Archives for February 2018

Sidetracked

February 27, 2018 by

This is not what I want to write about this morning. But I am not going to ignore the reasons in which I found myself here to begin with. So, I will sit here and do what I do and see where it goes.

I also haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet. As I reach for it, I realize that thought up there may be expressed in a way that comes off a little harder and frustrated than I actually feel. That’s not quite right. A bit side eyed is exactly how I feel, but not because my intentions were so quickly redirected this morning. The more I think about it, I think it’s just the proximity of the redirection to my first cup of coffee. Anyway…

I woke up this morning with the intention of getting back to Daring Greatly. While getting my coffee and settling into the thinking chair, I had a sliver of an idea that suggested writing prompts were a super good idea. It would add some variety to my subject matter. Variety, it happens, has been something I have been thinking about while playing with the idea that my writings as of late have been a bit indulgent and self centered. I’m not sure that I mind that so much, it is my writing after all, and this little blog isn’t the only thing I am working on. But it was a wonder that came from somewhere so I thought it fair to give it a bit of attention.

I grabbed my Writer’s Companion with the intention of just flipping through it a bit while I let the first bit of coffee do it’s thing, before hanging out with Brene. I opened it up to a random, unintentional place, and this is the first prompt I encounter. 

A lot of different things happened in my brain pretty quickly.

First, I couldn’t believe how the opening line resonated with me. This is literally THE thing I have been wondering about most when it comes to my general headspace and tone in my writing. And then here it is. Laid out like permission, insistence even, from the universe to keep doing the work. I understand that I am particularly open to the “follow this inspiration” idea as it is a central concept in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic – the book which is currently blowing my little brain at the moment.

“Holy shit! Would you look at that,” happens next as I read on and see that it is, in fact, Elizabeth Gilbert who gets the mention in this prompt. That instantly smacks of universal confirmation to continue going deep. To continue to write about those hard, fun, interesting, not so different but feels like a battle things I discover or remember about myself. This is a ton of fun and I’m enjoying my little universal tango.

“Leave our lives behind for indulgent travel?” I am sideways smacked with irritation. I mean the shift is instant and jarring. I actually close the book to see what heifer wrote this trash. Seriously. It occurs to me that this a rather extreme response to something that is pretty innocuous. But, dammit, it feels very nocuous. I mean for real. You think the best way to describe a person’s account of blowing up lives and relationships because you literally see no other way to save yourself from being completely obliterated under all the “ought tos” and you’re pretty sure if you don’t do something your soul is going to be lost to the great unknown forever so you pack up and travel to foreign places where you are alone and have to figure out what in the hell you did and what in the hell you are going to do now is with the words “leave our lives behind for indulgent travel?” Get the fuck out of here.

I am beginning to feel something of a temper tantrum toddler, so I slow down a bit. I understand that I hold a lot of appreciation for Elizabeth Gilbert and her writing. Eat, Pray, Love changed the way I look at writing and authenticity and “ought tos.” Committed helped me work through, in pretty quick fashion, a fairly brain tangled spot in the journey from the life before to the life now. And Big Magic, well, that’s just been amazing. So the truth is I felt like someone had said something super judgy and condescending about a girlfriend to my face. That, I recognize, is ridiculous on two main fronts. First, Elizabeth Gilbert is not someone I know personally. Second, neither is Amy Peters. I am currently all up in my feelings about a statement that was probably well intended towards someone who may very well see it as such herself.

But neither do I discount the discord. I have an understanding that not all feelings express truth. All feelings are indicative of a truth, but what is felt on the surface isn’t always the thing. It is my job to figure out the difference and get to the root of the thing.

After I have stepped back from it, I am glad I allowed this momentary derailment of my morning plans to do what it wanted. I am glad I was open to whatever it was. I am glad that when it felt uncomfortable (even if that uncomfortable wasn’t of any real consequence) I didn’t shy away from it. Understand I completely realize what a small thing all of this is. But it gave me an example to draw from whenever I get up in my feelings about assuming someone else’s motive, think I have any control over how things I create are received once I release them, feel like closing myself off from the gentle suggestions of my thoughts. And that is worth a couple hours of sidetracked.

 

Filed Under: The Thinking Chair Tagged With: , , ,

In the Interest of Being Capable

February 26, 2018 by

circa October 2016

I brought in the groceries. There weren’t that many. I set about putting the goods where they go…the toothpaste in the bathroom, the salad in the fridge, the almonds in the pantry.

I am starving. I make my dinner. It’s a real dinner. I pan sear a beef medallion and make a salad bed for it. Gorgonzola cheese! One of my favorites! While I am corking the bottle and dressing the salad, I kind of feel it. But I am really hungry so I just keep moving on.

Snapchat the plate so he can see. Silly, I know. But we are silly. And I want him to know. Know that I can take care of him still. That all these years separated and all the ways we have changed…that hasn’t changed. I wish I could take care of him. I know he’s had a long day. I know all his days are long. He works so hard and the hours are rough. He loves it, I know. It’s important, I know. But I also know he can’t get into the gym. Or count on a decent meal. A man that lives like that needs his woman around, I think to myself. And then I feel it again.

I finish my salad. It was everything I hoped it would be. Belly full, I begin putting the kitchen in order. And a thought occurred to me; I haven’t lived by myself since I was 17 years old. Now here I was, 23 years later, living by myself for half of the time.

Today, February 26, 2018

Once again I have encountered an unfinished thought. I am pretty sure I know where I was going with this one. I actually sat here for a minute and contemplated what to do with it. I could finish it. I think the next thoughts were going to be introspective ones about freedom and independence. About how a woman needed to be on her own to be worthy of being a valuable help meet. About how if I couldn’t be alone, if I couldn’t stand my own company, who was I really? I remember that night. I even remember that salad. I remember feeling very full of myself as I thought I had done what my therapist said was highly improbable. I felt like I had leap frogged all the processes required to take a shattered, unrecognizable puzzle and rebuild a new, beautiful, real picture.

I could just finish it. I am pretty sure I can tap back into the remnants of that emotion well enough to finish the thought. Except I know what happened next.

I know that the first time we were able to spend real time together I slept more than I was awake. This would have been super awkward except I had lots of time alone in our apartment while he worked long hours. He was intensely aware that sleep was not something I had done in any real earnest for a while. Those two factors allotted for plenty of appropriate and encouraged naps.

I know that I was given immediate and carte blanche freedom, encouragement even, to do whatever it is I wanted to do. I know that freedom, while exciting, triggered more fear than I can describe here.

I know that I had a choice to make in those early days. I could keep him at arms length, keep my life at arms length, because that was the smart and responsible thing to do. Or I could just sell out to the journey, release all the pessimism, believe until I had a no bullshit reason not to, and go all in. I chose to go all in. He has always been the one. I couldn’t, never could, relate to him casually. I know that if the rational side of my brain had even attempted the distance strategy, the real side of my heart would have broken my own arm to close the gap.

I know that choice was met with a call and a raise. If any woman had the opportunity to be loved half as much as I was, as I am, she was, is, a blessed woman indeed. This took me beyond fear. I was terrified.

I had already seen the broken puzzle. I knew what caused it, I knew what it would take to put it back together, and I had no idea what the picture would look like when it was finished. In truth, I still don’t know. I have a much better idea now and the possibilities are narrowing, but there are still unknowns. And if I don’t know, he can’t possibly. What if my puzzle looks different than what he expected, different than the nearly two decade “Ode to Ape” he has constructed in his mind? How do you commit to love forever, to continue a love he insists has lasted for him in the singular and in the forever?

I don’t know. I do know that I have been afraid of that for a long time. Today I decided that I have been afraid long enough. Holding on to a fear because of the unknown is the exact same thing as borrowing trouble. It is worry. It is lack of confidence. I know that I know this because I have said it before.

The future is the largest producer of anxiety. This is so unfortunate because the future holds so much hope and promise! The present is where our potential works and the future is the enjoyment of that success! To sabotage that and to steal that from ourselves is all we achieve when we worry. Our strength lives in certainty, assurance, and joy. That’s a much better basket of tricks than worry.

– Turn Around Tuesday, January 2015

So instead of tapping back into the old, I am going to finish the thought by addressing the better thing that I know. I still have two choices. I can hold on to the crushing fear that makes the simple act of fixing or not being able to fix him dinner spin into a whirlwind. Or I can acknowledge that while our story may be different, the uncertainty in tomorrow is true for everyone. I am not special in that regard. Holding on to the thing and making it into some super possibility of utter universal devastation isn’t only ridiculous, it is highly improbable.

I spent a lot of time that night, and quite a few nights since, considering whether or not this 20 year older version of me was the best that the 20 year older version of him could do. It also occurs to me all the million different ways I ask this question of myself concerning a variety of different subjects. Today, I acknowledge the question on its face is so asinine there is no answer for it. The fear that propels the asking has to be let go. That really is the only choice.

Filed Under: Chrysalis Tagged With: , ,

Grown Ass Conversations

February 19, 2018 by

“I don’t want to talk about it. The whole thing feels stupid and ridiculous. That’s why I texted you. I wanted to tell you about it but I don’t want to talk about it.”

But I did want to talk about it. What I actually wanted was for him to simultaneously find a magical way to tell me I was right, I was wrong, I was super smart, I was super silly, and this was the miraculously simple way to fix the whole thing. That should be easy enough, right?

Instead he just loved me through it. And told he some soft truths about myself. Things I already knew. Things I was working on. Things he was proud of me for making progress in. The truths are actually pretty hard. They are things I hate to think about and just want to function in their dysfunction. But they don’t because they are, well, dysfunctional.


“Why do you feel ridiculous?”

“Because I am grown. Grown ass women aren’t supposed to get up in their feelings about this kind of thing.”

“It’s exactly because you are grown ass woman that you are capable of having the grown up conversations.”

“But what if I’m wrong?”

“Then that’s on you. I watch you do this thing pretty often where you feel a kind of way and should do something about it, but you go to your programming that says you are probably wrong and so you do nothing and nothing changes and you just take it. Now understand that I am not saying you are less than, I am saying that you are too hard on yourself.”

“I might do that a little.”

I might do that a lot.

I watch folks who are able to say anything. They are able to engage in confrontation in a way that makes my skin goose up. They are able to have the conversations – provoke them even – and keep moving forward. I am trying hard to be that person. To say the things I want to say fearlessly and openly. To be honest with people even it exposes a weakness or a wrong. To open loops that might close differently than I would like them to, or worse, not close themselves at all.

This season’s Big Brother is the Celebrity edition and it has been very interesting. I am watching these somewhat accomplished folks participate in varying degrees of empowerment. During many of the exchanges I find myself so frustrated that person A won’t just tell person B to go to hell, you are not the boss of me. They should say it. Person A deserves to say it and person B deserves to hear it, but they don’t. I would like to think I would. I probably wouldn’t.

But the real truth is that candidness is part of being a whole, real, honest, decent person. It isn’t fair to people I want relationship with to have to bear the judgement of my unspoken assumptions. It isn’t the way I would want to be treated. I would want them to have the courage to come to say what they needed to say. More than courage, I want to be seen as the kind of person with whom it is safe to have those kinds of conversations. I want to be a grown up and I want to be with grown up people. If I hope for that level of maturity from others, it is reasonable that I have to foster that type of maturity from myself.

It’s a funny little Catch 22 that I notice more in woman than I do in men. It’s the “if I have to ask for it, I don’t really want it” or its cousin, “if you loved me you would just know.” I don’t know where these tendencies come from, but I will be the first to admit that I have them. Further, they make sense to me in an inarticulable way. But it also makes sense that we should be able to ask for what we need, have adult conversations about wants and happys and hurts.

I’ve done much better the past year opening my mouth and exposing my inner thoughts. There’s something to be said for safety and confidence. There is also something to be said for the being able to see a real glimpse of unconditional love for oneself and others – not in the wild or in the pretend, but in your own life, involving your own heart. Like any other behavior, it is easier to understand and adopt once you see it modeled.

The neat thing is that motion creates momentum. The more I speak my thoughts, the more I think, the more I get comfortable with having all the thoughts, the more I feel okay to speak, the more connection I create, the more love I am able to give, the more love I am able to receive, the more positive my thoughts, the more I am able to converse, the more resilient I am when things are funky, the more whole I feel, the healthier I am, the more I speak my thoughts.

Take all the time you need to go through that spiderweb of interconnected healthy. Nothing happens in a vacuum. None of us are labels or defined by one singular thing. Sentient, dynamic, eclectic beings we are. That movement of all things in us and around us is a beautiful thing.

Filed Under: Chrysalis Tagged With: , ,

Unstuck, Unwasted, Unbroken

February 18, 2018 by

I snuggled into bed last night with the understanding that I was, quite possibly, the happiest woman on the planet. His arm heavy across my body, skin warm against my back, breath soft and slow on my shoulder. There is no place I feel safer or more loved. I click through the happy of the day. The kids – all six of them – are still thrilled with simple boxes of chocolate. We all made it to Dairy Queen Wednesday. My teenagers still like it when I play Xbox with them. My beloved wrote me a poem for Valentine’s Day. Even the residual hormonal yuck that is “winter” and the hot flash that tried to take me out were a beautiful reminder that I am alive, balanced, and not pregnant. (Seriously, we have six children, I am holding out – in NO hurry – for grands at this point)

My writing for the day crossed my mind and I was satisfied with it. It feels good to work out some of that brain stuff in a way that feels both real and responsible enough to allow public consumption. It did occur to me, however, that maybe I give the wrong impression. I come back to the details of the work so often that maybe I don’t give play to the big picture in my writing. I know the big picture is well served in the other places I am. My happy is no secret. But in the pages, is it as documented as the other stuff? I don’t think so. I woke up this morning feeling a need to be more clear.

I live in a constant state of wonder. My brain is constantly creating open loops. Like, I wonder

  • is pink still my favorite color or has it finally become purple
  • am I being intellectually honest on my 2nd amendment position
  • should I go back to creamer in my coffee
  • could I learn more about plants
  • was Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam really that great
  • how do you discuss systematized racism in a way that allows for productive discussion
  • does he think my butt looks good in these jeans
  • how much time have I wasted
  • what’s for dinner
  • am I fucking up my kids
  • am I fucking up myself
  • did I put the clothes in the dryer
  • where are my keys

I could keep going. I just had to stop myself at the last one when I realized the next one was, “I wonder how many wonders I can wonder.” It’s a thing.

My distaste for open loops is also a thing. I spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to close the loops before they get overly distracting  or tangled up with each other. And, at the risk of offending my loops, some of them are more fun, others are more interesting, a few are actually productive, and some are just unfortunate.

The productive ones are my love/hate loops. I really love the work that comes from learning more and going deeper. I really hate the effort and the realness it sometimes requires. I understood a long time ago I am wired to want to be the best version of myself. More accurately, I would really love it if I could figure out how to become a better version of the best version of myself.  There are a bunch of reasons for this I am sure – but the root is love. The better than best version of me gives love people can receive and is able to receive the love people give. And, sitting here in this chair on this morning, I think I may have inadvertently answered the question, “How would you define success?”

The biggest challenge and opportunity in this journey is chicken/egg. I have all the wonders about myself as a person and in relationship to other people. Those wonders allow me to understand myself and relationship better. They also open me up to influences, both positive and negative. They do not guard me against mental sabotage, either from others or myself. So while I am always getting better, the tangled pieces require a lot of attention and that’s where the nouns and verbs tend to be the most helpful.

So you’ll see the messy that is the byproduct of my wonders regularly. But let me be clear so that there is no mistake made – either by you or me. While the appearance may sometime suggest otherwise, I am unstuck, unwasted, and unbroken. I am not shackled by past transgressions or perceptions.

For a minute I thought I was stuck. I had the toxic on loop (or so it seemed). I talked about it a lot with my closest people. I journaled it regularly. I sat alone with the hum on many occasions. In honesty, I got to the point where I realized I was dangerously close to wallowing, “picking scabs” if you will. Pushing the bruises so they stayed at the surface instead of allowing the wounds to heal. But I was not stuck. I was healing. And healing takes the time it takes and the path that it will. That is the opposite of stuck. That is progress.

The trick is to be mindful of the time it takes. The balance there is delicate. You can’t rush it, you have to give it the room it needs to do what it does. I did not find myself in the place where I had no clue about myself overnight. I was not going to figure the pieces out overnight either. To drift took time. To come back will take time. But time is finite and limited. Worse, we don’t know what those limits are. We are all just guessing at the time we have. To allow time to pass unfettered is to resign your life to the whims of chance. I just can’t. I have already lost a huge amount of time and watched myself allow waste to consume. But waste is redeemable. I understand the process of upcycling.

And I was out for a while. I yolo’ed a bit (I really dislike that term but it so frustratingly fitting in this concept), I ran a while, I hid for a minute, I bloomed slightly, I tangoed mostly. I can see how an outsider would consider those thing indicative of a broken person. I myself had moments of feeling brokenness. But I have come to understand the bones are solid even when the cosmetics look to need a little work. Dislocated and strained maybe. But not broken. Strength in our bodies comes from hard work, moving more than you thought you could, enduring more than is comfortable. When that workout is done, you may be sweaty, sore, and tired – but not broken.

So I am going to continue writing my wonders. Some may seem more painful than others, but they are not wonders  independent of other wonders. All the wonders touch each other in some way. It’s like “Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon” for the thoughts of the many. I wouldn’t trade any of them. I just need to acknowledge that I often have more than I have the opportunity at times to address here.

Started 2/15/2018
Completed 2/18/2018

Filed Under: The Thinking Chair Tagged With: ,

Brooks was Here

February 14, 2018 by

There are these really interesting things going on in my head right now. It looks a whole lot like freedom. Unfortunately, because I am currently unlearning and relearning that concept along with a host of other things about myself, what should be a somewhat easy and beautiful brain float has become super fucking overwhelming.

And what do I do when my brain becomes overwhelming? Well, when I am doing it right, I write. And this single act of nouns and verbs has become quite the interesting project in a way that it really never has before.

I have always put nouns and verbs on paper in a way that I hoped could be read by other people. I understand not everything has to be “in the world” to be valid. I also understand that some things should not be out in the world. But, by and large, the things that I put on paper have the expectation of being fit for public consumption.

But words stay the same over the course of time and change. People do not.

Being overwhelmed creates lack of structure in the thoughts. There are so many ideas trying to push their way to the front in an attempt to be sorted and accounted for. It makes the coherent assembly of nouns and verbs a struggle.

In all honesty, it isn’t just being overwhelmed. It’s the freedom to do it the way I want. I have been writing since I was 10 years old. I have the general gist of the activity down. But there have always been rules set down by someone else. Boxes I knew I had to fit into, boundaries I knew I couldn’t cross.

There is a comfort in the box. Sure, it sucks because you are forced into being someone you aren’t. But, there is order, understanding, and a general “way we do things around here” that, while stifling and damaging, is comfortable when it becomes what you know. When your confidence to trust in your own judgement is reduced to ruble, you second guess everything. When your desire to create something outside yourself is judged and mocked, you harshly judge your own motives. When your ability is marginalized, you start believing you are no good.

When your efforts are labeled too much, too loud, too open, too indulgent, you start to believe those things and you forget that you are a smart, capable, caring, basically decent person. You don’t need the box, you never did. But you functioned inside of it for so long that it is comfortable and you’re not really sure if you know how to do it without it. You worked really hard to rid yourself of the box, to have the courage to break free of it. You know the work that took. But, here you are anyway, trying like hell to recreate the box so you can feel comfortable once again

Trying like hell to recreate the box so you can feel comfortable once again.

Trying like hell to recreate the box so you can feel comfortable once again.

Trying like hell to recreate the box so you can feel comfortable once again.

How fucking stupid is that?

Probably pretty damn. But you know what else, it is also completely normal. We fight to hold on to comfort, even when that comfort is toxic. Even when the alternative is healthy. Even when the healthy is more comfortable once you get the feel of it. Being coerced into the box didn’t happen overnight. It took skillful manipulation and time to put you there. It takes time to work all those things back out. It takes honesty in taking responsibility for the parts of it you are responsible for. It takes confidence to refuse ownership for the parts you aren’t. It takes trust in those who love you that they will still love you through the change, through the growth, through the fuck ups, through the wins. It takes faith in your own inner, real, raw, regular goodness.

Even as I go back through that last thought, I understand that it takes more than faith. It takes more than trust. Those things, when broken down into their honest forms, are easy. All that can happen in your brain, in the quiet privacy of solitude without interference from anyone else. What it really requires is testing, trying out, tasting – “an untested virtue isn’t a virtue” kind of workout.

That’s the part that is scary. That’s the part that will put you back in the box. The box sucks too but there is some comfort in dancing with the devil you already know versus the demon you haven’t vetted yet.

But Brooks was comfortable in jail, institutionalized for the box. They made him leave. He wanted to go back. He couldn’t.

I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Foodway so they’d send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sort of like a bonus. I guess I’m too old for that sort of nonsense any more. I don’t like it here. I’m tired of being afraid all the time. I’ve decided not to stay. I doubt they’ll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me. ~ Brooks Hatlen, The Shawshank Redemption

He called prison home. Freedom made him afraid all the time. He hung himself, decided death was better than figuring out how to be his own person. Still scared I may be, but a Brooks I am not.

Filed Under: Chrysalis Tagged With: ,

#TeamGnat

February 13, 2018 by

I don’t think I have ever been so excited to see a sand gnat in my entire life as I was Sunday. Kids were slapping themselves silly and the adults were reaching for sprays and remedies.

I sat on the bench of the picnic table in my backyard and felt like a kid at Christmas 4th of July.

Weather is not my favorite. I like it one way – hot and sunny. I will tolerate warm and sunny. My face starts distorting at rainy (don’t even ask what my hair does). When the mercury dips south of 70, I get nervous and it is all downhill from there. Fall is my least favorite time of the year because it’s the furthest away I ever am from summer.  Hurricanes? Snow? Just. No.

This aversion to a wide range of weather patterns is not new to me. I’ve known this about myself for a long time. I typically get more moody in the winter and have to pay a bit more attention to my general outlook during those months. I live in southern Georgia for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is our milder, shorter winters.

Listen, I have been known to occasionally have the ability to pull my shoulders back, put my head down, and bulldog my way through situations that are less than fun. I am no stranger to the harder things and I can carry my own in the physical toughness/mental fortitude department. I am typically a pretty positive person with a seemingly deep reservoir for optimism. All that being true, this winter has seriously kicked my ass.

I didn’t realize what was happening until pretty late in the season. I have had a lot going on. There is way more change happening in my life than I am typically accustomed to. I am at this interesting moment in my life where I am happier and safer than I have ever been and that translates into more movement of environment and self than I can keep up with most days. My life resembles a drunken game of speed Yahtzee. Just when I think I have found my groove, I lose it again.

Since I came off the corporate payroll in October, every single strategy I have attempted to employ in my life has had roughly the same life span as a lovebug with about the same level of usefulness. And I have worked really hard on strategies – time blocking, goal setting, accountability, schedule keeping, free range, lists, reminders, affirmations – you name it. But, none of those things have helped. This all get pretty frustrating especially when the things I am attempting to accomplish aren’t even new to me. I would simply like to be a better caretaker of my family (food, chores, availability), a better friend (time, attention, support), and a better steward of myself (health, writing, self care). That’s it. That’s not a lot. I’ve done it before.

I have, surprisingly enough, been pretty gentle with myself in the process. I am very careful to watch how I talk to myself. Even those “better”s in the last paragraph gave me pause as I was worried how others might view them. I know that I don’t mean I think I am less than. I have come to a comfortable place where I know I will always want to be better and that’s okay. I can want to be better while still being happy with the present.

Except when the present looks like me last week, playing Call of Duty, in my pajamas, at 1:30 in the afternoon, hands wrapped around an Xbox controller being the only thing that kept them from being thrown up in utter defeat. I had completely given up on even trying to figure out why I couldn’t get the gumption to go to the gym, why I couldn’t noun and verb, why the laundry pile up was unphasing, why brushing my teeth seemed like the biggest chore in the world at that moment. Seriously, hadn’t I gotten my whole family up, out, and on time? That’s something.

But, the universe loves me and I have the best friends. A text came in completely unrelated to my life or Call of Duty. But because I have friends who think the deeper thought and love without judgement, I found the space to think about it for two seconds longer in a slightly different way.

Holy shit! It’s this effing weather. This is my first winter without a regular job. I have no frame of reference for being prepared to go through this particularly off putting time without a pretty rigid foundation for things I just have to do. I can’t find a center because I have been unable to spend any real time outside and I don’t have the crutch of the job. I wasn’t prepared to go into this season without a plan. The whole thing had caught me off guard.

I was encouraged by the realization. I instantly felt better. There was nothing I could about it at the moment. As good as I am, I cannot change the weather. But there is comfort in knowing. I took solace in that and felt a little better killing zombies.

We had a multi family potluck Sunday. The sand gnats showed up and I couldn’t have been more excited to see them.

 

Filed Under: The Thinking Chair Tagged With: ,

Appropriate and Acceptable

February 2, 2018 by

Can I be real a second?
For just a millisecond?
Let down my guard and tell the people how I feel a second?
Now I’m the model of a modern major general
The venerated Virginian veteran whose men are all
Lining up, to put me up on a pedestal
Writin’ letters to relatives
Embellishin’ my elegance and eloquence
But the elephant is in the room
The truth is in ya face when ya hear the British cannons go…
Boom!
~ A very frustrated George Washington as written by Lin-Manuel Miranda

I’m not even going to discuss Hamilton right now. It is pure genius and folks will either listen or they won’t, hear it or they won’t, get it or they won’t. I don’t really have that in me right this second.

I don’t really have a whole lot of anything in me right this second and it’s getting a bit tiresome.

Let me be real a second. I get encouraged to write on a regular basis by folks who genuinely enjoy what I have to say. There’s like six of y’all and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. And if it were only you half dozen or so for the rest of my life, I would like to think I would keep pushing publish. I would like to think I would still fancy myself a writer.

I don’t feel like a writer much of the time and I am pretty sure that’s because I approach this whole thing all wrong. I have this idea about what it is supposed to look like. I am supposed to have a guided topic. This blog space is supposed to be more cohesive. I am supposed to have a plan. I am supposed to, supposed to, supposed to.

And it I haven’t checked all the “supposed to” blocks, well, then…

And I am definitely not supposed to get onto this super public space and just let my guard down. It is indulgent and basic to be in a public setting – even if it’s just the six of us – and have the audacity to believe that these nouns and verbs, my nouns and verbs, are any more legitimate or time worthy than anyone else’s. That’s next level arrogance and who am I really to think that I have the right?

So, I go back to being small. I try to do the things on my list, the things that make me feel real, but in an “appropriate” way. Seriously, even as I am typing that I don’t even know what the hell that means. You are talking to a person that has a hard time cleaning the house if the radio isn’t super loud, who has a hard time psyching herself up for a run if she can’t go fast(ish) for a billion miles, who is 41 years old and is fixing to get married in a white dress to the hottest man she has ever met with a wedding suitable for a 25 year old blusher. My life isn’t small. I don’t live there. It isn’t who I am. It isn’t who my family is. We have a reoccurring joke about our individual and collective extraness. But I am a person who is still ridiculously and frustratingly aware of what other people think.

Yeah, don’t say it. I already know. You aren’t supposed to care about what other people think – especially those who, in the big picture, have opinions that don’t matter. I get it. I also know that chocolate pudding and whipped cream for lunch isn’t a healthy option, but you can bet your ass I get down with that too.

It has just struck me as funny that I have been in this situation bunches before. You probably have too. It isn’t a writer issue, it’s a whatever part of you is important issue.

The mommy cartel is a fierce one. Do you work, stay home, vaccinate, homeschool, engage in sports, pay for piano, buy the dance costume, travel with the team, fix organic snacks, limit screen time, post pictures on social media, co-sleep, spank, entertain Santa Claus, buy Lucky Charms, volunteer as room mom, schedule playdates, breastfeed, understand the progressive parenting strategies, helicopter, tiger, free range, hide in the bathroom with a great bottle of Malbec…. are you an appropriate, acceptable mom?

Life partner? Do you have date night, authentic conversations about your feelings, too much sex, no sex, joint facebooks, separate friends, independent bank accounts, a five year plan, the same last name, never go to bed angry, the same waistline when you met, regular phone calls with their families, close the door to the bathroom, sexy texts, copious amounts of quality time, detailed coparenting strategies, lady in the street, freak in the bed, dinner on the table, 50/50 household responsibilities, gender roles, traditional home, hide in the bathroom with a great bottle of Malbec…. are you an appropriate, acceptable life partner?

Professional? Do you have the right credentials, love your job, tolerate your coworkers, participate in office fun, voice your opinion in meetings, reinvent yourself to fit the culture, considered assertive, aggressive, overly ambitions, qualified, on your way up, watching the clock, moving into a new field, living your passion, selling out to the grind, hiding out in the bathroom with a great bottle of Malbec… are you an appropriate, acceptable professional?

If you couldn’t tell, all this “appropriate” and “acceptable” juggling always leads me to hiding in a bathroom with a great bottle of Malbec. People aren’t supposed to live that way.

I am not supposed to live that way.

So here is the habit I am going to attempt to put into practice – just writing the shit and letting the letters fall where they may. Maybe that appeals to my six folks, maybe it gains more, maybe I end up pushing publish for no one other than myself. Whatever the outcome is, I have at least identified the elephant in my bathroom. And look – now there is more room for you to share that bottle of wine…

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