounds I lost before Christmas, I’m back, baby! Just in time to put my resolutions out there. You know I get giddy over goals.

This year, I didn’t want to paint in broad strokes. Sure, I’d like to give up sugar, meditate regularly and journal more, but I find those bold declarations only seem to leave room for ambiguity and abandonment. I have three clear cut objectives I’d like to check off in 2019. So let’s make them official, shall we?

Complete a 20-mile trail race

Crazy, right? It’s the scariest, so I’m putting it at the top of this list. This one has actually been a long time coming for me. I’ve admired a handful of friends and acquaintances from afar as they trudged through mud and darkness and completed these crazy 50- and 100-mile ultras. Since the farthest I’ve ever walked or run is 13.1 miles, 50 seemed a bit extreme, and 100 wasn’t even a consideration for this mama.

But then, in November, I asked my brother, Matt, to do a little trail race with me for my birthday. It was short – just 4 miles – but I L-O-V-Ed it. I came off that windy path high as hell and hungry for more. Due to a series of unfortunate events, Matt didn’t actually finish. (It’s a story that can only be told over drinks and with his formal consent. It’s that good.)  I think he felt like he had some unfinished business.

When Christmas rolled around, I decided to give him the gift of sweet redemption and the biggest mile tally either of us will (hopefully) ever complete – a 20-mile trail race at the end of April. I printed off our registration confirmations and shoved them in a bag with a pair of compression socks. After he opened it, we exchanged looks of simultaneous terror and exhilaration. Our 18-week training plan is already underway, and I’m feeling … we’ll call it tentatively optimistic.   

Finish a first draft of my book

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this romantic fantasy about running off to a rustic cabin in a field of wildflowers, my laptop resting on a handmade wooden desk, and letting a poetic narrative flow through my fingertips. See: Colin Firth’s setup in Love Actually.

But as the years have come and gone, I’ve had to come to the realization that there is no she shed in my immediate future. My extracurricular writing situation involves me hunched over a bright light in a dark room with a 4-year-old leaning on my left arm and the slow onset of melatonin dulling my words as the minutes tick by. If I can’t manifest a book in those circumstances, I’ll just never do it.

Then, a few months back, I had an idea for a plot. A fictional plot inspired by a hodgepodge of real life events, which surprised me because my wheelhouse has been exclusively nonfiction. I decided to start working on it, a few pages here and a few pages there. I took advantage of uneventful Friday nights and slow Sundays. I have seven chapters, and I’d love to bring the whole thing home in 2019. Then, I don’t know … tuck it away somewhere until I figure out what comes next with those things.

Hit my goal weight

I know this seems broad and unfocused, but I’ve had this one stupid number in my head for ten years now. Maybe even longer, if I’m honest with myself. I got close before the holidays, when I was religiously counting my macros, but from the time the turkey showed up, it all went to hell in a hamburger bun.

Hank and I will begin our annual Whole30 extravaganza tomorrow and I’ll be reuniting with my friends, myfitnesspal and intermittent fasting, to kick things off. I know I can get there if I can just remember why I want it.

Rapid fire resolutions on my radar for the new year:

Cultivate more thoughtful spaces. This includes finally setting up a writing nook in my living room and new flooring on the first floor. We’ve lived in our home for more than seven years and it still looks like we’re debating on whether or not we’re going to stay. I largely attribute this to the fact we don’t have cable, so I only watch HGTV in urgent care waiting rooms. This resolution also entails less purchasing of all the things.

Cutting out the negativity. Some situations just really suck my soul dry. Like hooking up my heart to a turbo powered joy vacuum. Whenever possible, I find it best to sidestep these scenarios and someones and go find the sunshine. Less suck. More sun.

I’d like to expand my culinary efforts a tad, maybe try my hand at bread baking (tell me you follow Jenna Fischer’s Instagram stories) and pastries from scratch. I’m the mom who buys the brownies instead of baking them, and I’m OK with that, but The Great British Baking Show has me crushin’ hard on the thought of digging into some dough.

Soak up these sweet years with my chicks and their dad.

Always keep a book in my purse.

Find more ways to lower my environmental impact.

Celebrate all the good.

Thoughts, Wanderlust

Jesus Dog and the importance of connection

September 26, 2018

I adjusted the hair around my face, tucking a few stray strands back behind my ear under my knit cap and scratching an itch by my warm forehead. My hand found Hank’s and, linked once again, we strolled together under the fractured branches that sketched the early spring canopy covering the southern Ohio forest.

“How long did the map say this trail was?” he asked.
“I can’t remember … maybe 3 miles.”
“Huh. Seems like this trail should have kicked us back around toward the road by now.”

The beauty of the day trumped any thoughts of potential trouble. We settled back into silence and synchronized our gates along a grassy lane, the past pressure of large tractor tires making our commute a little smoother. I heard the jingle of metal on metal and turned to see a medium-size dog trotting up behind us.

He was a mutt, perhaps the love child of an Australian Cattle Dog and a shepherd of some sort. His ears pointed toward the late afternoon sky and his collar, which was once bright blue, hung dulled and frayed around his thick neck. Without an invitation, the dog fell in line at our heels.

We passed a group of tourists taking a lunch break as their aged horses noshed on grass, green foam gathering in the corners of their mouths where the bit rings met the bridle straps. When our new four-legged friend didn’t join them at camp, as we’d assumed he would, we looked down at him and then up at each other. The canine galloped a quick lap around their herd, and they glared at us. We shrugged and kept moving.

“Look at that,” Hank said, after 30 minutes of walking our companion on an invisible leash. “He has one blue eye and one brown eye. That’s kind of different.”

And so he did. It was strange … ethereal. Thus, we named him “Jesus Dog”, and decided to accept him as part of our lost little tribe. He’d run off into the woods only to return minutes later, the sound of crunchy old leaves alerting us to his approach. He was entirely devoted to us and we were undeserving at best.

Seeing as how we’d clearly gotten off the marked trail, but we didn’t want to kill our getaway buzz, we chose to take Jesus Dog as a sign that we were going to be alright. He was a guardian angel with paws, sent to reassure a few misguided weekenders. We asked Jesus Dog if we were going the right way, and he seemed to urge us in the direction we were heading. We developed a rapport.

Eventually, we found a main road and walked along the shoulder until we intersected the parking lot where our vehicle was waiting. We each gave Jesus Dog a tentative air pat – because, you know, Cujo – and thanked him for protecting us before climbing up into the car. Jesus Dog sat down, an obedient and satisfied servent behind the truck. Hank had to get out and coax him to move on to the next lost couple, which eventually he did.
That night, we sat at the local brewpub and recounted the day’s events over a growler of mango beer. We confirmed that we had, in fact, walked approximately three miles off the marked trail with a mysterious, multi-eye-colored mutt. There was something about the whole thing that felt just sensational enough to be part of a fictional novel.

So, why does Jesus Dog matter now, you ask? He matters not only because we were gifted a celestial omen in an abandoned corner of the Hocking Hills tourist scene, but also because the tale of Jesus Dog is a spark. It fires up a connection to my husband archived in the neglected reels on the shelves of my mind. It’s a memory that belongs only to us, and that makes it special. It’s the handle to a faucet that fills my heart so that joy can float up to the surface.

It’s easy to call up joy with our children, right? They’re learning how to be humans, so everything is new and endearing and hilarious. My girls did something an hour ago that was cute enough to journal. But it takes intention to do the same with your spouse.

Tonight, when I sat down and started typing the tale of Jesus Dog, I immediately went back to that pub, my hands clumsy and cheeks sore from smiling. I pictured us sitting across from each other, oblivious to the other couples escaping the demands of their suburban realities, laughing and unearthing narrative gems from our past. See, the story is the time machine. Jesus Dog is the vehicle that transports me back to our date, just a state, but a world away from the grocery lists and oil changes of today. It’s the bridge I can walk across when the grind puts us on different shores.

What’s your Jesus Dog?

What’s that story that instantly transports you back to a time when you experienced unique joy with the person you chose to spend forever with?

Everybody has at least one. But then the question becomes: Are you revisiting it? Are you allowing the special moments to circle back around and tickle your soul and inspire you to go create more special moments?

Look, there comes a time for every couple when the only valid options are to a) sell the children, or b) throw your bags in the car and run away for a night, or a weekend or a week. Whatever you can swing. It’s in choosing option b that my suspicions that Hank and I are neighboring clouds are typically confirmed. In life, we share a sky, and occasionally collide, but mostly we’re just taking the shape of whatever role we need to play for whatever person in our day needs us to play it.

Making an effort to go away together quiets the winds. It’s a chance to look up at the face of the person you married, rather than selectively acknowledging them as you fry the potatoes and sort through the kids’ school folders. It’s like they’ve been talking through a fish bowl for 300 days and the minute you get away all the water gets dumped out. “Ahhhhh, I remember you.” your heart says.

When we go away for the weekend, we eat too much. We drink too much. We go for the longest, toughest hike in the state park. We get our coffee topped off, a couple times. We have conversations, rather than check-ins and appointment reminders. Ordinary luxuries feel indulgent and delicious, because they’re longer. Slower.

George Bernard Shaw said, “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it’s taken place.” Sometimes I assume Hank knows about my life. Like he absorbs it through osmosis because of our proximity to each other’s bodies and the people we love. But as more and more space expands and swells between our good conversations, the more evident it becomes that there are entire details of my day that never make it to my husband. Turns out, I have to actually tell him. I have to converse with him, regularly.

When was the last time you talked to your partner long enough to, not only revisit a memory, but also learn something new about them? I’ll be the first to admit that, too many times, while Hank is telling me about his day or asking about mine, I’m running a dress rehearsal of the next 30 minutes of my night in my head. I’m anticipating a fight between the girls or taking inventory of groceries. I am anywhere but there.

Going away and reconnecting is the face slap to send me back to the reasons I hitched my wagon to this star to begin with. I actually really like this guy. I think he’s smart, and funny, and I like disagreeing with him in the spirit of rediscovering and respecting our individuality. I owe it to this man to let the other stuff fall away for a few minutes.

There are very few people – one, if you’re lucky – who can look at a menu and guess what you’re going to have. If you’re fortunate enough to share that kind of intimacy, where someone cares enough to keep track of what you like and what you hate, that’s something worth celebrating. So book a sitter or a trip. Throw your bags in the car. Go walk with your Jesus Dog. Then, about a month from now, make a date to talk about it. The best stories are the ones you tell over and over again, and the ones you can tell together.

Thoughts

Solving the joy drought

September 21, 2018

Joy, beautiful joy. I’m talking pure, uninhibited, rainbows-shooting-out-of-your-body-holes joy. The subject has been on my mind lately and, I guess you could say, I’m on a special mission to start tracking it down. I want to observe joy in its natural habitat and then plot how I can begin trapping it. It’s survival, really. It’s to feed my soul.

When my kids are swept up in joy, I can taste it in the air they’re exhaling. I can feel the temperature go up as the joy radiates off of their smiling faces and vibrating bellies, shaking with those good, deep giggles. It is a tangible experience, my daughters swept up in joy.

With me, it’s more discreet. I have to pick up the boulders and kick the dirt around a little bit to uncover the joy. It’s there, no doubt. It just doesn’t shine off of me like a polished nickel in the sun, the way it does from my girls. Joy whispers at my heart, only shouting when the cost of missing it is too great.

And honestly, I think a lot of us are missing it. According to the Harris Poll, which included responses from 2,202 Americans ages 18 and older, only 33% of Americans surveyed said they were happy, the beautiful byproduct of joy. In 2016, just 31% of Americans reported the same. I mean, we’re improving, but a lousy 33%? Math isn’t necessarily my jam, but I’m pretty sure that means that if 10 of us were standing in a room together, only two of us and a pregnant lady would claim to be happy. We’re experiencing a torrential downpour of apathy and a desperate joy drought, and I can’t help but complain about the weather.

For the sake of research, I folded up a piece of scrap paper and put it in my purse. I decided to make note of all of the moments I felt joy during the week. Real talk: I averaged about four instances of joy a day, but approximately 40% of those tallies could be attributed to food and 10% to professional wins. Is food a source of joy? Perhaps. But it feels more like something that should go under the pleasure category, which, in my mind, is tied up to the senses a bit tighter than joy.

I wanted to expand my sample size, so I called my brother, Matt, on my drive over to visit my mom, who was recovering from back surgery in the hospital. “How often do you experience joy in a day?” I asked him. “Can I give you a negative number?” he snapped back, before quickly amending his answer to “once”.

Minutes later, I settled into a plastic recliner next to Mom’s bed and asked her the same question. “I don’t think I do feel joy everyday,” she answered. “It really depends on how much I’m around my kids and my grandkids. I mean, I talk to people on the phone at work all day, and they’re so nice, but I don’t feel, like, a burst of joy.”

Later, when Matt came up to the hospital, the three of us picked the conversation back up. Having chewed on the question a bit, my brother decided that he has more joy in his life than he initially thought. His kids bring him joy. His clients bring him joy. And then, because what else does family do when one of them is healing, the three of us filled up the modest space with laughter and stories for a few hours. After my brother left, I put another tally on my scrap of paper, thus debunking the theory that joy, like fortune or luck, alludes those who speak its name out loud. Just talking about joy had been the spark to its flames.

By dawn the next day, I was getting downright greedy. I never played, but for once I could relate to all those crazies who went on that Pokemon binge a few years back. I’d gamified instances of joy, and now I wanted more and more and more of it. I wanted more smiles, more laugh tears, more tallies. Hi, my name is Courtney, and while I’d describe myself as generally happy, I am a self-proclaimed joy junkie. The scribbled moments on my list, the treasures under the boulders, the whispers inside me, there just aren’t enough of them.

There’s a solution to everything and inviting strategy into the pursuit certainly lends a certain sophistication to the quest. Remembering there’s a reason I read, I went back through some of my voice memos from my favorite authors and grabbed a trifecta of philosophies on joy. Here’s how the gurus say we can tap into a goldmine of joy.

We can choose it.

Writer Gabrielle Bernstein says that “happiness is a choice I make.” To me, joy, by nature, feels more organic. I think of it like a gift from the universe and all her conspiring forces. Moments of joy certainly spawn happiness, and so I might amend Gabby’s statement here to say that choosing to seek out and celebrate joy is a choice. Choosing to slow down enough to spot and let the joy sink in is a choice. Choosing to let joy be kindling for your happiness is a choice.

One of the items on my list was overhearing an exchange between JoJo (my oldest) and Sloppy Joan (my youngest) getting ready for school. SJ is going through a phase where she wants her sisters to help her get dressed, rather than her flustered, bossy mother. On this morning, she’d picked her oldest sibling to help her make sure the tags were in the back. From down the hall, I looked on as my JoJo, who often wrestles with patience herself, sweetly guide her sister’s tooties into her socks, one at a time. Then her undies, then her shorts, then her shirt, coaching her to pull arms through and rewarding her with kind words as the process progressed.

On any given weekday morning, I am doing five things at once, lecturing being the most consistent of those tasks. “Brush your teeth. Grab a sweatshirt. Turn the light off. Put the clothes in the hamper. Go get underwear. Find your shoes. Tie your shoes. Hurry up and eat.” But because my joy receptors were engaged, on that morning, I stopped. I chose to see joy. And the interesting thing is, if I were a betting woman, I’d put all my money down that there is a moment just like that moment hidden in the midst of most chaotic mornings.

Slowing down for joy is a choice. Happiness is a choice.

We can stop being so damn judgy.

A few months back I listened to “The Book of Joy” by Archbishop Desmund Tutu and the Dalai Lama. There was a whole lotta zen in that bad boy, but one of my favorite points they made was about the relationship between love and joy.

According to the enlightened pair, most humans are prone to practice biased love. We love our kids, our families, our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors. But beyond that, we struggle to empathize and open our hearts. We operate as if there’s a limited capacity for love. But when we stop thinking about ourselves and the people in our inner circle exclusively, we can find joy for humanity.

They went on to explain that self-involved thinking leads to anger and depression. It’s a script we’ve all read. “Why did I do that? Why didn’t they pick me? Why did I eat that? I’m such a failure.” How is joy supposed to penetrate all of that negative noise? But thinking of others, shifts us toward compassion, and it’s really hard to be an unhappy asshole when you’re acting from a place of compassion.

As a writer, I get to tell a lot of stories. Nothing brings me more joy than when the words take shape on the screen and I’m able to capture the bravery or strength or character of another human being. Exchanging stories under the umbrella of this great big world is a powerful connector. Feeling connected encourages the tendency toward compassion, and compassion breeds joy.

Stop being so stingy with your love.

We can be grateful for it.

This whole thing started for me because I just finished Brene Brown’s book, “Braving the Wilderness.” In it, she writes, “Joy is probably the most vulnerable emotion we experience. We’re afraid if we allow ourselves to feel it, we’ll get blindsided by disaster or disappointment. That’s why in moments of real joy, many of us dress rehearse tragedy. We see our child leave for prom and all we can think is, car crash. We get excited about an upcoming vacation and we start thinking hurricane. We try to beat our vulnerability to the punch by imagining the worst or by feeling nothing in hopes the other shoe will drop. I call it foreboding joy.”

This was the passage. It was the switch that turned me on and got me thinking about how many times joy has shown up at my front door and I either didn’t answer or I turned it away. Maybe I turned it away because it scared me, or because I was worried about what others would think if I invited it in, or because I was too freaking busy to hear the bell.

I think of joy as a God wink. A gift. But after talking to others and writing it down and searching within myself, it also feels like a rarity. Like, of all of the moments in a day, the ones that bring joy are too often the exception. But reading Brene’s work makes me wonder if we’re all just scared to open ourselves up and let more of it in.

People are constantly telling me, “Don’t blink, your kids will be gone before you know it,” and “Enjoy it. It all goes so fast.” And while I know these points to be true, they also fuel my own foreboding joy. As soon as I tune into a happy moment, I instantly try to wrap my arms around it and squeeze it into my soul and my forever memory. I suffocate it. Like a fart in a tornado, I want to hold onto it, but it’s impossible. The presence of joy makes me simultaneously mourn its expiration. And how could it not, when every person and every message around you warns of how fleeting it is?

So give me a solution, Brene.

Gratitude, she says. The fastest way to access joy and trap it for a bit is through an attitude of gratitude. Carving out time to count your blessings, the big ones and the small ones, can extend the high. It can be like living the moment all over again.

I’ve tried to make meditation part of my daily routine for years, with extremely mild success. But typically, when I workout in the mornings I have about 5 minutes where I can sit in silence. No one else is awake in the house and it’s only me, my thoughts and the settling walls. Earlier this week, during one of these brief sittings, I was given the gift of reflection. When I closed my eyes, I saw my family running through a beautiful forest. I could hear their laughter and I could see their toothless grins and I felt a peace I hadn’t felt in days. I got quiet enough that I could visit with gratitude, and in return, she brought her best friend joy. And I was so thankful because guests like that don’t show up every day.

The truth is, most of us aren’t short on blessings. We’re short on fingers and toes on which to count them. Right now, I’m sitting at my dining room table. An hour ago I kissed my oldest daughters and put them on the school bus. I kissed my husband. I kissed my baby, butter from her toast still salty on her tiny lips. The sunlight is warming my hands and steaming in between the swaying branches on the trees behind our fence. My coffee is just strong enough. I’m typing the final words of a post I’ve been coming back to for days.

I am happy.

In this moment, I have joy. And I hope you do, too.

Thoughts

The case for 35 being the weirdest age ever

August 12, 2018

I have been 35 now for 250 days. That is enough time to evaluate and declare that 35 really is the absolute weirdest age, perhaps of all the ages.

Maternally

I swear, if I didn’t bear the marks of the before and aftermath, I wouldn’t believe that I brought three children into this world. As close as I try to keep those memories to my heart, they feel so distant; Like a movie I watched only once back in college.

I was as certain as the sun would rise that I would just know when my family was complete. After Spike, our second, was born, I remember feeling like I’d just been introduced to the next key character in an unpredictable play, but certainly not the last. The cast wasn’t quite complete. After the next kid, I thought, then it will feel whole. Then we had Sloppy Joan, and she was the sweetest little surprise, with her old man toupee of black hair and precious features. But I was certainly cognizant of the fact that the feeling never came.

There are moments when I question whether our little family is finished. Moments that flitter in like a lost butterfly and stir up questions and scenarios and doubt. (Hank is sure, I can tell you that. Three weddings will do that to a man.) It’s like I ate an entire margherita pizza, and it was delicious, and my stomach now has more than it can handle, and I don’t want anymore of the pizza, but I still feel like maybe I would like just one more slice, because it is so damn good. But I don’t need that piece, per se.

Talking about fertility at 35 is like looking deep down into the eyes of a desperate child as the ice cream truck drives through the neighborhood. They hear it approaching and they know, if they don’t convince their parent, if they don’t get the money, if they can’t come to a decision, if they hesitate in any way, the moment will be gone. The truck will pass their block and the music will get quieter and quieter and quieter, until is it gone and the opportunity for a frozen treat has passed.

Could I still have a healthy pregnancy and subsequently a healthy baby? Probably. Will I be classified as a “geriatric pregnancy”? Yes. I’m not having a baby, and I don’t think I really want another baby, but 35 is stirring up all these really weird, frantic thoughts. I believe they are originating in my ovaries. I definitely blame my ovaries.

Physically

When I was a junior in high school, I was invited to go to Naples, Florida with one of my best friend’s family for Spring Break. I remember doing Tae-Bo in the den every day for the three weeks leading up to the trip, only to be disappointed by the results. I didn’t have the 6 pack Billy Blanks had promised. Nor were my thighs Barbie slim and toned. But when I look back at those pictures now, I see a fit girl in the prime of her youth. In fact, if I looked now the way I looked then, I would rarely wear clothes. I’m not kidding. I would just sit around in various forms of midriffs and assorted underwear items.

There are portions of my figure that will never go back, and 35 seems to be the age of acceptance in regard to that fact. The backs of my arms, the tiger stripes across my empty baby apartment, these are now permanent fixtures on my frame. And I’m OK with that. But, also, as a woman staring down the barrel of 40, I feel an urgency to get all the other parts in better condition to counterbalance the irreversible flab and stretchy sections.

The other weird thing about being 35 is that other people are starting to see me as 35. In my mind, I’m eternally 26. I look 26 and I’m agile like when I was 26. When I see a bunch of 20-somethings chatting, I feel right at home stepping in and rapping about Bachelor in Paradise and Meghan Markle’s messy bun. Until I reference Saved by the Bell and they don’t know who Mr. Belding is. Then the spool starts to unravel rather rapidly.

I remember they start drinking at 11 p.m., 2 hours past my melatonin meltaway. I have laugh lines and the beginnings of carpal tunnel. They still put oil on in the sun. I can’t do jumping jacks without wearing a diaper. They go to trampoline fitness classes. I need control-top pajamas. They wear high-waisted denim. I’m discussing the lifecycle of a window. They rent … in dangerous parts of town. And, perhaps worst of all, they didn’t watch the reboot of 90210, let alone the untouchable original. And I’m all, “Hello, when Kelly and Brenda wore the same dress to prom and Brenda lost her virginity to Dylan!?”

It’s the same elevated response I get from some of my older co-workers when they talk about David Cassidy, The Blue Lagoon or The Talking Heads.

Typically both sides recognize the glaring differences almost simultaneously, and things dissolve organically. And I’m always left thinking, “That is so weird! I’m so young!” or “I’m not that much younger.” And it’s true in both cases. Because I’m not entirely young … or old. I’m not in the spring or the winter of my life. I’m in limbo; somewhere between summer and fall. Or at least I think I am. I’m probably in some other category that only 20-somethings know about. Gah dang it!

Professionally

Ah, the workforce. The jungle. The true-life version of The Office that won’t be canceled for 30 more seasons. I am fortunate enough to truly love what I do. I get to write. I get to tell stories. I get to be creative. My speciality – social media – is a young person’s game, but it order to do it at a corporate level, one must possess a certain level of experience and restraint.

In the corporate world, I’m not a girl, not yet a boardwoman. I know my stuff but I succumb to seniority on a daily basis. There’s a certain way I like to do business regardless of age, which is with respect for all of the opinions in the room and with the collaboration dialed way up. But that’s not always on the lesson plan in the old school. And when it’s not, I’m very aware of the professional gap in which a 35-year-old career woman resides. I don’t need a ping pong table in the breakroom, but I need to splash some water on my creative roots between the hours of 8am and 5pm. It can’t’ be just a paycheck. I think my generation was one of the first to really call out and name the notion of work/life balance, but there’s a lag in implementation in larger corporate environments. If I reach out, I can almost touch it. Almost.

I wrestle with when to assert myself (probably not often enough) and when to let a more experienced soldier win the war. I have peers who have climbed the ladder and peers who are still on the second rung, and I think we’re all just trying to figure out which asshole designed the five-day workweek and blazers. We’re in a weird place professionally, at 35.

Mentally

Being 35 means having both all of the time in the world and no time at all. If I’m going to Beyonce the situation, I’m done. It’s over. The window for me to reach my potential has been closed, nailed down and sealed shut. Beyonce left Destiny’s Child in 2006, when she was approximately 26 years old. We all know where the story went from there. She’s basically Oprah with a better set of pipes and killer Instagram profile. I mean, her pregnancy announcements alone, come on! When I was 26 I still had vintage cigarette posters on my wall, and those were my “sophisticated artwork”. In comparison to the Queen Bey I have already failed at 35.

If I compare myself to, we’ll go with Jane Lynch, the view is a little brighter. She didn’t land her breakout role (“Best in Show”) until she was in her early 40s, and then she just went full out sprint from there. If I think about it like that, I’ve got a little space here. Not enough space to slack off, but enough to keep plugging away at my dreams.

It’s a mind game I play with myself a lot lately. Do I have enough time to [fill in the blank]? Did I wait too long to [fill in the blank]? Should I have [fill in the blank] years ago? I’ve passed by so many opportunities and yet I have so many stretched out before me. I’m 35 and either my best years are behind me or the best is yet to come. Let’s hope it’s the latter, ay?

All of this to say that 35 has been just so weird. I mean really freaking great, but weird. At least the 250 days of it I’ve experienced so far. I’m confident that, when the time comes, I’ll mourn my 30s (including 35) just as I mourn my 20s in some ways.

In the words of the great Jimmy Eat World:

It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be alright

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Thoughts

Calling a Code Brown

July 26, 2018

Last week, I ran into my sweet new friend in the parking lot at preschool.

“Hey! Did you get a new car?” I asked her.
“No, I got in an accident.”
“Oh my gosh! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I’m not that person. I don’t like to be Debbie Downer.”
“But, I don’t care if you’re Debbie Downer. You got in an accident?”
“I’m just not having a good week. I screamed at the kids yesterday for no reason, and I’m cranky, and …”

I was watching a very familiar ball of yarn – one I personally keep in my nightstand, next to the melatonin and emergency candy bars – unravel.

She’d taken a mental health day from work, she went on to say, because things were just piling up. Between yelling at her boys and being annoyed with her husband and questioning all of those pesky major life questions, she was mentally depleted and in need of a mindless, indulgent Netflix binge. As I stood there, an unforgiving morning wind intruding in our conversation, I listened as this strong woman, who I deeply care for, talked herself down into a hole. It was a ritual I’d practiced myself and with almost all of my girlfriends, my sister, and my own mother. I waited for an opening.

“Listen, I know exactly how you feel. All moms feel that way. We all have those lows and days where we feel totally defeated, and it’s OK! I promise. I was standing with my toes to the edge last week. And now you’re up. We all just take turns.”

I think we can all agree it’s time to call it good on the charade. Being a mom in any capacity on any day that ends in “y” is a crazy occupation. Crazy! Anyone ambitious enough to think they’re going to climb that ladder has another thing comin’. Between the demand and the clients and the hours, mere survival is considered an above par performance on the job. There are two kinds of days: The days you have enough milk for their cereal, and the days you have to go out into the garage and grab a new gallon. The days you catch the bus, and the days you chase it down and get reprimanded by the driver. The days you make it to work without incident and the days you hit the bump and spill coffee down your white button-down blouse sleeve.

I can tell you, within 10 minutes of my children waking, what kind of day lies ahead of me. I can feel it. Like the air before a tornado – Mother Nature’s hot breath. But we don’t show the sweat on our faces, no. We smile and we press on and we push all the shit way down deep because we think it makes us less of a mom or less of a wife or less of a woman if we aren’t acing all the things, all the time. Well, guess what … that’s bullshit.

I always say, God makes ‘em cute so you don’t kill ‘em. In my case, he doubled up just to be sure and made them funny, too.

On one particularly trying morning, I slipped and let the truth serum seep in. When Cheri in my office asked how my morning was, I said, “Oh, I’m fine, thanks, other than the fact that I want to go on strike against my entire family for a few days.” A spark flickered in her eyes. “You know,” she said, like a kid at confession, “once when the kids were little, I told my husband he had to take them and I checked myself into a hotel for the weekend. I just watched TV, did a little shopping, ate.” We laughed like idiots, and I thought about how many other times I should have put out the invitation for other mothers to share their tales from the trenches.

In the parking lot that morning, if I squinted really hard, I could see the little armies waging battle inside my girlfriend. One side was fighting in the name of vulnerability and transparency and saying all of the depressing shit she was really feeling, while the opposition was willing to die on that hill for the sake of smoothing it all over with a laugh and a shrug. I’m familiar with that war, that struggle. How much to share, when to share it, how to sugarcoat it, which parts of the day’s failures I should censor for fear of how it will poison the perception of my otherwise “tidy” life.

We women, we are an efficient bunch. We are anticipatory. We are prepared and organized and concerned. We shoot ourselves in both feet day after day after day by getting everyone up and dressed and fed and out the door. We sign permission slips and send notes about doctor’s appointments and talk to the sitter at length about the quality and quantity of the baby’s bowel movements. We do it because somebody has to do it. But sometimes, being the somebody who does it just chews you up and spits you out.

In holistic nursing, there’s something called a Code Lavender. When the code is called for a caregiver, he or she is given a purple bracelet to wear, signifying they are in emotional distress. People might be a little kinder, a little more understanding, a little quicker to forgive minor oversights. Well, I’d say it’s time for moms to get a code of their own. Code Yellow, maybe? Code Brown? (Signifying we’re in deep shit.) That way, we can offer hugs, or cocktails, or comforting cuss words to our fellow comrades who are momentarily flailing.

If you have a perfect household with a perfect spouse and perfect children and everything is all Marie Kondo perfect everywhere, that is incredible. But, for the rest of us, it’s really easy to feel lonely sometimes. We think we’re alone in thinking our kids are assholes on occasion. We think we’re the only one who wants to stop for a drink after work on Thursdays instead of sitting in the carpool pickup line. We think there’s a conspiracy that our neighbor’s house is always suspiciously clean while ours is reproducing dust at a mind-boggling rate. We hide our secret Lucky Charms addiction and exchange kale salad recipes.

But the Code Brown could revolutionize our sorority.

For example – and this is entirely hypothetical – if I saw you pulling into the local watering hole on a Monday afternoon and we locked eyes, and you just happened to flash your poo-colored wristband, I might offer to pick up your kids and keep them busy for an hour, no questions asked. And you would return the favor two days later, when it was me sporting the bracelet. If you saw me carrying a snot-covered, entirely hysterical child out of the grocery store and glanced down to find a doo-doo-hued decoration south of my fingers, you would know to say a silent prayer for my sanity (and my child). And I would do the same for you that Friday when you replicated the scene in the McDonald’s playdome. It’s an emotional exchange program, rooted in support and understanding.

So, who’s in? Who’s comin’ with me here?

Let’s remove the stigma staining our struggles and choose, instead, to help a sister out. Friends, I do not mind having your children over to play for a bit, no strings or expectations attached. It does not inconvenience me to listen to your recount of just how irrational your daughter got over al dente noodles last night. No one can hear a mother’s cries and gripes like another mother. I say it can’t count as a true failure if you speak it aloud and set it free.

I’m here. And I know you are, too.

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Thoughts

Cooking: A tale of turmoil and thanklessness

June 1, 2018

When I signed on for marriage, and then about a year later for motherhood, I didn’t really anticipate the hostile situation I would encounter in the kitchen. I mean, you see women on television cooking and putting dishes on the dinner table. They’re smiling. You grow up with your own mother supplying sustenance in some fashion. She survived. And perhaps because of these positive images, I couldn’t have predicted the mob rebellion and mental anguish that awaited me in that cold, stainless steel dungeon.

In the beginning.
When Hank and I first got married, I thought of supper like an 80-year-old cafeteria worker would think of supper. I made foods to fill all of the compartments on our trays; A meat, a potato, a veggie, a bread and a dessert. Sounds like a lot of work, right? Luckily, this was also a time in my life when I fully embraced convenience foods. I snatched up 10 for $10 just-add-water muffin mixes and sauced vegetables steamer packs like our livelihood depended on it.

There was no planning or hectic schedules to factor in. I just pulled various pouches of processed shit from the pantry, whipped ‘em up and went about our night, watching whatever the F we wanted to on television and talking about whatever the F we wanted to at the table.

My day job was interesting juxtaposition with my domestic demeanor. I worked for a gourmet food and wine magazine from 9 to 5, where I would stand in meat coolers with classically trained chefs as they ran their hands over aged fillets and explained the cheese-making process. Then I came home, threw together my Pillsbury endorsed family meal and all was well. It was a naive time. A blissful time. A time of empty carbs and subtle weight gain. We were just a couple of kids fighting over how soupy the mac and cheese should be and it was glorious.

Then we had a kid.

Then another.

Then one more.

The family table.
The moment I started bringing other human beings into the world, an unintentional shift took place within my culinary conscious. I made baby food … from scratch. Baby food that looked like the morning after my worst decisions. I set aside steamed sweet potatoes and ripened pears as if they were the Hope Diamond so I could puree perfect jars of goo for my little princesses. I felt so maternal and connected to the earth.

I’d keep spooning it in and they’d keep spitting it out, like sludge from a sewer. Back and forth we’d go for 30 minutes. In the end, I’d have the stuff in my hair and under my fingernails and they looked like they got in a fight with a barrel of bad apples. I should have known then. I mean, my future self could have told my new mother self, but she wouldn’t have listened. I should have seen that they would never appreciate anything I put in their stomachs ever for their whole childhood until the end of time.

The thing about feeding kids is, their dining hopes and desires can be drilled down to five categories: goldfish, highly processed meats such as bologna or hot dogs, mushy foods like applesauce, yogurt and mac and cheese, anything that comes with a toy and cake. I have spent hours at the table fighting over how many bites they have to take and timeouts and bargaining and threatening and tricking and, in the end, unless you have something shaped like a dinosaur or princess on their plate, it just doesn’t matter. Their willpower is too strong.

They will starve.

They will scream.

They will throw shit.

I have friends who gave birth to unicorns. Their children “love salmon” and “try one new vegetable a week,” but my kids didn’t come out with magical cones on their foreheads and they think asparagus is the Devil’s work. There’s no convincing them otherwise.

The infuriating part is the hustle. You spend all day at work, bust ass to get home, start dinner right away, slap it on the table (sweat on your brow) before anyone has the chance to realize they’re hungry and immediately you’re met with the uprising. “I hate this!” “Why’d you put pepper on this?” “That touched something else in the pan.” “This isn’t as good as last time.”

My favorite is the total disdain they have for new things.

“I hate these.”
“Sandwiches?”
“Yes, I hate these sandwiches.”
“Have you ever had them before?”
“No.”
“So how do you know you don’t like them?”
“Because of how they look.”
“How do they look?”
“Like gross sandwiches.”

And on my life goes, with some version of this rewarding dialogue night after night after night. I keep cooking and they keep praying the oven breaks.

Paralyzed by pesticides.
Somewhere in my early 30s, I became obsessed with food documentaries. Food Inc., Cowspiracy, Sugar Coated, Supersize Me, Forks Over Knives, Fed Up, What the Health, you name it, I’ve lost sleep over it. I love spending roughly 120 minutes feeling simultaneously enlightened and terrified, which stresses me out, which then makes me want to turn around and consume all of the offensive, disgusting food items featured in the film I just watched.

Ask me on any given day and I’ll be eliminating something from our diets. I’m an expert Whole30’er. I took you all on a 14-day vegan adventure earlier this year. I’ve called it quits with sugar, my abusive-yet-beautiful boyfriend, more times than I can count. I see something, read something or hear a podcast and I go all in. I clean out my cabinets and pledge my allegiance to a different “ism” on a regular rotation.

The kids notice, sure. They add their commentary to veggie-heavy or new meals to the point where I’ve gotten in the habit of whipping up alternatives for them to place in their judgmental pieholes. But the joke is on me because, remember, they don’t eat anything I make anyway.

I just expect some switch to flip at some point and everyone gets on board with being the family who implements true change and comes out on the other side with amazing results. I secretly yearn to be the woman who cures her foot fungus and starts running ultra marathons by eating only kale and giant mushrooms from the jungle. But I’m more the mom who eats an egg sandwich and fried potatoes before spin class and belches up garlic during sprints.

It’s not for a lack of trying. You guys, I made almond flour scones from scratch the other week. Scones. I expected my patrons to pass out from both the effort and the flavor. The reception was lukewarm at best. So then I start to wonder what the point of putting much thought into any of this really is.

I’ll end it here, with a glimpse into my internal dialogue while meal planning for the week …

I know what I’ll do. I’ll go get my cookbooks out and plan a week of clean meals. If it’s good enough for Gwenyth, it’s good enough for my family, right? These pictures are all so pretty. I bet these people never gets colds.

Hmm, these look really hard. And I’m not really sure where I’d buy yaca. Maybe I’ll do Pinterest instead, but I’m only going to pin from the Vegan board. And the Whole30 board. And maybe one thing from the Yum board.

OK, I’m going to try at least one new recipe this week. It’s good to push these people. The girls can just pick out the parts they don’t like. I have to stop catering to everyone’s different tastes. I’m enabling. Oh gosh, that’s why they throw fits. Enabling and too much tablet time.

Man, this week is really busy. I definitely can’t make anything new on Thursday, that’s for sure. And it’s the girls’ last day of school on Wednesday, and they’ll want one of their favorites.

Ah, screw it … we’ll go with pancakes, tacos and burgers again.

Thoughts, Uncategorized

The 7 words that are killing me

May 24, 2018

Me and my best friend Cathy sat toward the front of a big, dark theater, a box of Lemonheads and gigantic soda between us, and waited impatiently for the previews to end. We’d been begging to do this for weeks. Finally, with our matching New Kids on the Block t-shirts and stirrup pants, we looked on as the scenes unfolded on the giant screen before us, lighting up our tiny, freshly freckled faces. I was 9 years old. The movie was the incomparable, the phenomenal, “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” starring none other than the angelic Christina Applegate.

Stop me if you’ve heard this profound and thought-provoking plot before. Three siblings – a preppy teen, her stoner brother and their tomboy little sister – were left alone while their mom went to explore the Australian outback, as most single moms do. Whilst she was away, the mother hired a 99-year-old babysitter to look after the children. After she, as the title might suggest, passed away, the siblings did as any teenagers would do; They drastically matured. Kenny, the weed-loving brother learned to cook gourmet meals and keep a neat household, while Swell, the oldest sister, took an entry level job as an assistant at a high-profile fashion apparel company.

With her cigarettes, tight french braids, fire engine red lips, and teen gal insights about uniforms, Swell climbed the ranks in just weeks before it inevitably all went to crap when their mom came home to find a raging fashion show playing out in their backyard. Such silly shenanigans!

This walk down memory lane has a point, I promise, and it is this … 7 words, one line. One line that has followed me for 26 years: “I’m right on top of that, Rose!”

There’s this scene in the movie, after Swell first gets the job with Rose, the Senior Vice President of Operations with shoulder pads you could sleep on, where Rose is taking like 5 minutes to onboard her new hire. As a final directive, she tells Swell, “And one more thing, and this is so important … Whenever we’re not alone or I’m on the phone and I ask you something, no matter what it is, you always say, ‘I’m right on top of that, Rose!’ [in a peppy tone] OK?”

via GIPHY

Every single day, in every situation, I am the Rose and the Swell.

I tell both myself and everyone around me that everything is under control, even when I’ve spent all the hypothetical petty cash and I have to clean the happy fat vats. I do it because it’s too paralyzing to stop and assess how I’m really doing. Do I really want to know how far behind I am? How depleted? How frazzled?

“I’m right on top of that, Rose!” is no different than, “Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming,” or “Smile and wave, boys”. These fake-it-till-ya-make-it phrases are all the soul’s rebuttal to high demand when it can’t take on one more thing, or manage what it’s already carrying, but it feels impossible to admit it.

I recently went through an intense period professionally. And I have three daughters, so basically every day of my existence is stressful at home. (Beautiful, but stressful, yes, we all agree.) The only option was to put my head down and walk forward through the mud. Like a pregnant tortoise, no doubt, but forward ever still.

I recognized this chapter immediately because it’s one I’ve lived through before, many times. I tell myself if I can just keep unloading dishwashers and packing lunches. Keep detangling and putting up ponytails and putting away laundry. Keep adding tasks to the list and taking 10-minute impromptu meetings. Keep answering emails and writing words. Keep on keeping on.

Because when I lift my head, that’s when I notice that my to-list is substantially longer than my to-done list. Actually scrolling through it, I feel like it’s going to grow rows of teeth and swallow me whole. Big tasks, little tasks, follow ups, follow throughs. There for a span of about four weeks I was positively pounded with expectation. And subsequently, all the anxiety.

But did anyone know?

“I’m right on top of that, Rose!”

Of course they didn’t. Because that would require me saying no to something or asking for help or acknowledging I ran out of time. And I don’t run out of time! Pulling back the curtain to show the panic and tears and ugliness we typically reserve for our own self-loathing is just way too logical, too vulnerable, too honest. Screaming “uncle!” is weak in comparison to the denial-drenched alternative “I’m right on top of that, Rose!”

And I guess what I’m asking is why we do it to ourselves. I can’t be the only one who spends her lunch hour picking up the dog’s arthritis medicine, 3 poster boards for Star of the Week and the special non dairy cheese, glancing at the clock every 2 minutes to make sure there’s enough time. There has to be a silent army of us out there rounding up the oddities that make our tribe’s globe keep rotating on its perfect little axis.

And it’s not like I’m on an island. I have a husband. A good one, in fact. With a car and legs and a cell phone and a wallet. One who I could send an S.O.S. to at any time, no judgment. But I rarely do. I have friends. Good ones, in fact. With phones and mini vans and basements and vodka. Ones who I could text an S.O.S. to at any time, no judgement. But I rarely do. I have a family. A good one, in fact. With houses and a hereditary obligation to unconditionally love me, my partner and my offspring no matter what, and to show up every time no questions asked. But I rarely ask them.

It’s just insane, guys.

As women, our generosity muscle is strong. It gets worked. We see a weak moment for someone else and we offer to help before even thinking it through. We’re there to listen, cook, clean, fold, drive, whatever they need. But when we feel ourselves slipping, drowning, grasping, we push it down and we walk through the mud. The house is a mess and your cousins want to come over for dinner and I have a freelance story due and the dog has raging diarrhea? “I’m right on top of that, Rose! Sounds great!” I’m going out of town and got pulled into a last minute executive presentation and my oil needs changed and I’m getting a sinus infection. “I’m right on top of that, Rose! I’ve got it. No problem!”

And the people who really pay are the ones we love the absolute most. Hot off a stressful day I will scream at my girls to just “Go play anywhere but here!” while I burn an average tasting dinner that no one is going to eat anyway. But I’ll smile and eat my shit politely when a lukewarm acquaintance assigns me 50 action items for a charity event I didn’t even volunteer for or a stranger steals my parking spot at the grocery store in a thunderstorm. I don’t know why.

What would happen if I dropped “I’m right on top of that, Rose!” from my vernacular? What if we all did? What if, instead of “Sure,” “No problem,” “Absolutely,” “I’m fine,” “I’m great,” “I can just swing by on my way to …” we started saying things like, “Can you please,” and “I can’t,” and “I need,” and “It can wait,” and “Not today” and asking, “Is this really that important”? It would take time and a lot of reprogramming but it has to be possible. I see others doing it. Not many others, but others.

Let this be my confession:
On most days, I am only, at best, mildly on top of things. Other days I’m buried somewhere underneath. If you see me walking fast, I’m likely running late. If my head is down, I’m probably lost or checking to see what I need to do next. If I’m at the drugstore, shit’s probably going down. If I’m at the grocery, I’m miserable. If I’m exercising, I’m feeling guilty. If I’m driving, I’m listening to an audiobook about how to be a better human. I am a woman with her chin sticking just out of the water and I recognize your chin, too.

via GIPHY

I’m thinking my internal dialogue is as outdated as the hot pink and turquoise referee uniforms in the movie from which it came. I’m working to retire my tired ruminations and responses and downshift into more honesty. We’re always going to be hardwired to gather tasks. It’s our instinct to take inventory of needs and check the temperature of the members of our tribe, and there’s likely no fighting that. But I can certainly tap into my army more. I’ve got some pretty great soldiers among my ranks.

Thoughts

It’s not you, it’s … well, sometimes it’s you

March 21, 2018

Dear Desperately Seeking Representation,
Thank you for reaching out to me about this project.

I’m sorry this is a pass for me.

Right now my list is very full, and I’m fortunate that business
is very good so I can pass on projects that are not only
good and publishable but ones I really like. That’s a good
problem for me, but it just stinks from your
viewpoint.

I strongly encourage you to query widely. Other agents have more room
on their lists and are able to take on more clients.

Please think of this as redirection rather than rejection.

Very best wishes to you!

Brenda Boobenshlauts
Literary Agent to the Stars

“Redirection rather than rejection.” That’s some next-level breakup lingo there, folks.

You should know that this is an actual email that I actually received (for the most part). It came in response to a lofty step I took out onto a ledge protruding from the top floor of a building I’d never been in and knew very little about. It came from me taking a chance that didn’t quite pay off or pan out.

It’s cool. I can talk about it.

It’s amazing how ballsy we are in hypotheticals, isn’t it? How highly we think of the three-months-from-now version of ourselves when we’re feeling all big and aspirational. It’s not uncommon for me to set overly ambitious, unattainable goals when it comes to fitness or food restrictions, but when I sat down to make my 2018 resolutions, I wanted to throw something new in the mix. I wanted to get out of my literary La-Z Boy and dip my toes into a new pond. The publishing pond.

[laughing] Isn’t that so cute?

Back in January, I promised myself I would write something outside of this blog space and my day job space, and I would woman up and bravely send it out into the world, no regrets. At that time, I didn’t consider the boomerang laced with dismissal and disinterest that would come back to catch me in the kisser. I wasn’t thinking about the soul-crushing flood of failure that would infiltrate and poison my inbox.

And yet, the flood came.

To date, I have been told “thanks but no thanks” in a dozen different ways by a dozen different strangers. I’ve received short, shitty rejections, and softer it’s-not-you-it’s-me rejections. I’ve been rejected by men and by women. I’ve been rejected from six different states. I’ve been rejected more times today than I’ve used the restroom. Maybe I need to drink more water?

And now that I’ve scraped my pride up off the public bathroom tile, I’m starting to crawl toward the gratitude. I’m thinking that, in a day when we so often only offer our successes and posed portraits to our peers and connections, it’s interesting to explore the unfiltered side for a vulnerable sec. To hold the microscope up to the passes and disappointments, instead. I feel like you can’t really have one without the other. You can’t appreciate cupcakes unless you’ve had anchovies, right? That is to say, you can’t savor an achievement without knowing the taste of failure, too. And boy did I get a pu pu platter this past week.

I sent thirty-something proposals for a side passion project out the door the same week I was talking to the team of a well-respected public figure about another exciting extracurricular opportunity. While, by our third exchange, I think both sides sensed that it wasn’t the best fit, they were the ones to finally call it. Even though I helped slice the lemons, the juice of the rejection still stung. It stung because my mind had created an idyllic version of the situation since I so badly wanted it to fit. And it stung because I was already sipping from the trickle of rejection I’d triggered earlier in the week with my ill-fated proposal. By Friday, I felt like I was drowning in disappointment. Drinking it from a fire hose.

But – here comes the gratitude – the universe has this way of giving and taking. The pendulum tends to come back polished with purpose. It’s rare that hindsight doesn’t hand us some degree of handsome justification. It might take a few years, but a bad break almost always leads to a future happiness. Opportunities are kind of like Dominos in that way; as each one passes, it taps the next one in. Some are good and some are bad, but you can’t get to your future unless you fall down a few times and then put it behind you.

I find this push and pull – these highs and lows – in writing for sure, but also in marriage, in friendships, in parenting and in my relationship with myself. I might look around some evening and all my chicks are getting along and the house isn’t a catastrophe and there’s lots of cuddling going on, and then an hour later Sloppy Joan decides to make cupcakes out of shaving cream and cotton balls. I might get my workouts in six days in a row and finally see the scale move a pound, only to wake up surrounded by Taco Bell wrappers and Halo Top lids on Sunday.

It’s the pulse of life. Success surges and subsides.

And so must failure.

Rejection.

Redirection.

So, what to do after you’ve gotten your ass kicked, wrapped up and handed back to you with a bow on top? I guess, see it as a gift. Gabrielle Bernstein once posted, “ If it doesn’t open, it’s not your door.” And I think that’s the faith and the hope that you get to hold onto when nothing else sticks. When your plan falls apart.

So, Brenda Boobenshlauts didn’t buy into your proposal. Or your idea didn’t fly in the staff meeting. Or you ate all of the ice creams. Or you didn’t get nominated or picked or recognized.
You don’t stop trying. It’s not supposed to be easy. You knocked and no one answered. The key didn’t fit. It just wasn’t your door.

Sometimes it’s a product of effort, sure, but sometimes it’s a product of timing. I think about JoJo and Spike. Remember last winter during basketball season, when Spike wouldn’t go on the court? She felt overwhelmed and small and incapable until that very last game when she got out there and flung that ball up toward the hoop. Not one of us cared that she missed.

When Hank asked if we should sign them up again this winter, I was convinced it was a waste of time, but he persisted. Last Saturday was their last game and I was almost sad to see it go. They both did so well, and scored almost every single game. That’s right, Spike scored almost every single game. The timing was right. She’d grown, both in stature and self esteem. She knew what to expect, and that the worst thing that could happen would be that she’d miss. So she shot.

I think about what a loss it would have been if I’d let last year’s poor experience poison this year’s opportunity.

As a writer, I can’t count the number of times a first draft or story idea got shot down like a fat turkey on Thanksgiving morning. But also, how many amazing opportunities and notes of thanks I’ve received. And most of the time, the amazing opportunities come just on the other side of the gut punch. The good stuff takes the sting away when the pendulum pushes back in my direction. I just have to have faith it will come back around.

If it doesn’t open, it’s not your door.

Brenda Boobenshlauts was not my door.

The glitzy side hustle was not my door.

Now I have to stand tall on tomorrow’s front stoop and dare to try again. I haven’t sent my last proposal. I haven’t seen my last rejection. But I’ve got a ring full of keys and I’m huntin’ down my door.

(P.S. This was a letter I needed to write to myself, and I thank you for letting me put it here in this space.)