Practiced Petals

“I had read in books that art was not easy, but no one warned that the mind repeats its ignorance, the vision of others.  I am a still a black swan on alien waters.” -Ern Malley, “The Darkening Ecliptic”

There are days the struggle with imposter syndrome is real…that feeling that you aren’t really qualified for pretty much anything you’re doing. Work, motherhood, life.  There are days that the weight of ‘when will someone notice I’m faking it?’ is heavy, and you just wait for the house of cards you’ve painstakingly built to come tumbling down when just one observant person chooses to exhale in your direction.  Day in and day out, you watch the tower sway slightly from left to right, as you place new cards against old ones, reinforcing the walls, hoping that a new lesson learned, or experience had, helps to strengthen the overall structure…but you worry about the cards at the very top.  The ones you can’t quite reach to reinforce. You double check the weather and hold your own breath.  God forbid your own exhale be what brings the house down. 

 I think the secret to overcoming this is realizing that almost no one knows what they are doing.  There’s this assumption that at some point, some people get to a certain level in life and actually do have their shit together and know the answers and how to solve all the problems.  They know the exact right way to execute everything.  It feels as if they have so much experience that they can predict the future.  They can’t.  They may have more experience, and their pool of wisdom to pull from may be a bit deeper, but they don’t know the answer.  They don’t have the ‘right way’.  We are all just making this shit up as we go. We are, essentially, all imposters. Some of us just worry about the ‘exhalers’, and some of us don’t. 

There’s a saying people use in corporate America: ‘It’s OK to fail, just ‘fail fast’.  The idea being that fuck ups happen, but let’s do it quickly, figure it out, and move on, because we don’t really have the time to not get it right. It’s idealistic.  It’s unrealistic.  It’s supposed to sound supportive. It doesn’t. 

The human variable is capitalisms biggest challenge.  As a woman in business, or person, (this isn’t a feminist statement), I can attest to the fact that people will do what people will do- regardless of what you tell them or how many policies you put in place.  And those policies are put in place by people with only a portion of the story that encompasses, with luck, the majority of the potential outcomes.  It doesn’t take into account the 20% that will be impacted by variables – usually human imposed variables.  There’s no such thing as “one right way”. 

I see this all the time as I work with our Research & Development and Manufacturing teams, as we develop products, then make them, on repeat, with the same specifications and running conditions, and sometimes they just come out differently.  Sometimes it’s a human element. Sometimes it’s an environmental one.  Sometimes I think our plant is haunted. 

Either way, we really, really want there to be ONE right way, and there just isn’t.  Theres a ‘right way’ in this condition and a ‘right way’ in that condition, and a right way if ‘John’ is on the schedule and a right way if ‘Emily’ is, even though there shouldn’t be.  Because there’s a human interpretation and ‘hand’ to everything. – Especially if ‘Casper’s’ stopped by, playing tricks. (That material usually gets scrapped) …  Everything in life is a little bit of an art form.  (It’s unbelievably frustrating when you’re trying to sell it). 

But, sometimes, the unknowns are how new things are discovered.  Sometimes the ‘mistake’ is how a new masterpiece is made. Sometimes, that slight differentiation or change in use is what makes something average truly great.

Silly Putty was discovered when trying to create a rubber to repair boots and tank tire treads.  It doesn’t fill holes of a tank tread, but it has amused children for decades.

Play Doh was originally invented to clean the soot off wallpaper from coal-burning stoves and fireplaces. Once those became obsolete, it was re-marketed as the kids craft we know today. 

The color Mauve was first discovered in dye form when a chemist was attempting to create a cure for Malaria, failed but created a new ink color for the world of fashion. 

Penicillin was discovered when a lab technician didn’t clean his petri dish out before leaving for vacation, saving millions of lives over the past 96 years.

Great things are often discovered from ‘failures’ and innovation happens when art and science intersect.

Violet really wants to be a good artist. She will find tutorials on how to draw online and copy’s the pictures. Striving for exact.  If I draw a flower, she will tell me she wants to be a better artist than I am someday (I’m not that great of an artist) and gets frustrated when her flower doesn’t look exactly like mine.  Trying to explain to her that no two flowers are ever the same doesn’t seem to resonate with her just yet.  Explaining that art is exactly that, its art. Individual expression – it shouldn’t ever look exactly like someone else’s, doesn’t really make her feel better.  She wants it to look like the picture.  She believes that’s the ‘right way’.  She’s focused on the lines of the petals, not the spirit of the flower.

As I scrolled through pictures of her year in preparation for this piece, I realized my favorite pictures of Violet are always the candid ones.  They seem to capture her spirit.  They aren’t the ones you typically frame, but probably should be.  They are the ones that grab the sparkle in her eyes, her joy, the ones of her leaning her head on a friend’s shoulder or laying on the dog while watching TV. The ones where you see her smile from her eyes vs. her lips, like she would in a posed picture. The ones where you see her beam with pride, or sometimes even catch a glimpse of sadness, as this is where you can see her true empathy show through.  The pictures where you see her beautiful heart, not just her pretty face.

When we really think about it, I bet most of our favorite pictures of others are the candid ones, we just tend to like the posed ones of ourselves better. To capture someone’s spirit with the camera is often a rare sighting and when you do, we should probably make a habit of framing it, but we are also often too focused on the lines of the picture vs. the spirit of the face and it doesn’t seem ‘right’ enough to frame. 

That got me thinking about how much we reward and encourage perfection and glaze over everything else.  We scroll past the pictures where people aren’t looking at the camera, instead of zooming in to see their expression, see the beauty in the fact that we captured a moment.

We correct spelling and grammar on an assignment and often, despite the writing, an average grade is given, regardless of the creative thought behind the message, because not all the rules were followed, and that message wasn’t expressed in the ‘right way.’  Yes, learning to write properly is important, I don’t discount that, but sometimes we allow those imperfections to stifle potential greatness.  We kill the spirit trying to get it ‘right’, and in the situation of her ‘failed flower’, the possibilities of what that flower could have become, are gone. Maybe that flower wasn’t meant to be a flower in the end at all.  The world will never know. 

 There isn’t one ‘right’ way.  There isn’t always data that can predict the future, and you can only use measurements to get you so far until assumptions need to be made, accommodations for human interpretation and ‘hand’ need to be accepted and examined more closely.  Sometimes your inexperience in something allows you to see that flower through a new eyes, with fresh perspective and you can see the spirit of the surroundings and you may not get that petal exact, but that may create space on the page to draw a bunny, which sparks the idea for a story, and a full book of illustrations with flowers and creatures of all kinds. Like capturing a candid photo at that rare moment, you may unveil the spirit of something bigger, better, more meaningful.

There isn’t one ‘right way’.  Trying to condition oneself out of a lifetime of teachings is tough, but as I sometimes struggle with days of imposter syndrome, I’m trying to remind myself that change and greatness rarely happens when things go exactly to plan, that no one has it all figured out, and if the flower is drawn correctly is based more on what else you do with the page, and less on the shape of the petals.

Violet,

As you struggle to find your ‘thing’, remember that you will likely have many and they will change over the years.  Your interests will come and go, but your innate talents, passion and who you are, are truly endless if you allow them to be.  You already have something not everyone does, and that’s your ability to light up a room.  Your spirit is contagious and will take you far as you learn to channel it.  Put that energy into your work, build your house of cards high amongst the masses of paper homes, for very few are made of anything stronger.  Find your passion and worry less about perfection and more about quality, creativity, and ingenuity. When the wind blows, and your tower sways, remember that if it falls, you have more cards to rebuild with than you did when you started, and you will rebuild it stronger and faster the 2^nd time.  Remember to breath. Exhale often and others won’t have the chance to blow over your deck, because you will already know your structure can handle the breeze.  Make whatever you are doing yours, because as Thomas Edison once said “…I have not failed, I’ve only found 1000 ways that it won’t work…” but maybe one of those ways will turn into something great and someday hang in the Louvre.

Happy 8^th Birthday to me beautiful, spirited artist.  I am so proud of you. 

Love,

Mom

“Do not become a slave to your model” – Vincent Van Goh

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Speak No Evil

He raised his hand in class, something he’s not likely to do.  He hates being the center of attention. It makes him nervous.  He might tic. That makes him feel embarrassed. Which makes him more nervous.  Which makes him tic more.  Viscous cycle.  Best to keep his hand down.  He raised it this time. She called on him.  He began to answer the question. He started answering it wrong.  She cut him off to tell him that.  He got annoyed.

“If you’re going tell me that I’m wrong, can you at least let me finish my sentence first?” He said.

“Well, that was disrespectful,” she replied.  He shut up.  She moved on for a moment…called on him later when his hand wasn’t raised to ask him a question that she knew he wouldn’t know the answer to, then paused for a long time, putting him on the spot…  his friend saved him, blurting out the answer.

Hear No Evil. See No Evil. Speak No Evil.  The three wise monkeys.  There is a statue in Japan that depicts three monkeys holding their hands over their ears, eyes and mouth, which has become an iconic piece of artwork, as it became symbol in Buddhist teachings. It seems to have two interpretations when doing a bit of research online…proof that interpretation is a funny thing, as some things we are sure of, we are also wrong about. But with either interpretation, there’s a lesson, and I think that’s the important part at the moment. See No Evil. Hear No Evil. Speak No Evil. Many feel this means to turn a blind eye to wrong doing. Don’t participate in the act, or the gossip. Simply stay out of it, let others say and do what they want – don’t speak up, put your ear buds in, walkaway. Mind your own business.

 However, the original Buddhist teaching was…if you simply don’t surround yourself with evil doing, you, yourself will be spared suffering in this life.  So, approach things with kindness.  Be generous with your thoughts and words, don’t go seeking out trouble and you will face less trouble.  – There’s definitely some overlap. 

But it leaves a space where you’re not seeking trouble, but confrontation finds you anyways.  Where you can choose to be a doormat or stand up for yourself, and there’s isn’t much in-between. That place  where you need to find the line and method between self-assertion and being a jerk.  Conflict-avoidance isn’t always the answer, and rarely leads to a resolution. 

I’m not known for keeping my mouth shut. I’m not an overly confrontational person, but I typically have a few quick words and rarely are they filtered. Some of them have 4 letters. But when I use those, they are less likely to be during anger and more likely to be in standard conversation. Keeps things colorful. My mother loves it. I will say that I tend to be quick to anger – comes with the territory of a mood-disorder and well, just being me. Its certainly not my best quality.  However, having a quick wit when angry is a benefit in arguments, as most people shut down when angry, and I definitely don’t. Because of this, learning to be a lot more careful than most has been a requirement, and learning when to stop and when to control my tongue is something that I had to do the hard way. I’m glad Sawyer knew to stop in his ‘back n’ forth’ with his teacher.  If I had been sitting in his seat that day, I wouldn’t have. 

I asked a lot of people their opinions on that interaction, and I got several different viewpoints.  The boomer generation –  all appalled he’d “talk back” to his teacher in the first place.  The millennial generation was proud of him for calling his teacher out on interrupting as that’s something they (children) are constantly told not to do to. They thought it was great that he had the courage to set a boundary with her, because that will serve him well as a skill in the future, even if it was a fruitless gesture in the moment. They did not see his request as disrespectful at all.   I tend to agree with the latter.  Everyone agreed that it was good he chose not to retort after, and everyone agreed that her calling on him later was her simply being petty.  She was clearly having a bad day.  Gen X had mixed reviews. Typical.

As a child, I never would have had the courage to stand up to anyone, let alone anyone in authority.  Even today, I need to have an established relationship with someone where I know how they will respond so I can prepare my approach.  I was raised by parents of the boomer generation and taught to respect elders at all costs.  I was taught to be non-confrontational.  I was taught to follow direction.  I was also taught to be independent and stand on my own two feet and handle my own thoughts and feelings and do my best to not make them everyone else’s problems.  Those are the daily goals.  Sometimes those goals are highly contradictory.

 I didn’t ask ‘why’ as a kid. Sawyer does.  To annoyance.  To the point that it often feels disrespectful. To the point that the phrase “because I said so” comes out of my mouth, and I cringe, every time.  It feels like he’s questioning me and my decision-making abilities vs the action itself, and that likely speaks a whole lot more to my confidence level as a decision maker than it does to whether or not he’s being disrespectful in the moment.  He quite possibly, and most likely, is literally just asking ‘why’ to get a better understanding of the reasoning behind the action, because that’s how people learn things, not because he doesn’t trust my judgement.  So why am I so quick so assume otherwise?

I knew parenting wouldn’t be easy, and honestly, I think the nine-million resources at our fingertips now almost makes it harder, as everything is contradictory, and to parent perfectly is completely impossible, but the internet will make you feel like the worst person on the planet for not being able to do it all. His left brain and my right brain don’t think alike most of the time, and he doesn’t understand why I do things the way I do, and I don’t understand why he cares so much why I do things the way I do them…but he does. He cares a LOT. 

He’s a logical deep feeler who’s been through a lot of ‘adult’ grief, and when you go through grief and trauma you develop a different sense of self.  There’s a sense of confidence gained through that because you attach yourself to mortality in ways others may not have… just yet.  In other words, there’s an aura of ‘fuck it’ that surrounds you.   Before turning 11, he went to 4 funerals. All were inside the same 12 months.  All while his dad was still fighting for his life.  They don’t make a parenting book that tells you the exact right thing to say to a deep feeling, logical child, with his own physical and mental health issues, that’s seeing just how fragile life is for the first time, in quantity, and in detail. His dad is much better now, so he is doing much better now, most days.  It’s amazing how quick we all are to simply pick up and carry on, even children.  But please don’t mistake that for resiliency. Its coping, Its survival. It’s slowly healing and finding a new sense of self.  A new way of viewing life with a keener eye, more sensitive ear and a sharper tongue. 

Sawyer,

As your waded through the thick of it all, you found your voice.  My wish for you this year, is you learn to harness it.

As I got older, and I learned who I was in my own skin, as I spoke to professionals over the years, as I spoke to friends, mentors, myself, I found my voice.  It took time. I was never a quiet person, but I’m not the same person I was 30 years ago.  At 10, I never would have “talked back” or “set a boundary” with a teacher, especially in front of the entire class the way you did.  I would have rather died on the spot than speak up like that.  And even today, I’m unlikely to say it directly, and more likely to phrase it in some sort of a witty commentary and hope they read between the lines.  What you did takes a confidence I don’t think I’ve ever had.  It takes a level of knowing you deserve to be treated in a certain way and you won’t settle for less, no matter the circumstances or repercussions, that I have never once granted myself.  And while I know that there may have been better ways for you to handle that moment, I will confidently stand behind the fact that you were not the disrespectful one in that exchange, just because you were the younger of the two. 

Authority is a funny thing.  We need to respect it, as it’s a position we need to assume was earned.  And I will always stand behind that.  But it also must not be abused. And while everyone has a bad day, and I’m not putting this teacher on trial for one comment on a bad day, as I couldn’t do her job without a million bad comments on every day, I guess it’s just comforting to know that my kid might just stand up for himself if the time ever comes and someone that does truly abuse a position of authority or is truly disrespectful.  We want better for our kids, and that gives me just a little bit of hope that after everything we’ve been through, maybe you’ll get it. 

Learn to speak your truth, set the boundary, respectfully say what needs to be said, but say it in a way that garners respect back.  Quick wit will help soften the blow when something needs to be discussed that may sting but be careful and cognizant of when and how you use it. Humor isn’t funny if you’re the only one laughing. 

Use your words for good.  Being the smartest in the room is often best shown by speaking your peace once and then being quiet and letting the others sort it out to come back to the conclusion you gave to begin with.  For arguing with idiots if fruitless.  They will “…drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.” (-Mark Twain).

Lastly, use your voice for positivity.  Being right is important only until it hurts someone.  Saying something nice for no reason can sometimes change their entire day, and people are more motivated by encouragement and positive feedback than by money or reward.   In the end, the more you use words that show respect and kindness, the more you will demonstrate respect and kindness, and the more you will feel at peace, for you will receive respect and kindness in return. 

When in doubt, behave like a monkey.  Hear No Evil.  See No Evil. Speak No Evil.

Happy (Belated) 11th Birthday, Peanut. 

Love, Mom

The Judgement of the Dogs

As we said goodbye to my Aunt Margie today, I said a few words. I hadn’t seen here in far too long, and I have a million good reasons for it, but no good excuses and I think that that will stick with me for a while. Maybe that’s the real reason why I wanted to speak today, some sort of redemption. When her partner, Fritz passed in late 2018, she visited me in a dream and told me to “not wait another day” and while I have nothing but my own interpretation of what she meant by that, I have to assume that in this instance, I didn’t listen to her. I assumed there was always going to be another day, and then there suddenly wasn’t. Lesson learned, I guess.

I thought I would post here what I said there, as our family is small and scattered, the service was small, and I use this forum as a place to house memories, moments, personal history and life lessons. Things like this seem to check every box. So, without further ado, my eulogy for Margaret:

“I wanted to speak today for a few reasons….

1. The pastor mispronounced my grandmothers name at her funeral last summer and I’ve been annoyed about it since.  He didn’t know her, and the words felt wrong.  Today’s pastor knew Margie and has done a lovely job, but I needed to be sure I wouldn’t feel there were words left unsaid, and the only way to be sure of that is to say them myself. 
2. Our family isn’t known for our emotional expression, especially Margaret.  But, in the 11^th hour, I think she would appreciate hearing it, and I do believe she is listening. 

So, according to a study published by the Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews in 2017, dogs are able to decern who is a good person from who is a bad person.  The running joke in our family is that in our next life, we wanted to come back as one of Margie’s Dogs.  Her favorite people had four legs- she loved them and they loved her; her calm presence, her attentive nature and ultimately, her “goodness”. 

If I had to sum up my aunt in one word I would have to choose “good”.  There are of course lots of words to describe her: patient, quiet, humble, stoic, kind – just to name a few, but at the core of everything she did was pure thoughtfulness. 

She saved every egg carton to give to a local egg farmer – she had quite a few saved from what I understand, and there was always a container of soda can pop tops on her counter which she collected for a humane society fundraiser for probably all 40 years that I knew her.  For Christmas, she would ask for donations to her favorite charities and when building her lake home in 2002, while designing the bathroom, she did it with children in mind that wouldn’t even exist for another ten years. 

She didn’t express her love for others with words or physical contact. – I hugged her once in my entire life – it was after Fritz’s funeral, and I had to pre-warn her I was going to do it to get consent…It was awkward.   But she didn’t need words, or hugs apparently, to express her love for others.  She lived it.  She lived a life where she put “goodness” above everything else, and not only operated with kindness, but also lived with integrity and to do for others, 2 legs or 4. 

She lived with simple, understated intension, woven into the small details of her daily life- be it baking her butter horn rolls for every family gathering or helping her students; she performed with patience and gratitude for each day and gave back to the world in a million small acts every day. 

My sister and I,…we had the extreme pleasure of visiting her lake house during the summers and for 35 years she let us take over her home to play and swim while she baked us pie and did the dishes.  She probably never realized that those weeks at the cottage are some of our most cherished childhood memories and being at her lake is still our favorite place in the entire world to be.  She never asked for anything in return.  Not even when offered.  Not even when she needed it. 

Her dogs were among the luckiest.  One was even aptly named “Lucky”, as she and Fritz picked her at the shelter because her number was up that day and they saved her from being put down just in time, and if you stop by the lake home, there is a dog bed, or 3, in every room of the house, treats in multiple cabinets, a yard built right off the deck just for them and an outdoor shower was installed with the intension if it being a good “dog-washing station”.  She never even owned more than 2 small dogs at a time.  

She lived with love. She lived with intension. From every student she helped, to her dedication to her church, to every pop top, egg carton, pie baked and dog bed purchased, she lived to serve and love those around her and expressed gratitude for the life she felt privileged to live, in the most humble way she knew- by giving back – simply, purely, consistently. 

The dogs were right – she was one of the good ones, and she will be forever loved and so greatly missed.”

 

Rest in peace, Margaret Ann Fulton. February 3, 1941 – July 11, 2023

See Saw, Margery Daw…

See Saw, Margery Daw:
Jacky shall have a new master
Jacky shall have but a penny a day
because he can work no faster.
-Mother Goose

“Is there anything you’re looking forward to this Summer?”, my psychiatrist asked. “Normalcy and a chance to be bored”, I answered. She paused for a moment, “Really… ok, well I suppose that’s understandable. Do you think it will happen?” “Probably not, but anything ‘less’ than the last 3 years should be a cake-walk, plus the Abilify has been a God-send.” The conversation ended with refills and a follow-up.

I have a new boss. So far, I like him. He seems smart, stoic, decisive and personable. I hope at some point he relaxes just a little around everyone. Loses just a bit of the “formality”. I’m better at what I do when I don’t have to worry about filtering my big mouth, but it’s early in his tenure. Eventually he’ll realize I do my best work when I can use 4 letter words in a meeting and ‘professionally’ make it known when someone on the team is being a douche behind closed doors, all in an effort to speed up finding the root cause of a problem so we can fix it. I’ve never had a boss that didn’t appreciate that about me…eventually. About a month ago, I applied for a potential promotion. I don’t need more to do at work, I’m just a bit of a masochist. He’s noticed. He heard me out. He liked my proposal. ‘You seem to work a lot, how are you going to maintain work-life balance?’, he asked. ‘Working a lot is kind of how I’m wired, it won’t matter much what the work-load is, I’ll find projects regardless’, I replied, diplomatically. He doesn’t know me yet. He doesn’t know that I don’t believe in ‘balance’. Nothing noticeable gets accomplished through balance. Plus, now I have Abilify.

My entire life feels like a series of unfinished projects. Correction: My life is nothing but a series of unfinished projects. Some half started, some half finished, some still in the planning stages. I think that’s one of my biggest stressors in life; the unfinished lists. But projects are kind of my thing. They are both my chaos and my sanity all in one, and I think when I occasionally get to bring something to completion, that sense of accomplishment is what I thrive on. I’d almost always rather be immersed in a project than doing anything else. Which project I should be working on is a constant inner-battle.

I think most people struggle with balance a little bit. Work-life, kids-relationship, personal interests-responsibility, identity-being everything everyone else needs you to be. All see-saws I think we hop on and off of, switching sides, as what should be a two-person activity is maintained by one. Eventually, you get one side of a see-saw high enough that you can see the horizon. Only when that happens do I put the back and forth on hold for a moment and focus all my attention on getting it fully to the highest point and sit up there long enough to enjoy the view. That moment, perched at the top of that see saw, holding on to the handle and gazing out at the sunset, with that project done, knowing it’s the last time that side of that see saw will be that high and at that particular angle of that view will be seen; that’s the best feeling. That’s the moment to be enjoyed. Knowing I got to the top. Knowing that project is done. Enjoying the view and sense of pride in the work it took to get there. Admiring the details I spent so much time and energy on. Realizing the skill it took to not just be all-in on one side, using nothing but shear weight to get there, because I don’t have that. I don’t have nothing but boulders of time to hyper-focus on one side and one view of one see-saw. I had to adjust the hydraulics, and add small weights to the other side strategically, a little at a time. I had to keep that other half down without letting it sink into the ground. I also had to make sure the view at the top was worth it. I needed the angle to be just right, to make sure the details were there, so that when I got to the high point, there wasn’t a tree blocking my view. It’s never perfect, there’s always a branch that could be cut down, or a bird that perches just off center of the sunset and obstructs the view just a little bit. But, perfect isn’t the objective. High isn’t the objective. Done isn’t the objective. The objective is seeing the horizon in an almost perfect way, because as we discussed last time, perfect isn’t a thing. At least not an achievable one. Sitting on top of that seesaw watching the sunset, combing through the details of the seemingly simple toy to see how you got up there, seeing the way the light touches the top of a tree you’ve never seen the top of before… that’s the objective. That’s the moment it’s worth it. That’s the kind of high I’m eternally after. That’s my happy place.

Now, if I only had one see-saw, this wouldn’t seem that hard. But, like most, I have a fleet of see-saws. An entire see-saw park that offers saws of all shapes and sizes, facing in all directions, like a 3D maze of insanity. Then there are the swing sets. Someone keeps sneaking into my see-saw park and setting up swing sets in random places between my see-saws, creating hazards, view obstructions, distractions and time-sucks as I have to stop all see-saw related activities and take down the sets. I’m not sure who insists on putting them up repeatedly, or why. I’ve tried to hire park security, but they seem to be a waste of money.

The past year the park vandal brought in some pretty large swing sets. It’s one thing to spend an evening taking down a basic A-frame with one swing: a sick kid, a flat tire, a dog that saw the open gate before you did. It’s another to take down a 6 swing set with a glider at one end and a slide at the other. The past few years, I’ve disassembled a lot of gliders, leaving less time and energy to focus on the see-saws. Some see-saws just waited. They were delivered, but stayed in the box. Some had to balance at a 25 degree angle for a while, rising slowly, as time allowed. I had to choose which see-saws had the greatest impact, the best view potential, or were just positioned in the way of the high value rides, so they had to get erected first. I spent time switching which priorities were opposite another so no one true priority was neglected. The longest of see-saws stayed in pieces, even if I had already taken them out of the box. I had to do what was necessary to keep the park open. 2 big see-saws serving 4 patrons garners less profit than 8 smaller ones serving 16, even with an upcharge. Business 101.

While worrying about my unfinished projects, I scrolled past a question a friend posted on the internet that got me thinking. “What are you most proud of from this past year?” My answer: Survival. Sometimes stopping to realize that you had 8 see-saws with 16 priorities all in working order after three years of taking down glider after glider is a moment to be noticed. Then there’s the moment after when you look down at your hands and see the wear, tear, scrapes and scars from endless demolition and and realize you can still make a fist. That moment is felt. It’s felt at a deep level. One that explores the depths of the exhaustion and revisits the trauma from late nights building alone in a dark park. It observes the pain in your fingers when you unclench your fist and wonders how long it will be before it all heals. You feel the sense of relief that the last of the slides has been hauled away and a sense of accomplishment that it didn’t take the whole park down during demolition. The park survived. You survived. None of your see-saws go very high right now, none have more than a mediocre view, but you’re here with all the toys in-tact and you can now restart the work on each of those projects to find the best view. Sometimes surviving is the absolute best you can do. Sometimes it’s not the bare minimum. Sometimes it takes more effort and attention than any project you’ve ever encountered. Sometimes the best view is simply the one you have standing at the edge of your park entrance admiring that you have a park to play in at all.

I don’t believe in balance. I’ve been through too much at this point to put my efforts into trying to achieve the unachievable, for starters. Secondly, you don’t get to see the horizon if your see-saws are perfectly flat. I believe in fate and having a little faith. While surviving the last few years, at no point did I have any flat see-saws, but I made it anyways and balance was anything but the answer. What I did realize is that every unordered swing set to suddenly appear in my life came with pieces I can use to weigh down, prop up or adjust a saw and will help me reach a see saws potential in a simpler way later on. Every swing set demolition came without instructions and its own, unique, craftsmanship I had to re-verse engineer to complete; inadvertently teaching me something about construction, mechanics or physics. I didn’t want any of those swing sets, and I dread the day I wake up to a new one, but, in some way I ended up needing something from all of them.

Violet,

This year you had your first struggles with balancing life. First grade was not what you expected and you want to be playing 24/7 had you hating class time. You struggled with balancing who to play with, and struggled with balancing your new obsession with your best friend vs spending time with other kids. You struggled with not always getting what you want. You wanted to play with your best friend at school, but his other friend was against it and you hated that other little boy for standing in your way. You fought for your time, but eventually we had to tell you that it wasn’t fair to your friend to put him in the middle and you could play with him at home. You seemed to acquiesce. Then your started to play with Annie. Annie and you became great friends and you made a few others along the way as well. You struggled with balancing wants vs needs, as some days you felt too tired to get ready for dance class on a Saturday morning, regardless of how much you love it, and you definitely struggled with the time it took to do homework vs doing, well, anything else. You wanted freedom and playtime and first grade started to bring responsibilities you weren’t used to. Responsibilities in way of chores and work and schedules, but also responsibility with other peoples feelings and how to balance those with your own. Finding those boundaries was sometimes hard and the drama in your life at six was real. Every step of the way felt a little unfair and every time you compromised it felt a little one-sided as your wants felt so much more important than the needs. But, you can’t always get what you want. If you did, your see-saw would be high on one side, but buried on the other and you’d never be able to get down. If you can’t get down, you can’t build other see-saws and the novelty from the view on top would wear off.

My wish for your this year is that as time rolls on and your see-saw park gets bigger and the see-saws longer, you learn to accept your wants are only really worth it when the needs are tended to. The sense of accomplishment when nothing is below ground level relieves stress all on it’s own, and will allow the time and energy to focus on getting the one see-saw you’re most excited about to the top. Learn to prioritize. Your problems and balancing acts may be small at 6, but they will become more complicated as life moves along, and you will inevitably encounter some swing sets along the way. Remember that those swing sets may feel heavy and intrusive, but they are how you learn the mechanics and find the weight to apply to get your best see-saws to the top.

Never feel unaccomplished on the days you need to just survive. Sometimes popcorn for dinner means no one goes to bed hungry and the dishes are minimal, balancing the scale just enough for that day to call it for the night. Survival always comes first. Sometimes an all-nighter to finish off that one amazing see-saw is what’s needed to get you to the top, allowing more time to enjoy the view. And sometimes taking a few nights off to admire that you have a park at all is the respite that saves it and guarantees future growth.

Your spunky personality and pure zest for life will have you mapping out your park early, and your big imagination and limitless mind-set will have you dreaming of see-saws for miles. See-saws like that don’t get built on perfect balance. They get built on hard work, perseverance, and drive. As you take on more, don’t forget to count your see-saws and recognize when some deliveries need to stay in the box for just a little longer. Also, take note of your hands, realize when they are tired and need time to heal, because you can’t build without them.

I am so excited to watch your park grow and see what your vision brings. I will always support your want for bigger and better see-saws, and will be here to help take down the swing sets and set aside the pieces I think may help you keep your park in motion.

Happy 7th Birthday, Peaches. May your pure love of life keep you always rising and never bored.

Love, Mom

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you’ll find, you get what you need.”

– Rolling Stones

‘There’s No Such Thing as a Happy Perfectionist’

“There’s no such thing as a happy perfectionist” – Robert J. Estlund

There are three main laws of thermodynamics, in layman’s terms:

1. Energy can not be created nor destroyed; all energy that ever was, still is.

2. For spontaneous process, the entropy of the universe must increase.

3. A perfect crystal must have zero entropy.

For those of you in the room, like me, that barely passed physics, entropy essentially means chaos.  In scientific terms, chaos is used to describe anything other than a perfect alignment of all parts. In other words; perfection.   

A spontaneous process is any change that happens naturally, without outside influence.  Gravity, burning wood, breathing; all examples of spontaneous processes; none of which we could live without. 

A naturally occurring, perfect crystal does not exist. Perfection does not exist. It physically isn’t a thing. If it did, we wouldn’t be able to breath.

This year, my grandmother died, my husband almost did- multiple times, and my 9-year-old became a perfectionist that also started discussing philosophical theories surrounding the afterlife and creation of the universe.

My life is never dull.

One of the theories he’s considering is that of the Mayan calendar: We’re all dead and everything that’s happened since December 21, 2012 has really been a dream that we’ve had as we were dying and that these last 10 years hasn’t really been more than a few minutes as we slip away.  It just feels like a decade. In this theory, his sister, who was born in 2016, doesn’t really exist, which he considers not only plausible, but a bonus. All the more reason to believe. 

The concept of mortality and purpose has become a resounding theme for me. Debates of societal norms and expectations vs. ‘we have one life – fuck society and it’s ideals’ was a silent debate I often had with myself.  As I watched what happens when one’s energy changes from vibrant to struggling on a daily basis and listened to my grandmother tell me stories of her past and explain her fears of the unknown afterlife, I struggled with wondering what the point of it all is.  Is it accomplishment? Happiness? Legacy? To raise more and better humans to aid in the continuation of the species?  Is it pure enjoyment?  Maybe the ‘YOLO’ trend had some merit. Hell, maybe the Mayans (and Sawyer) were right and we’re all already dead and living in this alternative universe between dead and alive and therefore there is no point because none of this is real.  I haven’t decided yet.

My grandmother was a force.  She defied a lot of odds in her 94 years of life and carried with her a big personality that had no patience for downtime. She was a God-fearing survivor with a lot of insecurities, but she was never shy. She drove like she had a death wish, she cooked as if a whole village might show up at her doorstep and she kept house as if the Queen was never more than a block away. She motivated others with a side of guilt, she was always up for a cocktail (or 3) and for the first 20 years of my life, every time I got a haircut, she told me I looked like a movie star. She loved Bingo, scratch offs and never failed to flirt with a good-looking man, even at 94…she tried to set my sister up with the doctor in the hospital the day she died.  She was the life of the party; full of energy and spunk and she smiled with her eyes in a way that made you feel like you were in on a secret. She was also particular.  There was a right and a wrong way to do things, and I learned in the last few years that she had some regrets, most of which seemed to surround her perfectionism that sometimes prevented her from acting on her empathy.  Empathy disrupts things, denial is easier. If things can simply continue as planned, we can say it’s OK, and If we say it’s OK, it must be.  Like I said, she was a survivor, and this is one of many reasons why. But in the end, she was afraid she wasn’t good enough on earth to save her soul and go straight to heaven. She was afraid of the unknown and the lack of control. –‘It might be wonderful, but what if it isn’t?’  Because of that fear, she hung on longer than she probably wanted to.  I thought she was going to live forever.  She always told me she would, and I think part of me believed her. I haven’t really grieved much since she died, and I don’t know if it’s because I grieved when she moved into the nursing home and life for her as I knew it would never be the same, or if it’s because I knew she was ready to be done living like she was, and therefore it made it easier to accept. Maybe I just haven’t had the time to grasp that she’s gone because I would go stretches without seeing her when life got busy. Maybe I’m just in a bit of denial and haven’t had the opportunity to process everything that’s happened in the last few months.  Or maybe I just know she’s not really gone – she’s just changed. After all, all energy that ever was, still is and she was a force. Wild with energy. But I do miss her smile.  I think about it often.

I have fewer answers, fewer conclusions as I have in my past blogs. I think this year hit different.  Everything I knew life to be stopped being. Everything I planned life to become, took a turn down an unfamiliar path I can’t come back from. Several pillars of familiarity and stability I had, seemed to disappear, and I very much felt dropped in the middle of an unknown country, navigating my way through a busy city where I don’t speak the language. It’s one thing to find your way out when you know where you’re trying to go.  Eventually finding your way home is an option. People will help you learn the language or offer a map with pictorial directions to get you back the way you came.  But when you don’t know how you got here and you don’t know where you’re going, even if you do learn the language, no one can help you navigate your way to ‘nowhere’. 

I hung on to any control I had left with a death grip. I made every attempt to control the chaos as life changed and put the pieces back in place, seeking them out and lining them up. Trying to make all the new shapes and sizes fit.  I mean this both figuratively and literally.  By July I had assigned spots for all items in my refrigerator and if something was purchased that wasn’t part of the original plan, I was annoyed.  Well, mad. Annoyed doesn’t accurately describe that particular tantrum. 

But the chaos continues to take over because that’s how change occurs. I’ve found myself with no choice but to aqueous to spontaneous process, for I’ve learned to pick my battles and I will not win a war against physics. I live 12 hours at a time. I don’t let myself cry for more than 60 seconds.  I make few commitments in advance, and I no longer spend time justifying my responses or reasonings to others, as that is a waste of energy in an effort to align myself to be viewed in someone else’s cloudy crystal. I’ve learned that energy alters, it moves… it does not disappear. I got a D in physics, so apparently the universe felt I needed to learn this the hard way. So, as the landscapes change and the roads take unfamiliar turns and the familiar become memories, I no longer ask how to get home.  Instead, I ask for how to get to the next safe spot to rest, because moving energy is constant and exhausting. Until I have an idea of where I am going, there are no other directions to give.  So, when I find myself thirsty and stranded in a desert when I was ocean side 12 hours before, I simply ask for the closest watering hole and then I rest, drink and asses the current situation.  I do my best to let go in the areas I am able and see where the chaos takes me. For, if I continue to force an alignment of parts and pieces that are no longer what they were, I will suffocate myself and those around me.  Striving for control is nothing more than planning for perfect, and a wise man once told me: ‘There’s no such thing as a happy perfectionist’. A perfect crystal cannot exist. 

During the last 4 years of my grandma’s life, I spent more time with her one-on-one than I did the previous 35, and I could regret not spending more time with her prior, but instead I find myself grateful that those 4 years happened when they did, because I didn’t take them for granted. I asked questions, I heard stories, she told me how she felt about things, and what I took away from all of that was that she truly loved life and people and her passionate nature allowed her to control the energy around her.  She watched her mother die as a child and 80 years later, I could still see the pain in her eyes when she told me what happened and how they carried on after.  In turn, I saw her eyes light up when she told me the story of how she met my grandfather working in a factory and I saw her eyes smile and wink when she told me how she blackmailed her dad in to giving her a quarter every Sunday to not tell her mom when he went to the bar instead of to church.  Her only real regret seemed to be not stopping to take stock in the situations around her and adjust accordingly.  She wished she could have had a better bedside manner when my grandpa was sick, and that she had grasped the severity of my aunt’s cancer and flown down to be with her during treatments.  She said she spent more time trying to keep things as they were to keep from worrying and since she had never experienced illness in those ways personally, it was easy enough to deny their hardship. She thought she had been self-involved and lacked empathy in hindsight.  But I knew her better than that. She wasn’t self-involved and didn’t lack empathy, she unknowingly survived on anxiety. She loved life and feared change, so striving for planned and perfect kept the unknown at bay. 94 years later, this was her only true regret.  I hope at 94, I will have lived a life I can recount with the same heart-felt detail, have just as few regrets and smile in a way my children will think about when I’m gone. 

Sawyer,

This year you got mad. You had waited patiently last year for Murphy to take his law and move on, but he seemed to stick around and you finally had enough of his shit.  You’ve always been a dreamer as well as a creative with a logical approach and nothing about this last year made sense to you.  You hung on tight to ideas and ideals and you pushed back hard…holding me accountable for every upset that came your way.  There were days I didn’t recognize you and it broke my heart.  As you get older, it’s become apparent that you’re perceptive on a deep level and your tolerance for bullshit (and most people) is slim.  You spend your time thinking about the bigger things in life, like the black hole, the size of the universe, creation and spirituality. You’ve asked questions this year looking more for opinion than factual answers, like what I think happens when one dies and how the earth came to be, and if God really did create everything, how did dinosaurs and people not co-exist?  You asked me what language God speaks because you were worried that he may not understand someone when they got to Heaven.  You asked a lot of things this year I didn’t have concrete answers to, and it made me realize what an old soul you truly are.

To understand the chaos, your instinct was to prepare for the worst. To ease the anxiety, you wanted to understand the ‘why’ and ‘what if’s’ of our life.  Some days we had fascinating conversations about a parallel universe and what conclusions you had settled on, and why they maybe didn’t agree with mine. Other days you were so frustrated that no one can give you the exact answers to ease your mind that it caused trust issues and fighting… So. Much. Fighting.   These trust issues caused perfectionism as you began to live in fear of the unknown and the best way to combat fear is to have everything be as it was planned. But there’s no such thing as a happy perfectionist.

What I want you know someday is that this year was hard.  It was hard for me; it was hard for you. It was hard for your dad and your sister (I hope by now you’ve accepted she really does exist). Now, look back and realize that we survived it.  I want you to take a moment whenever you read this and think back and notice that we got through to the other side, and although we have a long way to go yet, and I can’t predict the future, as I am writing this, you are asleep in your bed, right where you should be. You are OK. You will always find a way to be OK because you are strong, and you are not alone, for you are surrounded by the energy of those of us that love you, by those that have passed, by the energy you so strongly absorb from others, and I will always be here for you.  

By age 10, you have seen more ‘life’ and its fragility than many see before 40, and as much as I would hit a reset button on your last few years in a heartbeat if I could, I also know that because of these years, you will be able to walk winding paths and learn languages others couldn’t even consider.  As you inhale and feel your lungs fill with air, remember that life has a way of shaking up the energy to make space for new things, and while you wait for the dust to settle so you can see the new path, rest and acceptance is best.  Learn what to do and not do from watching instead of planning.   Find ways to be better at this in the moment than I am and handle the chaos with more grace and fewer tantrums. If you can accept now that nothing is or ever will be exactly what you planned, that perfection does not exist, and that you’re better off trusting physics than fighting it, you will be happier, more content, more successful and breathe easier every day no matter what foreign city you find yourself standing in. 

You are smart, competitive, intuitive and think with your whole body. You drive me crazy with your constant need to talk back, demand answers and reject rules or directions.  But I know that someday, all of those qualities mean you will advocate for yourself, you will be able to lead others and you will have both instincts and empathy.  You will be more likely to question things first so you will be taken advantage of less, and I wish I had been more like you at a younger age.  Please don’t allow your anxiety and quest to create a perfect crystal overpower these qualities. If you hone them, you will be the force that guides the energy instead of just survives it. 

Happy 10^th Birthday, Peanut.  Please know that I will worry about you and for you every day of your life so you don’t have to, because there’s no such thing as a happy perfectionist and my wish for you this year is that you re-learn to trust and feel secure again, but my biggest wish for you in life is simply that you’re happy. Here’s to double digits- may the next 10 years bring you clarity in ways that allows your head to rest while your old and fearless soul learns to embrace entropy with a smile, like you’re in on the secret.

Love,

Mom.

Right: Grandma Ginny and Sawyer playing checkers, June 2019
Left: Sawyer (9) and Justin, May 2022

Rest in Peace Virginia Letizia,
I will forever feel your energy and miss your smile.
November 21, 1927 – July 17, 2022

Soaking Wet.

Water is one of natures greatest forces. A requirement to sustain all life, allowing it to grow and thrive while also holding the ability to engulf entire cities, leveling everything built and familiar, leaving a pile of rubble to be sorted through. Navigating the rain, while still appreciating its contribution, is a balancing act.

I’ve sat down to write this at least half a dozen times now.  Writer’s block is real. I’ve struggled to come up with exactly what I want to say and turn it in to something cohesive.  I think this happens when I’m in the downpour.  When my hair is wet, I’m soaked all the way through and I can hear the squish in my shoes as I walk. I’m past the point of worrying about the cold and hesitating to get wet. At this point I’m too busy looking for overhangs to stop under for a moment so I can wipe my eyes and continue to see my way out of the rain. Writing takes clarity.  Writing happens when I’ve had a chance to towel off, remove my shoes and feel the contrast of a warm blanket against wet skin. Writing happens when I can stop and watch the storm from a covered porch, count the seconds between the lightening and thunder and get a sense of how close it really was.  Writing comes in that time between wet and dry. When my skin is still moist, but I can see well enough to notice the way drops hit the ground and reflect the street lights with a shimmery effect. It happens when I can feel my toes warm up and I have that sense of comfort that comes with feeling cleansed after a good soaking. The one that lets me sit with wet hair in dry pajamas and watch the rain with a cup of tea from the window before I am able to relax enough to sleep.  It doesn’t happen when I’m still focused on finding shelter.

Every year so far, I’ve struggled a bit with writing Violet’s birthday blog.  I spent some time this week trying to figure out why. I think it mostly comes down to timing. Her birthday is May 5^th and April is often my ‘wettest’ month.  Bipolar disorder is cyclical. Ups and downs, often in a pattern.   Down is wet. Up is dry.  Writing happens during… ‘damp’.  Sometimes I’m still ankle deep in a puddle on May 5^th.  But, shelter eventually comes, and every so often I have to force myself to find temporary refuge to dry off in for a little so I can think through her year and mine and take a few minutes to not just sit in the wet, but feel the rain, because she deserves that, and that’s just what moms do. 

So, as I took a few extra days to find the words, I did a lot thinking about what was truly the most significant thing for Violet this past year.  Who is she today now that she’s 6, versus who she was as she was just starting 5, and what influenced those changes the most. I think it was friends.  A year ago, she was just getting to start in-person pre-K, and she was a little shy and a bit introverted and I worried about how she’d do socially. Today, I don’t think I’ve ever met a little girl as vibrant, confident, happy and social.  She found a sense of humor, a sense of mischief and a sense of self she simply didn’t have a year earlier.  She likes to be just a little sneaky in an effort to keep herself entertained, and she is willing to play alone, but would prefer a partner in crime every time.  She has made several friends she can play for hours with without upset, and one ‘frenemy’ in class that she can’t decide if she loves or hates.  It seems to depend on the day.  She’s still the same little diva she was at two, who loves make up and dresses and wanted a mani/pedi for her birthday this year, to which she confidently wore her lime green ‘Encanto’ costume glasses, because she thought they made her look more fashionable.  Her confidence is real.  It’s inspirational, and I hope that nothing in the years to come knocks her down. Making friends seems so easy for her. She is innately happy and people gravitate towards her because she exudes positive energy.  She literally sleeps with a smile.

At this point, she has no signs that she will ever have to weather a monsoon season. Maybe that’s why it’s so much harder to figure out what to write for her.  I write about life, things I’ve learned, things I want my kids to know someday.  I write so they can someday read these, hear my voice and know what their mom would likely say if they came to me for my take on anything in life.  To do that, I think I need to feel I have something better to offer than what they would come up with on their own, and she seems to have life figured out.  She seems better at it than I am most days. She approaches things with sensitivity and humor, and she finds the silver lining in almost anything. Her clouds don’t produce monsoons. They provide just enough rain to water the earth, clean the sidewalks and allow her garden to grow. Every part of me wants to freeze time for her right now in an effort to let her eternally stay exactly as she is: happy, confident, loving and smiling, so she never needs to refer to these letters to find guidance.  But, as much as I have demanded she stay little for me, she continues to grow up and with growing up, life will happen. So, for now I think the best I can do is to take a few moments in my personal monsoon season and let myself feel the rain of the past few months and figure out what it is that kept me from drowning this time around. I think the answer to that question is also: friends.

Life changed a lot in the past year.  It became almost unrecognizable at times and figuring out how to navigate it from day to day was often overwhelming.  Some things you simply can’t prepare for no matter how hard you try and at some point, you give up trying.  Planning became a habit I had to break, which means I also stopped making plans with friends almost completely.  I simply didn’t have the time, the ability to commit, the guarantee I could show up, or the ability to put my own chaos aside to listen or talk about anything other than my own anxieties.  I became hyper focused on getting through each day, and mentally preparing for what could come next but without making any actual plans for whatever it might be.  I used to be a decent listener.  I used to be the one people came to and then life happened in big ways and it started to rain.  Some days it just sprinkled, others flash floods had me wondering if I had time to build and ark. But I didn’t have to. Other people in my life stopped by with umbrellas and life rafts along the way, stopping to listen, check in, force me to step out for a drink or letting me talk in circles for a few hours.  And usually, those small moments of reprieve were enough to let me wring out my clothes and feel like I could go back into the storm with a renewed sense of direction. 

Oddly enough, I hate to talk about the weather.  Small talk isn’t something I’m a fan of. I don’t want to discuss if it might rain, I want to know how you react to it, what you do with it when it comes… Do you take walks in the rain to hide your tears, or do you dance in it to feel the mud in your toes and let it cleanse the day? Do you avoid it, and all things wet, to minimize any impact it may have on you, or do you simply stay in to enjoy watching it hit the windows and fall asleep to the thunder that will clear the skies for a brighter tomorrow? I want to know how the rain makes you feel; not just if you love or hate the rain, but why. Then maybe we can love or hate the rain together. 

I’m an extrovert and a deep thinker, and it seems to be a misalignment in my personality.  As a result, I often give people answers when they say ‘how are you?’ that they didn’t realize they were signing up for.  How much I said or long I kept them used to give me pause and sometimes make me cringe when I’d reflect back on it later.  I’ve stopped worrying about it. I realized this year that it may be a misalignment, but it isn’t one I would change. It may make people initially uncomfortable, but it also means I have more close relationships than most. It means I’m practiced at discussing things that are important when the monsoon hits, so I had people that were able to offer the occasional umbrella. Because I had of put in the time, effort and openness into forming relationships in the past, I had people that were not only able to offer the umbrella but were willing to.  If you tell people “I’m fine” all the time, even if they can see you need an umbrella, human nature is to accept that answer.  If you aren’t willing to stand underneath it for a moment, they will only chase after you for so many blocks. This year, I needed a little extra coverage, and people showed up.  Be it to talk, or offer a helping hand, they were there and I am eternally grateful for that, for not all storms can be weathered alone.

Violet,

This year, you made friends; and although I know you weren’t engaged in deep conversations at five, watching you be charismatic, understanding and welcoming to so many new people in your life was amazing. The joy you can bring to a room when you enter it is a natural gift not everyone has, and your default state of ‘happy’ is something I hope you never take for granted. For if you realize the gift you have, you will be able to be there for others not just when they need it the most, but every day for the big things and the small and have a wide reach if you ever need that favor returned. 

My wish for you this year is that as you learn to make friends, you foster the relationships with those you feel close to and become comfortable enough that you are able to be open, share and feel close to more than the average number of people.  It’s that you learn to find the right balance of offering umbrellas as much as you need them, and learn to make sure that when you take someone else’s shelter, you don’t in turn allow them to get soaked, so you find yourself with a support system in places you would never have expected.

You’re going to get wet sometimes. That’s life. It’s necessary so you appreciate the good days and cleanse the bad. If you continue to offer to be the confident ray sunshine on your dry days as you have been for me this year and learn to truly be there for all the friends you make so easily, your rainy days will come with a row of umbrellas and colorful houses to seek shelter that will allow you to dry your face and simply feel the rain.

Happy 6^th birthday, Peaches. May your love of life and people keep the world wishing it had more of you and in turn allow you the reprieve needed to stop for a pedicure during a storm.

Love, Mom

“Some people feel the rain, others just get wet” – Bob Marley

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His name is Murphy, and he’s a little bitch.

“The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.” – Murphy’s Law

I’m late. Sawyer’s birthday was yesterday. I had promised myself that I would always get their birthday blogs posted on, or before their birthday, and for 9 years, I made that happen. Seems like a silly rule, especially because they won’t read these for almost another decade, but I know my kid. He will notice, he will say something. I WILL get called out, someday. But today, I’m practicing a little grace for myself. I tried to stay up the last few nights to write this, but exhaustion got the better of me, and I decided quality was better than timing. So, I’m late, and that’s just… life. Murphey and his law have set up camp and seem to have pre-paid for an extended stay. So, as we wait out his stint of pure chaos and stand by as he sets off random bombs at random times, we live on alert, with back up plans to our back up plans and take life day by day. We’ve learned to forgive tantrums, from the children and adults, as well realize that what gets done, gets done, and if that means rooms are messy, dishes are left, lessons and deadlines get missed, it is what it is. Only the most important things get handled, and what’s considered important today is very different to what was considered important 12 months ago.

The other night, the house was finally quiet. I was alone in my room around 11pm and the day had been a blur. Honestly, the last 2 months have been a blur. I’ve barely stopped moving, thinking, planning, doing in almost 18 months now, but the last 2 have been particularly stressful. I sat down, I closed my eyes and I exhaled and realized that I couldn’t. My chest was tight, it hurt to breath, exhaling fully wasn’t an option. Neither was inhaling. My vision narrowed and things got a bit hazy as I felt my heart rate escalate and I start to shake just a little from the inside out. I was starting to have a panic attack. The day was over, I was alone in a quiet room and the panic set in because I’m not supposed to fully exhale. ever. I’m no stranger to panic attacks, they don’t send me spiraling or create some onset of concern. They just are. They are a physical response to stress, fear, exhaustion, or excess adrenaline. Once they are over, I feel like I ran a marathon, and I’m tired. Sometimes for days. My chest feels the discomfort that you get when you inhale on a cold day, and the icy air fills your lungs, and you can feel that strain. That feeling will sit with me. It travels through to my back and I can breath, but it will stay there to remind me not to fully exhale. It’s my body telling me that it doesn’t know what to do if I stop holding my breath, if you relax completely, Murphy could leave his rented room, and decide to take a hammer to the pipes, or set the curtains on fire, and you could get caught off guard, because you’re too busy breathing. Stand at attention, be alert, be ready for action. Like a wild dog half sleeping outside it’s den, one eye slightly open, always ready. Just in case.

When I was younger, I would have these attacks while in the moment of the stressful event. During the test, while running late for your first day at a new job, in the middle of an argument with someone. They would come on as the adrenaline in my brain would spike. These days, its less common to have them in the moment of crisis. They tend to happen after, when I take a moment to be OK, which is better. It gives me the ability to handle them. Allows me to not make a crisis moment worse than it already is. Maybe it shifted with maturity, maybe I just learned to use the heightened chemicals to power through instead of panic, but that excess hormone needs to be used up eventually. It needs somewhere to go. I’m not clear on the science behind it all, but what I do know is that they are easier today than they were at 20. They don’t suck less, they are just easier. I don’t panic because of the panic. I consider that a win.

I suppose that’s a sign of adaptability, in it’s own way. Fact is, my brain over produces certain chemicals and daily medications sometimes just aren’t enough, and coping mechanisms sometimes are needed, or Xanex. Coping is healthier. Adapting is something humans do. Not because we want to, we most certainly don’t want to. But, we do evolve, sometimes individually within our lifetime based on experiences, and sometimes over generations, but it does happen to all living things at some point. It’s inevitable. I think the key is to accept that fact and try to practice some sembelance of grace with ourselves and others and their current abilities, because adaption will happen and it’s not always at the pace we want or need it to be. “This too shall pass” always seemed like a futile statment to me. It seemed like something people said when they didn’t know what to say, or were dismissing your crisis, as a crisis. But, maybe it’s more of a statement to wait for abilitiy to handle it, for the moment to panic and process, for lull between storms to regroup, for something to alter your perspective and alter whats considered a crisis. It’s a statement telling you to wait for the next the time that Murphey drops the buttered bread, but instead of being upset that its buttered-side down, assume it will be, have a reliable carpet cleaner on hand, and be happy it wasn’t peanut butter.

Sawyer,

This year, you looked at me and told me you hated life as virtual school dragged on, you went on medication for ADHD and had to handle side effects and moods swings and bordeom you didn’t know was possible. You watched me have panic attacks, and saw your dad get sick, and had to realized your parents are humans way earlier than most children do, and you froze when you saw your dad tear up in fear and frustration for the first time in your life, never knowing he had the ability to cry or that dad’s were even capable of being scared. You fought tears for no reason and struggled with understanding why there were feelings when the day had presented no real reason for them in that moment, and you had to accept changing plans and routines and responsibility you had never had before. You learned to wait, and you felt feelings of resentment and anger, and you learned to power through. The other day you made a statement that was both heartbreaking, but also pride-inducing, as our plans were cancelled once again, and as I braced myself for a melt-down from you, you simply said ” it’s ok… I figured that would happen. We’ve had nothing but bad luck for like 2 years.” It broke my heart that in the thick of your childhood, you have to do anything but just enjoy being a kid, but I was also proud of your for being able to accept the situation immediately, and although you had feelings, and you didnt ignore your disappointment, you were able to control it and find a way to understand the reasoning behind it and think about the other people involved and how much we are all doing to simply get through each day. In that moment, I simply said that ‘bad luck doesn’t last forever, this too shall pass.’ And although, I can’t predict the future, and I can’t tell you when or how, I do know that simply your ability to slowly tackle what’s infront of you and power through will make each of Murphy’s tricks less tricky as time moves along.

As you turn 9, my wish for you is that this next year is easier, not just by our luck changing, but by you finding your own coping mechanisms, whether they are 11pm panic attacks, or diving into a ‘Dog Man’ comic book to find a reason to laugh when life gives you nothing to smile about. It’s for finding a way to realize that sometimes Murphy shows up and he can be a complete asshole, but that accepting him as a part of life allows us to be better prepared in the wake of his destruction. This too shall pass, and when it does, don’t forget to take a few minutes to reflect, learn and know that it’s OK to not be OK for just a little while. Crying is a human response, regardless of your age or gender, and you don’t ever need a reason in the moment to be upset. Sometimes, you’re processing something that’s already over. Keep your world filled with things that make you laugh, and go to sleep reading or remincing on those things or moments, because that’s what will allow a bit of happy that will ultimately provide clarity to better handle Murphy and his bullshit tomorrow.

Your growth and maturity this year, especially the last few months, as been noticeable and impressive and I’m so proud with how much better you handled this year than you would have only a year ago. As you find your voice, sarcasm, coping mechanisms and happy moments, remember you’re never alone, we will always be here to help you clean up Murphy’s mess.

Happy 9th Birthday kiddo, you’re one of a kind and so much stronger than you know.

Love you to the moon and back,

Mom

“When you’re going through hell, keep going” – Winston Churchill

Butterfly Language

“You can’t speak butterfly language with caterpillar people.”-Unknown

This year, everything happened.  The world was literally set on fire, by humans, by nature, by God.  From the Australian bushfires, to the west coast wildfires, to the streets in divided cities, and a town in Lebanon with explosives kept where they probably shouldn’t be.  Death became a daily discussion.  ‘How many died from the pandemic today?’ was a stat I often checked, as we watched numbers rise, and called our friends, family and neighbors to offer condolences for such a tragic way to lose someone.  I know I did on four separate occasions. The celebrity death toll seemed higher this year…Van-Halen, Alex Trebek and Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, we lost some of the greats that held our nation together in forms of justice and entertainment, forming comradery that bridged polarity, even if for only a few moments at a time.  Maybe it just felt excessive. With little else to do than watch our notifications light up on our new life behind screens, we were all so in-tune with the tragedy and we felt the divide of our world become a step wider in such a time we were so desperate to find ways to close the gap.   Murder Hornets and and angry, starving, monkeys forming violent gangs that stormed Thai City, winds so strong they formed fire tornados, and a waterfall ‘fell up’. A blue star disappeared without explanation. The Earth an God remined us that nature will always be a stronger force, putting us in our place, as we struggle as a human race to find new ways to survive, while aggressively resisting change at the same time. We are often our own worst enemy.  Most of us re-learned how to do our jobs as our offices were shut down and our children sent home. New markets emerged, saving the economy as we, the people, adapted to find ways to save ourselves, our livelihoods, our children, and our businesses when the security of the known was stripped from us in a matter of days. Technology became our savior, while puzzles, birthday parades and Tiger King became our sanity.   UFO’s were spotted, water was found on the moon and a woman of color became the vice president of the United States   Everything happened. 

Unless you were four.  If you were four, nothing happened. Kindergartens were cancelled, friends were at a premium, and sharing became a thing you were told not to do.  Day in and day out, you woke up and waited.  Waited for mom and dad to have time between meetings, waited for your virtual class to begin, waited to meet your new friends on screen in person someday.  You waited for your sibling to finish their homework.  You waited for someone to have a minute to get you a snack, because there isn’t someone there to focus on just your needs like there was before.  You waited for someone to have the time, energy, want, to play with you.  You waited and waited and waited.  But little happened for an entire year.  You watched the stress around you and wondered why everyone was upset when nothing was happening. You listened to business conversations you didn’t understand, and you wondered if you ever would. This was life if you were four.  If you were four in my house, you colored and got too skilled using a tablet and you embraced the time someone did a puzzle with you.  You remember the weeks everyone had Covid-19 and Thanksgiving was cancelled as the few weeks dad stayed home all day with you on the couch.  You remember that Thanksgiving as the best, because we did family crafts in quarantine, and your 12 day fever finally broke.  You remember the night mom carried you from your bed to hers to sleep cuddled up, as one of your favorite nights. You talk about it often.  You don’t know that that happened because protests were on your street, the police were called and your mom pulled you upstairs incase a riot broke out when they showed up and stray bullets went flying. You embraced the  snuggle, unknowing it was done not only in love, but also in fear.  As the world felt like Armageddon to the adults, you stayed in your home, and simply waited. 

For four year old Violet this year, imagination was her everything.  Fantasy, stories and flat out lies in an effort to make life interesting was the key to getting through the day. It was not uncommon for her to ask adult questions in an adult manner in an effort to keep up with conversations, as she lacked people her own age to talk to.  “So, mom – how was your day today?  Did work go well for you?”, became a daily dinnertime question, as she tried really hard to be a grown up.  Her brother became your best friend and biggest frustration, as he grew less inclined to humor her as the months rolled on. She tried her best to take interest in his interests, as she learned about Minecraft, and watched Ninjago; retelling the episode-faking excitement, while she quickly turned on Shaun the Sheep and sing-a-long cartoons the minute he walked away, because those  were age-appropriate shows she could actually follow. She was a bit lonely and tried to make the best of it.  Nothing became her everything as life was cocooned inside her own head, imagining what it would be like to have her own real-life unicorn, making sure to promptly put that on her Christmas list. Her stuffed animals came to life when she closed her bedroom door, and each one developed a personality, and became her audience for dance performances, her students while she taught, and her children when she wished she could be the mom.  She created a world unlike any other, where dogs can talk, pet pigs are named Monique and if it isn’t colorful, it isn’t allowed. A world spun from months of nothing where she could experience everything. When stuffed animals weren’t enough, Rose would stop by.  Rose is 2, she’s a cousin, and she’s imaginary.  

Rose is an interesting girl, who mostly comes over at night, for a sleepover. Her parents are fine if she stops by randomly in the middle of the night, so often we had a set up of blankets on the floor for her bed. Because she was only 2, she didn’t say much, so Violet had to speak for her, and she could ride in the front seat, because there isn’t enough room in the back for three kids, and she didn’t feel it was safe for her to ride in the middle.  Somehow, riding up front without a child seat was safer than riding bitch. Violet said it’s because she can’t be too crowded in the back when I questioned her logic.  Rose lives an exciting life for a two year old.  She had an immense amount of freedom, and her parents miss her, but know she prefers being at our house, so they let her stay for days on end.  Rose was someone to talk to.  Rose was someone she got to be bigger than. Rose was someone that had no rules and got to come and go as she pleased.  Some days, especially over the winter, Rose was her only friend.  But she was the best friend one could have because Rose understood her.  She never had to repeat or explain herself to Rose. She never had to offer a reason why the stuffed dogs name changed three times this week, and if she decided to take credit for something she didn’t do (which was a common occurrence), Rose was never the wiser.  Rose brought color, experiences and companionship.  Rose was her fellow butterfly in a world of caterpillars. 

I am grateful for Rose. In this year of everything, I spent my days surviving. Day in and day out, I felt like I was drowning and keeping my head above water ultimately became the only goal. My new baseline for success. This comes with a side of guilt, as I know that my prioritizations for each day were rarely on playing with her in the absence of others. My bandwidth for entertaining her wild challenges of cause and effect was often limited to non-existant, and when she would seek me out and interupt a meeting to ask “What if every time you ate a bite of mac and cheese, you turned into a dog?! That’d be SO funny.” I’m sure my response of “I’m working, go back downstairs” wasn’t helpful in her quest for companionship. I was a caterpillar, stuck in this life of responsibility and stress, going day in and day out, moving from one green leaf to the next, in an effort to nourish, sustain and cocoon our life in order to survive. Meanwhile, Rose laughed at her jokes, and had time to indulge her stories, making her feel noticed.

Then she had her first day of in-person school. She was so excited and also nervous, and she realized she was going to go into this place she had never really been, with all of these people she had never met in person, and for the first time in a year, she was going to be away from me for the entire day without a choice. She hugged her nap mat with her oversized backpack on, and begged me not to leave her there. For the first time, she was genuinely anxious and her year of nothing that created her world of everything was suddenly left at home for the day. She hesitantly followed her line into that class, and I watched her until she was inside and I went home to a very quiet house. I cried. I cried for the relief I felt that the house was quiet and I could focus. I cried for her, knowing that her kindergarten experience won’t be the same one most children get in better times, I cried because I knew she was feeling scared and nervous and after a year with me 24/7, I wasn’t sure she was as ready as she should have been. I cried because my baby wasn’t a baby anymore, and I cried because of the guilt that I not only felt relieved that the house was empty in that moment, but because I had been grateful Rose existed, allowing me space to focus on everything else that needed me, because she had conjured up Rose when she gave up on me.

At the end of the year of everything, I look back and realize I spent my year engulfed in stresses from work, health, politics, virtual school, and, fear that life will change and never change back, meanwhile, she spent her year focused on making the best of the change and grew from it. I picked her up from her first day of kindergarten, and that scared little girl I dropped off had come to life. She couldn’t have been more excited to tell me about her day, and her new best friend and that they had “two outside times!”. Rose hasn’t been here to visit since.

As this year rolls into the next, and there seems to be a dim light at the end of the tunnel some days, I wondered what happened with the Monkeys in Thai-city. The people of Thailand have developed a catch-and-release program to control population, have started feeding them, and are building them a proper habitat while they await to tourists to come back and restore their ‘normal’. The city adapted. The monkeys adapted. And their new normal just may be better than their old one.

Violet,

Four is my favorite age, as the world is big and new and you finally have the vocabulary to express the wonderment that you see it for, and every part of me wishes this year would have allowed you to experience age four in bigger more astounding ways. I’m sorry the world shut down for you this year, of all years. Your love of life on a daily basis is something I strive for, and something I hope you never lose and I couldn’t be more in awe of just how well you handled such strange times and couldn’t be more appreciative of your natural adaptability. That quality will take you far in life. Watching you get your wings this year was amazing, inspiring and as heartwarming as it was heart wrenching, as you took a year of nothing, created everything, and then took flight.

My wish for you this year is that you never lose your your sense of self. This year we watched you find your sense of humor, your personal interests, and imagination and as you go out into the world and find your other butterflies, remember that you’re a bright, cheerful, adaptable nature should influence others in more ways that it is influenced by them. Your wild questions and creative stories should be used to explore, discover and occasionally, entertain. Don’t let the caterpillars like me in the world damage your wings, for if you continue to rise above like you did this year, you will soar. Happy 5th Birthday, Violet. I couldn’t be more grateful that I was here to see every moment of who you are becoming. You are truly inspirational. Fly high, my little butterfly.

Love, Mom.

• 

• 

“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” -unknown

The Devil’s in the Details

 

A year ago, I thought I was pretty familiar with anxiety. We were more than acquaintances, a first name basis. He came for lunch, sometimes stayed for dinner, and once in a while, he had a bit too much drink and crashed on the couch. That friend that overstays his welcome by a few extra hours, the one that doesn’t take a hint when you tell him you have an early morning meeting to get up for. I thought I knew him. I thought I knew him well. I trusted him, there was an understanding: he provides a low level of motivation to help me power through life, and I only evict him with Xanex when he gets too rowdy. Then I had to schedule an EKG for my 7-year-old. That night, anxiety had more than a few too many, he didn’t crash on my couch, he didn’t become the life of the party; his eyes went dark, he crawled into bed with me and made himself comfortable. He whispers in my ear slowly, methodically, repetitively. He threatens my sanity with a calm, terrifying voice. He isn’t the inconvenient acquaintance I thought I knew, the friend I learned to use to my advantage… he’s a predator, and he’d been waiting for something with substance to bite in to.

I’ve had a headache since I was 14. It’s not always a life-halting headache, typically it’s just a dull discomfort.  If I tell you I have a headache, it means I’m hitting a 6+ on the pain scale, anything under a 6 for pain isn’t worth mentioning. My baseline hovers around a 2-3, I don’t actually know what having no pain feels like, I can’t remember.  It’s an ‘everything’ condition.  Some days it’s a generalized “everything just aches”, some days it seems to centralize in one spot.  Sometimes it doesn’t manifest itself as pain, as much as shows inabilities of my body to function ‘normally.’  From dry eyes to nephropathy, from brain fog to fatigue, from heightened senses to flu-like symptoms we don’t need to get into.  The diagnosis is Fibromyalgia, but really, it’s just part of being me.  I don’t really know life any differently.  And unless you’re married to me, you don’t hear me talk about it much, most people forget I have it.  When asked what it feels like, the only way I know to describe Fibromyalgia is to tell them it feels like you’re coming down with the flu.  You’re not completely sick just yet, but you know it’s happening. Those 12 hours prior- that ‘run down, can’t get comfortable’, achy feeling you have. You’re off. It’s coming. But you’re not yet to the point where you’re debating Tylenol and tea vs. writing your will.   Those 12 hours before, that’s just my normal. I have good days; days I probably feel like everyone else, and I have bad days; days that most people would call in sick to work and hop on tele-doc to make a series of appointments for blood work and specialists swing by Urgent care to check vitals and make a plea for a narcotic. On those days, I take a handful of Advil, pour some coffee on it, and close my office door while I work.

But, I’m not writing this to gain pity or even attention to the cause. The last thing I ever want in life is pity. I don’t need it.  The cause just is what it is, you learn to handle it, you learn how much coffee, how much Advil, how much sleep you need, and when. You learn what is likely to cause a spike, and you work around it.  You learn to pay attention to the small things, the shifts in how you feel.  You take note of what changes in the environment, diet, medications there may have been.  You learn to do this only after years of searching, after years of doctors and blood work and pills and experimental treatments. You learn to do this when none of that works.  You learn when the 10th doctor tells you that whatever ailment of the day you’re seeing him for isn’t severe enough to address and piecing the ailments together isn’t really ‘a thing we do’ in western medicine. You learn to do this when the last failed doctor tells you he has no more tricks up his sleeve and you should ‘just learn to live with it’.  So, you do.  You ignore everything they told you, you take the details of each symptom, of each change, and you research, and research, and research.  You dive into eastern medicine, and you eliminate things from your diet, and you learn that, no,- giving up gluten doesn’t fix a neurological problem, but sometimes acupuncture or blue-algae pills help.   You find things that lessen the intensity, you find ways to shorten the attacks and you just move on with your day, because this is just part of what it is like to be you.  You change your mindset, over and over, then change it back for a day or two because you need a moment to be upset about it, then you change it back again.  It’s not about ‘fair’.  This didn’t “happen to you” this just is.  You don’t beat it, but you also don’t let it beat you. Quitting isn’t an option.

I fell rollerblading when I was 14.  I hit my tailbone.  I got up, brushed it off, and went about my day.  A few days later, I turned my head and my neck spasmed, and that was the beginning of a now 23-year headache. I fell rollerblading.  Something every kid does, and for me, it triggered fibromyalgia pain.  But the more I learn about it, the more I notice how many signs and symptoms I had BEFORE the pain ever started.  I was awkward and clumsy, my joints were loose, my eyes were dry. I squinted a lot as a kid, even though I didn’t need glasses until I was a teenager. I had signs of depression at a young age for no specific reason. I cracked every joint in my body that I could, because there was always tension, even when there wasn’t pain. A million little benign signs that didn’t seem to add up to anything.  The devil was in the details. 

The concerning part about it isn’t the symptoms or the lack of solutions, it’s the fact that no one really knows what causes it.  The tests for it are “clinical”  you need to check enough boxes on a worksheet, and have enough specialists eliminate other possibilities they can run blood work for, and when everything else comes back negative- “well, I guess it must be this”.  After that, they stop looking for a source.  I was officially diagnosed after 3 years of appointments and tests and specialists. That was 20 years ago.  20 years ago, they had no answers, and most doctors didn’t believe it was real. It took 3 years to get a ‘non-diagnosis’-diagnoses for a condition half the medical community didn’t believe in. It allowed them to stop looking. Today, they admit it’s real and at least know the pain signals come from an overactive nervous system that travels through your connective tissues.  They know that it often has co-morbidity with other autoimmune diseases, although Fibromyalgia isn’t actually an autoimmune disease, they have no idea why. 

This year I, ironically, spent Valentine’s morning watching Sawyer’s heartbeat on a screen. It started with a deformity in his ankle bones and knees that bend backward, noticeable at birth.  At 3, he had chronic ear-infections that never fully went away, often accompanied by colds and strep. At 4, he got tubes for his ears and an orthopedist and ankle braces.  At 5, they finally admitted that two straight years of being sick and fighting strep might be caused by tonsils so large they touch, and gave me a referral to an ENT to remove his tonsils, adenoids and put in the second set of tubes. At 6, I asked about his worsening ankles and his knees and his jaw that bites sideways and causes him pain.  They told me to wait, he might outgrow it.  At 7, he could pop his shoulders in and out and he was noticeably weaker than other kids his age.  We had a new pediatrician that year, he finally agreed that there were too many “details” to ignore.  He sent me to a geneticist to have him evaluated for a connective tissue disorder. I found out that we have some family history of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), and he, and I, check a lot of boxes.  I did my research.  He came with an hour of questions and a worksheet and measured how far he can bend this way and that. He studied his skin, his nails, his height.  There is no genetic test for the hyper flexibility version of EDS.  Just a worksheet and professional opinion.  He checked 4/5 boxes needed for a diagnosis, the one missing was ‘immediate’ family history.  I wasn’t diagnosed with HEDS. HEDS can affect all of the connective tissues in your body, not just your joints, which means, his eyes, his heart, his lungs, his colon, his spleen, his blood vessels- all on the list of places that could have a “weak spot” and cause an aneurysm at any point.  He gave us a referral for an ophthalmologist and an EKG – the eyes and the heart are the most common.  If those are clear, he should be ok… for now.   A week later we went in for his eyes, then his heart, and a week after that, we got a call that they were ok.  the Ehlers Danlos Diagnosis is ‘inconclusive’ and for now, he’s going to label it as “Generalized Hyperflexibility Spectrum Disorder”. He scheduled PT and gave a list of things he’s not allowed to do anymore to avoid injury.

This was supposed to be good news.  And to everyone else who’s never been through it, it was. But, I already know there’s more to this than hyper-flexible joints.  I see it in his skin, I see it in the way his eyes are always dry and he flexes his face in an effort to relieve the tension in his jaw.  I see it in the pain he has in his legs and back.  I see it in the way a skinned knee takes forever to heal and how easily he scars. I see it in all of these small signs that were just not quite severe enough to check a box, but the number of signs that were near misses didn’t seem to matter.  The devil is in the details. 

So, we forced him to choke down bone broth, he hated, to add collagen to his diet, until he heard the doctor tell me he didn’t think that would matter, and now refuses.  We got proper orthotics for his shoes that help ease the pain on his knees, and we work on building muscles in an attempt to take the pressure off his joints.  He gave up monkey bars, and I watch to make sure he doesn’t rough house with his friends in any way that can dislocate a shoulder.  I forced him to learn to swim the right way this summer in an effort to give him something athletic that he not only can do without risk but should help take the pain away in the long run. 

I pushed him hard during baseball practice, despite his lack of interest to show him that he can’t give up when something is hard and that quitting isn’t really an option.  I stood there and made him finish practicing his piano, allowing breaks, but never eliminating the overall time, when his wrists hurt. Because quitting won’t make it go away. To anyone watching, I seemed mean.  Who cares if he’s not a baseball player?  If his wrists hurt- why does he need to play the piano?  I was hard on him this year.  No mercy.  And, for everything in me as his mom that wants to make every exception for him, and for the child in me that remembers what it feels like to be uncomfortable and want to be told I could sit it out, I know that letting him use the pain as an excuse is something the world will never do. 

This year, he looked at me and asked “why is everything different about me?” and I had to tell him that he’s not different, he’s like me.  I watched him limp in from the outfield and burst into tears in the car because the coach told him to ‘hustle’ when he simply couldn’t ‘hustle’.  The coach didn’t know something hurt, he looked OK to anyone that doesn’t know what it looks like when you’re trying to fake it. I spent nights rubbing his back with peppermint oil and stretching his hamstrings for him and teaching him how to position pillows to help avoid stress on trigger points. I watched him get mad and tell me how much he ‘hates his stupid joints’ when he was told he couldn’t play with the other kids on the jungle gym.  I watched him get accustomed to pain that he now has his own measurement of when its ‘bad enough’ for Advil and when he knows he can just ‘handle it’, and he toughs it out most of the time. 

This year he needed glasses and physical therapy, and he saw what his heart looks like on the inside.  This year he noticed that he can’t keep up with the other boys physically and that some days, just sitting in a desk chair too long means your hips hurt at the end of the day, or that losing a glove in winter has greater consequences than cold hands, as he battled eczema so bad it bled.  This year, reality hit, and she has a mean right hook.

I parent him differently now. I lecture him on controlling his reactions and coach him on taking a minute to assess how he feels and ask himself why he might suddenly be crabby because at 8, he doesn’t always know when he’s hungry or tired. He can’t always tell because he doesn’t really know what it feels like to feel ‘good’. I watch how he moves, I watch what natural adjustments he makes, I check on him in the middle of the night if he had a headache that day to make sure he’s breathing. I don’t give in, I make him redo work if I think he has half-assed it. I’m more likely to let him stay home if he says he doesn’t feel well, but on the days that he feels fine, I require 120%. I don’t allow him to be lazy, because quitting isn’t an option and success is in knowing that on a bad day, his 120% will be everyone else’s 60%, so on his good days, his 120% will be everyone else’s 240% – and those days he will outshine them all. Understanding that is how he will keep up. It’s how he will be allowed a bad day without major consequences. It’s how his bad days will be fewer than his good ones. Laziness leads to quitting. Quitting isn’t an option.

At the end of the day, the predator whispering in my ear at night isn’t whispering about pain management or EKG results, he knows I know how to handle that. It’s reminding me of what quitting for people like us could mean. It’s reminding me what the depression feels like, it’s reminding me that quitting depression doesn’t always equal thriving. He’s whispering the details that need to be taught, the details that need to be observed, the advocacy that he will need to ensure the details aren’t overlooked. Because the devil is in the details.

Sawyer,

This year sucked. There’s no eloquent way to put it.  From an unpleasant first grade teacher to a doctor’s appointments and quarantine, you were handed a heavy load, and I added to it with lectures and re-dos and correction.  And for the fact that your year was so hard, I am sorry.  For the fact that you are built like me; that I am the reason you will spend life carrying more than others, I am so very sorry. To be like me, was the last thing I ever wanted for you.    But I am not sorry for how hard I was on you this year, for I would rather teach you how to face the world by facing me first.  I would rather you learn the value of work ethic now, so you have it to rely on during the hard days later. I would rather you be mad at me for being harsh today than mad at the world for it at 20. Because at the end of the day, I will be there to tell you it will be ok, that you can find a way to work through or around anything life hands you.  I will be there to advocate and comfort and remind you that there is no such thing as “normal” and that being built differently will make you stronger.  There will come a time when you realize just how much different your perspective on life is than others, and that will stem from facing daily challenges others may not have to. There will be a day that you realize you would change the pain, but not the journey because the journey offered you an appreciation for life and a book of wisdom you wouldn’t otherwise have. Until that day, and after, I will be there to check for the details you may overlook, and endlessly attempt to teach you how to notice them, in every effort to ensure that the devil never crawls into bed with you and begins to whisper. 

My wish for you this year is that you remain as happy throughout your life as you are at 8, and that no matter what life hands you, your laugh stays as strong as your will to conquer it.  For if you laugh when the devil’s eyes go dark, he will never follow you to bed, and you will never lose the battle.  

Happy 8th Birthday Peanut, I simply couldn’t love you more. 

-Mom

“…When the Devil finished Johnny said, Well, you’re pretty good, old son
But sit down in that chair right there, And let me show you how it’s done…”

– The Devil Went Down to Georgia, Emerson Drive. 

Hello, my name is…

“I want to be a teacher when I grow up…because I like telling people what to do!” Violet, age 3

When I was 7, I wanted to be a hairdresser, like my aunt, or a teacher like my mom. I remember being told by a friends mom, a very practical lady, “You don’t want to be either of those things, your feet will hurt by the end of every day”. At 7, this seemed ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine my feet hurting, and I was always told I could be whatever I wanted to be when I grew up! At that moment, I heard her tell me I was wrong. What I didn’t hear in that statement, until much later in life was: ‘Keep thinking about it, you’re just not there yet.’ I know now, that although sore feet is a perfectly valid justification, the reason she wanted me to keep thinking about it had a lot more with wanting me to decide for myself what was best for me, and not just follow in someone else’s footsteps. I wish I had picked up on that life lesson earlier than I did. Not for the sake of my career path, but as a general rule of thumb. ‘Don’t follow because it’s easy.’ I spent a lot of time growing up at her house, watching and listening to this single mother take life head-on in what seemed like an independent and fearless existence.

Being independent was something that was always instilled in me. Neither at home nor at my friends house, were things done for me that I was capable of doing for myself. I made my own cereal and school lunches by first grade, and no one made my bed in the morning, if it went unmade, so be it, and it usually did. I folded and put away my own clothes and if I wanted a snack, I went and got one. I don’t remember my mother preparing a snack for me once in my entire childhood. By middle school, I could use the stove to boil water and make pasta and if I forgot my gym clothes, no one was running home to grab those for me. Those responsibilities were mine to remember. If I needed help, I needed to ask for it, and if asked, I would then receive it, but things were never going to be done for me, because that’s not the way the world works. Being taught to be independent may have made life seem unfair as a kid, but as an adult, it’s something I genuinely value. I have needed and asked for help along the way, and remembering that it’s okay to ask for help as I get older is definitely something I struggle with occasionally. It challenges my independent nature. It challenges my personal sense of strength.

Strength can’t be taught. We can throw out a million statements to define it, and we can make chore lists that are eight pages long to teach abilities and independence. But strength, that’s gained through experience, and that experience can only be your own.

To say that these last few weeks have been hard would be an understatement. Working from home full time with both kids, while my husband still goes into work, is a juggling act I never trained for. Homeschooling isn’t something I do. I’ll help with homework, and I’ll print out worksheets, and I’ll purchase all the puzzles and ABC coloring books on the planet, but the expectation that I’m going to sit to teach them academics a few hours a day is an expectation I have no intentions of meeting. I’m going to click the link to the zoom meeting for them and walk away, provided I’m not already in my own meeting at the same time. That’s as far as that it is going to go. I have a full time job to do, and I simply can’t do both. I’m also not qualified to teach academics. Throughout all of this my kids have had to spend the majority of the time ‘raising themselves’ in one part of the house, while I attempt to focus on work in another. It results in a lot of mess, bored children, sub-par work and some tears (mostly mine). It’s caused anxiety I can’t describe, some reasonable, some not, and a communication gap at work that has done some likely irreparable damage to some relationships. For me, it has shined a light on some realities that I won’t ever be able to ‘unsee’. This has made me question my strength and reflect on my experiences in an attempt to put this uncharted territory into perspective.

But on the flip-side, my children have become best friends. They fight and bicker, and Sawyer intentionally does ‘big brother’ things just to get a reaction, but they also laugh harder with each other than I’ve ever heard them laugh with anyone else. They’ve developed inside jokes that only they will ever understand and they’ve become so accustom to helping each other in an effort to help themselves, that its becoming second nature. Sawyer’s reading ability has skyrocketed, not because I’m teaching him, but I’ve required him to read to his sister in an effort to keep them quiet while I’m on a conference call. Violet’s learned letters and strategic thinking and how to manipulate the system, as she takes candy and a tablet into her room and closes the door so I’m less likely to hear what she’s doing. Sneaky, yes, but also, its forethought she didn’t have two months ago. They’ve learned how to make themselves snacks, design and assemble a projects, and Violet can sit and do 1000 piece puzzle with the family. These are skills that to me, are immeasurable. I’d love to take credit for teaching them, but I can’t. All I did was stop doing things for them, because I don’t have enough hands. I stopped following the “good mom” rules in an effort to survive. As a result, they are learning to survive. And through this, I hope they will gain some strength in the face of the ‘unfairness’ of life and ability to lean on each other more than anyone else. I hope they learn from each other, exactly who they really are and just how capable they can be.

Throughout the past year, I have watched Violet begin to develop capabilities, independence and sense of self. She has struggled to find the balance between speaking up about the things she enjoys, and deciding to simply find joy in things others enjoy. She’ll play super-hero’s with her brother, but she wants to do it in an Elsa dress. Every morning for the last two weeks she has gotten up and told me a different name she wants to be called that day. This is everything from “Mom, today my name is Anna” to “Today, I’m Unicorn Sunshine, don’t ever call me Violet again”. I’ve always had pet names for the kids, Violet has had all sorts of names, from Princess Peach to Snuggles, and from the day she could tell me not to call her those names, she has the majority of the time: “My name is Violet, not princess peach”. So, her new want to change her name lately, I found interesting. She’s always had a strong self confidence that I admired, so why the sudden want to be someone else? I can only assume it’s due to the mass amounts of imaginary playtime with her brother, the confinement in the house leaving her longing to go anywhere else, and a desire to have greater abilities than she currently does simply as ‘ 3 year old Violet’. Her need to be independent has been this years theme, as she has learned to think a bit for herself, skate the system, and rely on forgiveness a whole lot more than permission. This year she worked to find her place. Place in the family, place in the group of neighborhood kids, place in the classroom at preschool. She’s found herself in a variety of situations that left her wanting to participate, but not in ways that didn’t suit her. She’s had several imaginary friends, all with elaborate backstories and when I ask about the kids at school, she’s selected a few that she talked about endlessly, but never really played with much during class. She’s a watcher. She pays attention to the people around her, studies what they are doing and decides in her head why they might be doing it. Everything she does has a purpose, even if no one else understands it. Little is done purely on impulse. She speaks up when she feels things are unfair without hesitation, and she isn’t afraid to walk away to go play by herself if she isn’t interested in what others are doing. She’s the 2nd born struggling to find her own voice, her own ways, her own sense of control.

Independence, I was taught. What I wasn’t taught, and what I can’t teach, is just how much harder the world will be on Violet than on Sawyer. An independent man is expected, required even. An independent woman isn’t always a respected trait. This isn’t speculation, this isn’t a feminist rant, this is just pure fact from someone that lives it. If you are forthright in your opinions, even when fully fact-based, you are often considered a bitch. In the world of mostly men in leadership, especially in business, she will have to work twice as hard to be seen half as good. And even then, she will be questioned at every turn. If she becomes a mother, but also has a career, she will be judged on the things she isn’t able to participate in at school, but will also have restrictions on career advancement or capabilities at work. One can not actually ‘do it all’, but the expectation will be as such. She will be judged and dismissed and overlooked at times and it will be unfair and frustrating, and in many situations, down right offensive. She will find she will be asked to do most tasks twice, the 2nd to prove out her work, or at least fully explain it. Trust will never be fully granted at work, while earning respect in the world of motherhood when you don’t have the time to volunteer for the PTA or attend field trips, is almost impossible. She will sit and watch the men around her not struggle with these things in either situation. Emotions are frowned upon. She will be praised when being passionate, having drive, being invested, but only if those things positively effect those around her, and if her emotions get the best of her because all the passion, drive, and dismissed work, she’ll be written off as being an ‘irrational woman.’ “Be passionate, be yourself, but only if it benefits me, when it doesn’t – sit down and let the men work.” will be the unspoken message she will hear, and work against, as an independent woman.

Despite knowing these are the challenges she is likely to face, I will raise nothing less than an independent women. Her purposeful nature will crave it, and the strength to handle it will come. The strength to stand her ground, challenge rules she knows are wrong, and take on more today than she did yesterday in an effort to better herself and her surroundings, is strength that only comes from learning to survive the adversity she will undoubtedly face. It comes not from the battle, but from the recovery. The self-reflection, the evaluation, picking up he pieces and assembling them once again, this time with a stronger glue than last…refusing to ever remain shattered, despite the number of times she falls. Strength is gained not because you are never broken, but because you were and then you put yourself back together. It is not defined because you did not cry, or because you didn’t lose your temper. Strength happens because you allowed yourself do those things, you were willing to invest enough of yourself to risk breaking… then you took the time to reflect and repair. Strength comes when you continue on with the war, even though you lost a battle. It’s constructed from broken hearts, disappointment, tears and failure. It manufactured from sadness… and then survival.

No, I will not raise anything less than an independent woman, as there is no greater satisfaction than when you find you have the strength to sit in the darkness and defeat and rebuild knowing that when you emerge you are even more prepared for the next adventure, and renewed faith in yourself because you didn’t take the path of least resistance, and you lived to tell about it. These last few months, locked in the house, I’ve watched her be forced to grasp concepts well beyond her years, understand why she can’t see her friends, her cousin, her grandparents. I’ve watched her struggle to play 7 year old games, when she is only 3, and find ways to adapt them to her level. I’ve watched her learn to to help herself in 100 different ways, learn to ask for help and learn to endlessly wait. I’ve watched her get upset and frustrated, then learn to compromise. I’ve wiped her tears as she began to feel the weight of the unfairness of life, and then I’ve watched her take her sadness, close her door, turn on her music, dance by herself and come out with a smile. I’ve listened to her lists of things she plans to do when “the corona virus is all gone” in her small three year old voice, and say it without fear or doubt, but simple fact. I’ve watched her repair, on the days that I couldn’t.

Violet,

Three was an the year you became ‘you’. You became unafraid to embrace the things that YOU love instead of the things everyone handed you, and your world became full of Princess Anna, Ice powers and a want to conquer the world in a dress that sparkles. Your love of Lizzo’s “Good as Hell” maybe questions my parenting choices on the surface, but your smile and confidence when singing along, hand motions and all, made me know that despite the age-inappropriateness, letting you sing that was one of my better decisions. The way in which you love your brother unconditionally, while also fearlessly putting him in his place sometimes, gives me faith that you will never let someone push you around, but you will always love in the end. The calm, ‘matter-a-fact’ way you told me “God is watching out for us, and he doesn’t like it when you yell” with your little hand on your hips, as your polite way of saying ‘You’re going to hell for this’ in an objection to being told to pick up your toys, gives me hope that you will hold on to the ability to find effective ways to make your point known, without truly crossing the line. You’ve shown me what resilience looks like in its truest form, and been my saving grace and reason to smile more times these past few months than I can count. So with everything we’ve been through lately, I have more than one wish for you, I think you’ve more earned it.

My wish this year as you blow out your candles will be that you learn to follow your own path, not the easy one and stand up for what you believe is right. Fight with passion, but also facts, cry when it feels like life has beaten you, sit in the sadness for as long as you need to. Don’t let anyone tell you how long is long enough, but when you’re done, wipe your tears, get up and face another day, knowing you are stronger rebuilt than you ever were before you broke.

My wish will be that you are never afraid to take on a battle you believe in because you are independent enough to know who you are, instead of what you want to be, for that is a far greater goal.

And lastly, my wish for you will be that you always know that when you need an army to follow you, you will already have one, when you need an adviser, you have three, and when you need time and peace to reassemble, we’ll all help you find the pieces and dance with you in the dark.

Happy 4th Birthday, Miss Violet Elora. I am so very proud of you.

Love,

Mom

“…Woo child, tired of the bullshit, Go on dust your shoulders off, keep it moving…” Lizzo, Good as Hell