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.

Kids

Different like everybody else

January 16, 2019

This morning, JoJo, my oldest daughter, walked out of the house wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, a navy and cornflower blue striped men’s tie, knotted loosely around her 9-year-old neck and a confident grin. Around 10 a.m. I got a message from my husband, who’d clearly been sitting on his concerns for the past three hours.

“I hope kids don’t pick on JoJo today. You know … because of her tie.”

I knew. I knew exactly where his heart was. I saw it on his face when I watched him tie the slick fabric at her request in our closet the night before. He brought it around behind her, under the baby hairs on the back of her neck, then came to his knees to fiddle with the knot’s intricacies, looking adoringly into her sparkling eyes every now and then. She was so excited, high on the proposition of making a personal fashion statement. Sporting something that was her dad’s no less!

But sadly, as parents, we know that allowing our little people do anything that could even be considered mildly different is like tying a bleeding cat to a concrete block in the middle of a meadow. It’s bully bait. It’s a healthy thing to do for them, don’t get me wrong, but it’s still bully bait. And some kids just have better armor than others.

Every morning, when I watch my oldest girls trot up the sidewalk and take that first, unnecessarily massive step up onto the bus,  a handful of thoughts pass through my mind, like a ritual I’ve practiced a thousand times before. The first is, Dear Lord, please keep my babies safe and bring them back to me just as I left them. The second is, please protect their little hearts, followed close behind by please let them be kind to others’ hearts.

It’s no secret we’ve wrestled with confidence and emotional issues for a few years now with our JoJo, mostly a result of her finger sucking addiction. When she feels hurt, which happens quickly and often without warning, her response is to yell and say hurtful things. It ebbs and flows, but typically it feels like we’re storing an active volcano in the bedroom at the end of the hall. She’s also gotten disturbingly skilled at rolling her eyes, so that’s officially in the repertoire. It’s hard as the parent to see her reactions for what they are – a rusty shield she keeps at her side always – rather than just spite, but it’s gotten easier over the years.

But that’s at home. School is an entirely different island.

At school, her reflexes will get her labeled a “mean girl” and barred from social circles. At school, the triggers are peers and poor performances on tests and 8 million other tiny touchpoints. At school, the largest, and historically the most prominent pain point, is being different; acting different, saying something different, looking different. In any way. And thus we come back to the neck tie.

“Are there other girls in your class who are wearing ties, babe?” I asked this morning, as she ate her breakfast.

“Nah,” she shrugged.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, it looks really cool.”

“I know!” she lit up.

It’s just a tie, I told myself. Maybe the other kids will love it, and she’ll get compliments all day long and come home on Cloud Nine. Maybe it’ll be fine. Maybe if I build her up enough …  But, just like her father’s, my heart quickened as she pulled her coat on. Send in the concrete block.

I listened to a podcast recently where a physician said that we are all exactly who we are supposed to be, and we are so unconditionally accepted by God and the universe that it’s unimaginable. Our flaws are intentional. They are the nuances that make us uniquely beautiful. The only problem? None of us realize it. No one feels that way. Instead, we spend our energy agonizing over whether or not one little neck tie has the power to emotionally level our fragile daughters.

This physician’s point was that, if we could all get to a point of internalizing that acceptance, all of the fear and anger and the destructive, selfish actions that come from that family of feelings would dissolve. The anxiety of finding our place would dissipate entirely, leaving room for the good stuff, like joy and love.

So the question then becomes, how do I make my JoJo, and her sisters as well, feel unconditionally accepted in a world where we’re all working with overactive label makers? For that matter, how do I get myself to open a gift that powerful? How do we drop that first pebble in the pond to start the ripple of peace and approval, both with ourselves and others, so we’re all on the same page, in the same mindset? So that we’re all living on the same island.

Different like everybody else

I don’t have an answer for that; Only a feeling that the implications of imparting those beliefs onto the next generation could turn some serious things right around for the somewhat sad state of this planet. For now, I’m going to keep telling my daughter that her accessories are fierce, but her confidence is fiercer. I’m going to keep saying my prayers as she skips up the sidewalk and steps up onto the bus. I’m going to tell her that we’re all different. That we’re all beautifully, expertly tailored to be different. Then I’m going to bend down and pick up another pebble.

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.

JoJo Just Said, So Says Sloppy Joan, Spike Speak

Sisters say what? (vol. 7)

September 11, 2018

“Dad, you have to tell me when we turn. Turns have consequences.” – Sloppy Joan, holding a box of donuts in the car

“You know, it’s like, this is good but I can’t eat anymore because it’s disgusting and I might puke.” – Spike

“I had a dream I was invited to Donald Trump’s birthday party.” – Spike
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, and I was like, I would not go to that party. I would go to Broccoli Bama’s, but not Donald Trump’s.”

“I literally love my mouth, because I love talking.” – Spike

I’m doing this from Courtney Leach on Vimeo.

“I bet Aunt Kel felt the love I put in those cookies cause I put in so, so much.” – Spike

“I took my shirt off so I can be a tank topper!” – Sloppy Joan

“I wish I had bright yellow hair like yours.” – Spike
“Well, you can color it when you’re older.”
“But that would be like lying about who I am.”

“I’m your baby. My name is Tiny. All the babies are named Tiny.” – Sloppy Joan

“How long has peanut butter been around?” – JoJo
“A long time.”
“Like since the 1980s?!”

“Was Jesus’ last name really ‘Christ’?” – Spike

“How can we see so much things when are eyes are so tiny?” – Spike

“I think all the stars are pieces of God.” – Spike

“I love all the family. Special my sisters. Special you. And a special Dad.” – Sloppy Joan

“It’s like I’m trying to shut off a factory of laughing!” – Spike

“Yam! I said ‘yam’ because that’s my jam and it’s yummy. And I kind of messed up.” – Spike

“Look how much it’s still snowing. I told God to get it cozy.” – Spike

“I was going to put my $10 in for the fundraiser, but then I remembered I’m saving for college.” – JoJo

“You have these two tubes above your hips and when you eat something and then it goes through your body there are leftovers that go through those tubes. And that’s what poop is.” – Spike

Sucker from Courtney Leach on Vimeo.

“Sally said f-u-c-k today” – Spike
“What?!”
“Yeah. I know that’s a really bad word.”
“Very bad!”
“I know! But I did say fuck in my head. But I just mind said it.”

“I want some chap lipstick.” – Sloppy Joan

“Can I have a Christmas braid?” – Sloppy Joan
“Yeah, but it’s not Christmas.”
“Mom! All braids are just Christmas braids!”

“I’d rather sleep and get my body well. I’m too weak to clean.” – Spike

“Dad! Put your thing away and come get Mom!” – Spike, yelling at Hank in the shower after I twisted my ankle and fell in the garage

“He said it hurt on his pockets. But you know, it wasn’t really his pockets. It was his butt.” – Spike

“Maybe I need a mentor.” – JoJo
“Who did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know … What is a mentor?”

Kids

Six words that changed the way I’ll talk about my body

August 29, 2018

There are certain phrases that come from the mouths of our babes that stop us dead in our tracks. Phrases such as …

“Uh oh …”

“Shut up!”

“Don’t be mad …”

“I can’t hold it.”

“Whoops!”

Late last week we added a new one to the list.

I am a sad, snooze button-slapping sloth. My intent is always to workout in the mornings but, because of my aforementioned condition, I typically have to cram it into the evenings, right between stuffing dinner in my face and washing a child’s butt.

On one seemingly uneventful evening, I was in the basement, 10 minutes into 80 Day Obsession’s Booty day when the chicks came down. JoJo set up a ninja obstacle course and was pushing her sisters to “Jump higher!” “Run faster!” and “Do it like this!” They were running around in their sports bras (hand-me-downs from a work friend’s daughter and their latest obsession) and giggling and burning off energy and radiating innocence.

After about 20 minutes, Spike came running over, panting, and put her hands on her hips.

“Look how much weight I lost!” she declared.

I set my weights down and spun around, propelled by the sobering gravity of the statement spilling out of my 7-year-old’s lips.

“Whoa! I mean, I think you look really strong,” I said, grasping desperately for a solid, child psychologist-endorsed rebound. “And that’s what I like to see.”

She raised her eyebrows, looked over at her biceps, shrugged and went back to the course, pleased by the exchange. That made one of us.

With every squat, every leg lift that followed, I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into a sinkhole of shame. I finished my workout and went up to tell Hank we were big, fat failures who could not use the words “big”, “fat” or “failure” anymore.

“We have to stop talking about our weight!” I announced. He barely turned from the dishes. “I mean it. Spike just told me she’d lost weight, and I don’t like it. We gotta get it together. Only stuff about being strong, from now on. No more rubbing our bellies, or complaining about how much we ate, or any of that.” He nodded in the agreeable way he does when I make such profound proclamations out of nowhere.

Body image is a struggle handed down from the women before us, who put their eggs in the basket of Jane Fonda, Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast and Oprah. Women who inherited the same battle from the generation that came before them. A generation that sought resolution through grapefruit, diet pills and belt massagers. It is a conflict as old as humankind – the epic tussle between vanity, health and self-acceptance.

Thinking back on my childhood, I can fondly recall my own mother’s affinity for peanut M&Ms. At night, after dinner was cleared and the children had scattered, my mom would sit down on the floor next to her bed and watch L.A. Law with a bag of the multicolored candies in her lap and make me scratch her back. At the time, I thought nothing of her evening ritual. It was endearing and just something she did, like dying her hair or snapping her fingers when she danced.

But in my house now, when I reach up into the cabinet for my after-dinner treat of two pieces of 72% cocoa chocolate, I see my daughters watching. Sometimes they’ll even say, “Watch the sug, mama.” And they’re not saying that because they’re judgmental turds. They’re saying that because I’ve unintentionally conditioned them to say that. I, along with a million forms of media and mixed messages, have formed their thoughts and placed phrases in their minds by vocalizing my own food shortfalls over and over again, in conversations that I thought were benign or far enough away from little impressionable ears.

And now, despite all my best intentions, the thing I always feared is happening. It’s being held up to my face in the form of one innocent little statement: “Look how much weight I lost.”

I naively thought I was following the protocol for bringing up healthy, well-adjusted girls. To their faces, it’s always about nourishing our bodies, getting stronger, treating ourselves well. But it hasn’t been enough. The fabricated shortcomings of our mothers and our mothers’ mothers are infiltrating my adorable chicks and I so desperately want to stop it.

I was talking about Spike’s declaration with a friend at work and she mentioned that even her oldest son, who is 6, has been talking about his “belly” and comparing himself to the other little guys in his grade. He’s 6!

What the hell? Where did it all get so screwed up?

Maybe time has quickened the affliction, but I don’t remember worrying about my body until middle school, around the time the dreaded locker room came into play and sixth graders with C cups started ruining everything. I had a short pixie haircut above my ears, braces, freckles and a chest as flat as an Indiana cornfield. That was when I started comparing myself. We all remember when we started comparing ourselves.

That same friend told me about a project her class did in first grade. They were doing some experiment with pumpkins and the teacher had the students step on a scale, first holding a pumpkin, and then without it, in order to get the weight of the squash. “I still remember pretending to be sick so I wouldn’t have to weigh myself in front of my class,” she shared. “And I wasn’t even that much bigger than the other kids.”

We all carry some of the responsibility, I suppose. For my part, I’ve been known to rub my food baby after a meal or let out a regretful groan after going for the second cinnamon roll or saying stupid shit like, “Oh, I shouldn’t,” when offered an amazing homemade pastry. I think I’m counterbalancing it by screen grabbing inspirational quotes on Instagram like, “Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do. Not a punishment for what you ate.” I think my perception is off.

How do we break the cycle? How do we convince the next generation that as long as they are using their bodies and treating them well and they feel capable in their bodies and they feel at home in their bodies, that they are doing exactly what they need to be doing? How do we make them feel proud not embarrassed, motivated not defeated, informed not passive?

Caring for yourself is a massive responsibility. It’s composed of a thousand decisions in a day and, as any mind-body guru will tell you, the body keeps score. There has to be a shift away from succumbing to the suffocating complexities of the weightloss noise and toward the beauty of caring for this precious gift we were given, this phenomenal space we get to occupy on this planet.

I’m not saying I have the roadmap to get us there. But, thanks to six little words and the mirror only a child can hold up to you, I feel like I’m waking up to the urgency of the issue at our children’s’ feet. The shift has to start somewhere. Let’s lean in a positive direction.

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Laughs

For your amusement: A discussion on theme parks

August 22, 2018

I need to talk about something kind of crazy for a few minutes. About a month ago, my husband’s family did the nicest thing ever and treated all of us to a weekend-long amusement + water park extravaganza. Because we only had about 48 hours at Walley World, including travel, we packed a lot into a day. With three little chicks, that means, more specifically, a million bathroom breaks, a handful of meltdowns and a few moments of sheer panic when passing through swarms of farmer’s-tanned strangers.

I don’t do well in crowds. You might not know that about me. I have some lingering claustrophobia I blame on my older brother, Matt, who used to wrap a blanket around my head and sit on me. I think it’s an intense aversion to feeling trapped. Wearing sweatpants under a heavy quilt makes me feel trapped. People wrapping their arms around me from behind makes me feel trapped. And crowds definitely make me feel trapped. But in addition to that, there are some very unique nuances to the amusement park environment that no one really talks about that are Level 100 unsettling.

Entering the park

After you’ve been herded through the gates – bags searched (Why yes, those are my feminine hygiene products, sir), ticket scanned – you’re in. You’re golden. Then you look around and your momentary joy is immediately replaced by a mudslide of unease. The common area just past the gates at an amusement park looks like what I imagine Times Square would look like 5 minutes after a nuclear attack hit the west coast.

People are running around grabbing park maps, filling up lockers, pointing and pleading. Those who aren’t in motion are the ones standing in groups either lost entirely or fighting loudly about which area they should hit first.

“I want to go to the Land of Lollipops before the Happy Hills, damnit!”

“The Happy Hills blow, Gina. We’re going to Jubilant Jollyville and you can shut your face about it.”

On this particular occasion, we were guided to a booth to get wristbands with our cell phone number to put on the girls’ wrists. This, I was told, would come in handy if we got separated somehow in the sea of 20,000 people. I don’t know about you, but this type of exercise always comforts this mama’s soul.

The wave pool

I could write an entire novel about the living night terror that is the wave pool. My children are drawn to this attraction like Carrie Bradshaw to a shoe sale. They can’t be bothered to stop at anything else. If it has the words “wet” or “splash” or “rapids” in it, they’re waist deep before I’ve set the towels down on a sticky bench.

If you’ve never had the pleasure, a wave pool at a waterpark is essentially a giant bathtub, filled with a melting pot of humanity and children who can’t swim well, that routinely ripples with less-than-impressive waves. My favorite part of standing knee-deep in this urine bucket is watching everyone – adults included – lose their shit when the bell sounds, signifying the waves are about to begin. I can’t imagine what these people do at the actual ocean with actual waves.

True to form, my chicks begged to go straight to the nasty ripple fest. I stood there, as far back as I could be while still maintaining a rescuer’s stance, and watched a glob of thick black hair from an identifiable part of a stranger’s body float by my shins. To my left, a group of moms floated on noodles, speaking a language I didn’t understand. They’d been there, no doubt, at least two pees. To my right, a rather large man covered from head to big toe in a familiar thick black hair squatted curiously. Things inside me shriveled as I watched JoJo mermaid dive about 5 feet away, emerging with her mouth wide open.

This is the wave pool at an amusement park. And we’re all pretending it’s totally normal.

Also, peeing in a bathroom near a waterpark is like squatting behind a fern in the amazon. That is all.

The swelling

This falls under the category of “self-inflicted first-world problems” but I swell like the Pillsbury Thanksgiving Day parade float in amusement parks. That happens, you know, when you go an entire day without consuming a drop of water and eat only things that fall into one of five categories:

Cheese
Sugar
Fried cheese
Fried sugar
Fried bread

It’s not necessarily convenient to pull out a giant vat of grease and fry up strips of bread or Twinkies at home, so if you’re going somewhere and they’re willing to do it, it seems silly, almost insulting, not to take advantage. The problem is, after a day of this circus diet, I can’t move my wedding ring and my ankles don’t bend. A sacrifice I’m willing to make? You’re damn right.

The “thrills”

When I was growing up, the Magnum at Cedar Point was it. If you could get your happy ass on the Magnum and live to brag about it, you’d made it. You had balls as big as a Clydesdale and everybody knew it.

This summer, my JoJo was tall enough to hit the major rides. There was no way I was going to look at that big grin and not get on a roller coaster with her. As we climbed on, I reached over and grabbed her tiny hand. She was shaking, but still pumped. We shot out of the gate and went head over feet, feet over head for a solid 45 seconds, laughing and screaming and loving every second.

Not to be outdone or left out, Spike insisted she ride the tallest coaster in the park, which she just so happened to be tall enough to ride, by a stray curl. So, we got in line for the last ride of the day. This was one of those old wooden roller coasters. The kind that sounds like an angry mob trying to break the rusty hinges off an old storm cellar every time it blows by. Still, I felt like it was a solid parenting choice.

We climbed on, JoJo next to me, Spike and Hank behind us. As soon as I saw the lap belts, I started sweating. I frantically pulled the belt, trying to make it so tight it cut off both of our circulation. I pressed down on the lap bar, which seemed to be suspended 4 inches above our thighs at least. It didn’t matter, we were going.

As we climbed up the first hill, the biggest in the amusement park by a mile, she still had a whisper of a smile on her face. And then … like our equilibrium, it was gone.

As the old rickety ride hurled us over hills and down through black tunnels, I heard her screams:

“Mommy, I don’t like it!”
“Mommy, save me!”
“Mommy, I want off!”
“Mama! Mama!”
“Mom, I don’t want to die!”

Hell, if I wasn’t a 35-year-old mother, I would have been screaming the same exact shit. But I was just screaming, period. All I could think was, I willingly, voluntarily put two of my children on this death trap. I did this. And now we’re all going to die.

What was likely just over a minute, felt like an hour. Our bodies jerking and jolting through the humid summer night air. As it came to an abrupt end, it felt like I had fire in my throat. I realized I’d been holding onto JoJo’s lap strap the whole time. My wrist felt bruised from being brutally hurled against the divider between us. I unclenched things I didn’t know you could clench. My oldest daughter looked at me like I’d just given her a puppy, then promptly poisoned it. It was, “How could you?!” without a word being spoken between us.

I turned around and there sat Spike. Eyes wide. Smiling like an insane person. I guess it takes all kinds, doesn’t it?

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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From trigger to tantrum: The 3 stages of parent-child confrontation

August 1, 2018

When our JoJo started popping her top back in 2015, we chalked it up to the age. It’s just a phase, we thought. All kids develop a short fuse during that challenging transition window between toddler and child. But the tantrum tide hasn’t rolled back out to sea. The triggers can be anything from a sister getting too much attention (a spark one might categorize as irrational) to a container of 25,000 rainbow loom loops flipping and raining multicolored chaos out across a patterned bedspread (warranted).

While the tantrums once rumbled in like a summer storm you could spot 50 miles away, now they’re more like an F4 tornado that seems to drop down out of nowhere and elicit mass destruction for all in its path. We go from 0 to fury in 5.2 seconds, and no one is safe from her wrath. I once looked on in horror as she reprimanded a baby – a baby! – for stupidly sucking on her pretend smartphone. It was then I questioned how those nurses ever let me take a human being home from the hospital.

We’ve tried some things to remedy the rage. But in the end, the tantrum cycle always comes back to the same three phases. Picture a bell curve with a crescendo of contempt right at the top.

Level 1: Psychospeak

I love me some Brene Brown, I do. I worship the woman like a Vegas bride worships Elvis. After I read her gospel, “The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting,” I thought I had it. I got cocky. I was going to stop leading my children and instead embark on a journey of growth and discovery beside them. We would learn together, always with love and truth at the heart of our endeavors and conversations. I was going to be a different kind of mom. I even printed her parenting manifesto and framed it. It’s on my dresser. I’m looking at it right now.

My thing with Brene isn’t exclusive. I like to toss in a little Gabriel Bernstein, John O’Leary, Glennon Doyle, Shauna Niequest, Shonda Rhimes, Dalai Lama, Oprah and Tony Robbins for extra flavor. You might say I’m a bit of a self-help junkie. I like to hit the bong of Super Soul Kool-Aid on the regular. And perhaps that’s all to say that my mind’s a little restless, but also, I have an insatiable hunger for perfection and happiness, whatever that means.

When Hurricane JoJo comes ashore, I always reach for my favorite reference guides first. I attempt to tackle the tantrum through reason and empathy. This begins with a simple question:

“What’s wrong, honey?”

Now, where this goes wrong is that it’s rooted in the assumption that a reasonable question will elicit a reasonable response. In reality, it’s met with such sentiments as:

“Spike said I’m writing my 9s backward!”

“She called me a ‘geck’.”
“What’s a geck?”
“I don’t know! But it’s bad!”

“I was the teacher and then she said it was her turn to be the teacher and then I tried to show her how to grade the papers but she said she didn’t want to draw stars and then she took my pink marker and told me I had to be the nurse, not the student, and no one is listening to me and Sloppy Joan always gets everything she wants always because she’s the baby and everybody hates me because I like green jello!”

And so, as anyone would, I pause and consider what to do with such weighty tribulations. I remind myself that, to her, this is a big deal. It is upsetting. It is a reasonable excuse to completely lose her shit and scream-cry and throw things and slam doors. I remind myself that her tantrum is valid, because her feelings are valid, because she is a little human.

Depending on the day, the weather, the circumstances, I might be able to remind myself of these things several times. I might be able to recall Jo Frost, the SuperNanny, the Godmother of meltdowns, and remember I need to invite my daughter to share her feelings, not project my own onto her. I might even share a story from my youth. Perhaps a time when someone didn’t like the same flavor of jello as me and it resulted in emotional distress. Perhaps I’ll sit with her on a pillow of patience and we’ll sort through the whole misunderstanding peacefully, Brene and all her friends smiling over my shoulder.

This is the stage in the game when I redirect. When I send JoJo to her room to collect herself – “an emotional timeout” I call it – which looks like bracelet making or reading or meditating. Hypothetically, this is when her heart rate comes down and she regains composure and we establish resolution.

Hypothetically.

Level 2: Detonation

I try. Really, I do.

But when someone is howling within a sealed enclosure for more than 10 minutes, it can be difficult to keep your cool. I’ll confess that I’m a yeller. It’s not something that I’m proud of. But in my defense, the voice that I was born with – the pitch, the volume, the tenor – doesn’t seem to resonate with my oldest unless I turn it way the hell up. At least not when she’s in full conniption mode.

These fits always reach a pitch where inevitably I need to turn up the dial to be an active participant in the conversation. It just works out that way. In the moment it feels like a necessary element for communication, though one might argue as an observer that, from their perspective, it looks a lot like an adult tantrum.

This was an honest-to-goodness exchange I had with my daughter last week.

“What is wrong? Huh? Tell me, please,” – me, yelling.
“I’m tired!” – JoJo, crying and yelling.
“Then go to bed.”
“I don’t want to go to bed.”
“Then stop crying.”
“But I’m tired.”
“Then go to bed!”
“I don’t want to go to bed!”

To read it now, it seems like a riddle. A joke, at least. And maybe that’s the humor in it. The fact that afterward you can recognize the absurdity of a 35-year-old woman and a 9-year-old girl screaming at each other to stop screaming at each other.

And where is my tribe in these moments, huh? I don’t see Oprah or Tony anywhere in this steaming pile of mess.

This is often the stage in which I resort to threats.

“Do you want to go to Sophie’s party on Saturday?”
“Do you want to go swimming tomorrow?”
“Do you want to start American Ninja Warrior classes?”
“Do you want to make it to 10?”

[Of course she does.]

“Then get it together and knock it off!”

These threats can range from a few hours in her bedroom to a canceled family vacation. Of course, as punishers, we know that the higher the threat, the less likely it will actually be executed, but sometimes you have to go big for effect.

I’m not proud of the things that happen in the Detonation period. I’m just not. Often, it concludes with me slamming her door, which, coincidentally, I likely just yelled at her for doing a few minutes before I jerked the brass knob myself (I know, that sounds dirty).

Level 3: Repentance

It usually hits me like the rancid air 2 miles outside a hog farm. Regret. Lots of it.

Once I’ve walked away, I realize that that was where I went wrong. I turned my back. The instant replay in my mind starts when I hit the steps and turns into a full blown highlight reel of my failures by the time I reach the kitchen. She needed someone and I dropped the ball.

I blew it.

I missed the mark.

I’m worse than a person who kicks puppies.

I let down Brene and Jo and all of the people who tried to coach me to avoid this exact parental calamity.

I breathe on it for a bit, collect my thoughts and go back to her room to apologize. Dr. Dave, a dear friend who specializes in mindfulness, talks about how important it is for us to ask for forgiveness, even from our children. Sometimes especially from our children. But I struggle with the “but”.

My apologies typically sound something like:

“JoJo, I’m sorry I just yelled at you, but you have to understand …” or “Honey, I shouldn’t have raised my voice, and I want to apologize for my behavior. But when you lose it like that …”

Nothing matters after the “but”, we all know that. My 9-year-old knows that. And yet, I can’t break away from the “but”.

The saving grace is that resilience is the ingredient that distinguishes young souls from the middle aged ones. I will feel the aftershocks of a good tantrum for at least 24 hours, while JoJo will be asking for chocolate ice cream after 1. For me, it has to mean something. It has to be a smoke signal that there is trouble in her heart, and we must form a five-part plan to help her channel her aggression immediately. But really, the longer these go on, the more I think she just gets pissed and wants everyone to know. She’s onto the next episode of Little Lunch before I’ve metabolized the emotional post mortem.

And perhaps the most defeating facet of the tantrum cycle, is the inescapable certainty that it will all happen again at any moment. There’s a whole world full of triggers out there, and we’re just waiting to hear the first shot.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe I’ll be better. Maybe it’s just a phase.