Interruptions

I am learning sometimes the dream has to wait.
Be put on hold.
Go on a bathroom break.
Clock out for ten minutes. Or maybe even ten days.
Life interrupts.
Or rather, people do. People we love.
Our tribe. Our family. Our friends.
Life is never neat. And no matter how many to-do lists I have or how many items I cross off, it's never as organized as I try to make it either.
I write.
And when I am not writing I am thinking about writing. Feelings become describable and words become life. It's all I can do to scribble them down in my notebook or record it in my iphone as a barely deciphered "note' before I forget. And let's be honest, Siri doesn't get it ya'll. All the updates in the world hasn't fixed the words lost in translation just yet.

Even as I try to write this, my computer has shut down, restarted, and begun to download Windows 10.
Mid-type. Three consonants in.
Interruptions.

(sigh)

I am inspired as much as the next person by all the affirming slogans and handmade signs reminding us to, Be You!, Follow your Happy, and Just Write.
I hang these on my walls,(a lot you guys. Instagram is taking ALL MY MONEY) and would gladly purchase all the buttons and totes and stickers in my feed, if that would make them all come true.
But can I be real here?
For just a sec?

I can't do that all the time. Even if it's penciled in. Even if it's important.

And I'll tell you why.

My husband is going gangbusters in his business. And watching him swells my heart and make me wish for a set of pom-poms. That's how stinkin' proud I am.
But guess what it means?
Long nights in the office for him.
Dinner clean up and dishes for me. (or better known as - No writing.)
I have a daughter who is moving out in ONE DAY (sob sob just kidding. I'm happy. But then I'm sobbing too so basically I'm a mess), and if she has a story to tell or if she just wants to sit on the couch and Friends it out - I'm down. Like James Brown. I'm going to sit on that couch with her and not move. Because guess what folks?
The season of Sammi is coming to an end. I know it. She knows it.
The adulting that has started knows it, and once we adult we can't kid again. Not in the same way.
So I'm soaking it up. Every sigh. Every MOM. Every scare as I walk out of the bathroom and she throws the embarrassment up on Snapchat. Every frustration with the utility company and every excitement of a room that almost sits empty.
Next week it will be Jeff's new office. A restart of something we can't even grasp.
But this week,
this week,
it is being hallowed out.
Just like me.

I sat in the middle of her floor after we sold her bed and I tried hard not to cry.

There's always something. I know. I'm pounding this out on my lunch hour instead of walking. So there's that. My writing is done but my exercise and fresh air is taking the hit.
It's ok. One thing is always going to cancel out another.

So here's what I am saying ...
Be You.
Follow your Happy.
Just Write.

But know that some days your happy is going to look different than you expected. It's not going to be written on your list or located in your calendar.
I think these can be some of the best kinds of happy though. Interruptions are God things. It's when He redirects us.
It's when he whispers, "oh no .. you think that's THE most important thing but THIS is...."
I think we can miss it though. I know I can.
I miss it in the midst of my guilt.
The constant chatter.
"You didn't work out. You didn't write. You didn't get the laundry done. You forgot stamps. You need more eggs. You didn't write the card. You didn't call your friend. You didn't spend enough time with Jacob."


and on and on and on and on.

There's a name for this radio station friends. I'll share it with you another day. Just know,
you are not alone,
AND,
turn the station off.

We are all doing the best we can.
Some days I am going to bang out twenty pages of my book.
Other days I'm going to stare at my outline for hours without writing one word. (hellooooo all last week!)

Some days,
you are going to get to each thing on your list. You'll feel accomplished and stretch hard to pat yourself on the back.
Other days,
you are going to wonder who hijacked your life.

But then you'll realize,

it's everyone you really love.

And all the things that make your Happy.

XO

Food-Pushers Unite

My kids call me The Food Pusher. It's true. It's like a drug pusher except without the drugs.
But we say the same things, in hopes of the same goal; they are going to take me up on it and they are going to like it.

"Come on, just try it."
"It's so good. You don't know what you are missing."
"This. This right here? It's a little piece of heaven."
And in desperation only the mom at her wits end of a picky eater knows, the classic, "You'll be cool. I'll think you are the coolest if you just try
one. little. bite."

It makes no difference how old they are either. My kids at home are twenty and sixteen, plenty old enough to fend for themselves if the onset of starvation happens while I am at work.

But I offer anyway. I practically get on my knees and beg them to eat.
Just like I did when they were three.

Oh you only like Circle K rotisserie hot dogs? Let's go!
Frozen burritos that basically look like bandaged diarrhea? SURE!
Frozen pizzas that taste like lost frisbees drizzled in expired tomato sauce? No problem.
Quesadillas at morning, noon. or night? It's on like donkey kong. Or Taco Bell.

Just let me see you eat.

And let's be honest. If you judge me based on the three things my son eats most,and the go-to for my daughter; I sound either sloppy and terrible or the coolest mom ever; depending on who you are asking.

And we really DO want to ask someone, sometimes, don't we?
Grab another Mom's arm like a life preserver and sputter out our need for validation and an "atta girl." Buoy me up for another day please.


I think I am a pretty good mom. On the "will-they-go-to-therapy-scale?" I'd give myself a two. Maybe a four?
I mean, I've got three of them, my oldest and second oldest (NOT middle! AVOID SAYING MIDDLE FOR THE LOVE OF PEACE AND QUIET) are in their early twenties and so far, not any visible damage. Of course, my son is still home for another year and there's still time to screw with his head pretty good but I would say most mistakes were made in the early years.

Hopefully early enough that they have forgotten. Or those memories have been replaced.
Upgraded.
Mommy version VI.

Of course there are a few that get brought up constantly. Like, "Mom remember when you used to set the timer and you told us if we didn't eat our dinner before it went off you would beat us?"
Yes. Yes I do. I'm SO glad you remember too since it is one of my BEST mommy moments.

On the upside, my grocery bill was low.

Or brought up even more recently,
"Hey MOM. Remember that time Bre did somethingsomethinsomething and you took down her Justin Timberlake poster and hung it up in YOUR room."
Um, Yes. I wish I could remember what it was she did exactly, but maybe I just had a hankering to see JT on my wall?
Possible. Plausible. Whatever.

These, of course, are small examples.
The bigger ones are so much harder to write.
Because secretly we are all hoping we do so much better than our own parents, right?
I mean, I would NEVER .... and then I do.
And everything I value and hold close and wave the white hat of I AM A BETTER MOMMY THAN YOU falls around me in prickly pieces of judgmental glass.

Like the time I called my son an asshole and watched the wound spread slowly across his face like a darkening cloud before a cold rain.
Then I burst into tears.

I started my period two days later. Obviously I was under duress from the emotional hijackers that live inside my body before they give up on anything tangible happening and bleed out.
But that's besides the point.
(ps-I recently purchased a "girl business" zippy pouch that says "oh my bloody hell". I think everyone in the house identifies with the sentiment)

What is the point?
Parenting is hard. And inconvenient.
And scary.
We are all going to make a lot of mistakes.

About fifteen years ago I fell down the stairs outside my apartment. As I skidded down the concrete steps on my knees and landed on all bloody fours, all I could think was,"Oh My GOD. Did anyone SEE that?!"
Not, maybe someone will help me.
Not, someone is going to ask if I'm ok.
But only, did anyone see me practically face plant and make a complete jackass of myself?
That's parenting.
All the time.


We're going to fall asleep on the couch with our baby in the crook of our arm and only wake up because we hear them thunk to the floor.
We're going to be so tired from the complete lack of sleep that we barricade our toddler in the living room with us and "A Whole New World" lulls us to genie land, on the cheerio sprinkled floor.
We're going to wake up late and get our kids to school with nothing more substantial than a pop-tart for breakfast. On test day.
We're going to get lost in the happy zone at Target and then hear our name reverberating over the store intercom. Hi there, mum-of-the-year. You lost your child.
Nice one.

We're going to have our kids give us a fun pop-quiz with super hard questions like, "when's my birthday?" And then watch them look at us in disappointment and horror when it takes longer than five seconds for us to remember which one is theirs.

We're going to buy store-bought cookies and brownies for the bake sale.
Enough said.

We might call our kids a bad name.
We might even enjoy it for just a teeny tiny split of a second when we do because let's face it -
we hold that shit in all the time.

We're still regular people.
We just have other people looking to us for love and acceptance all the time.

No pressure.

We're going to have other parents shake their heads and cluck their tongues and we're going to try really hard to remember we are a contributing member of society and not throat-punch them.
We're going to have strangers yank out their binky in the middle of the mall and coo "oh you sweet little puh puh puh. You don't need that thing stuck in your mouth do you?"
And you're going to remind yourself it isn't ok to push down grandmas.
We're going to overhear someone we trust, someone who's supposed to be in our tribe, talk about us and our lack of parental skills and it's going to sting. We might cry. Just for a second.
And then we might get really pissed and think of all the awful ways THEY parent instead. It's not "nice" but it will make you feel better. Better enough to not claw their eyes out.

We're going to wish for a pedicure by ourselves, for a glass of water that doesn't have floaties in it, for sex that isn't muffled in a pillow, for toilet time with our favorite magazine, for a bra that doesn't smell like breast milk. Or vomit.
We're going to try and learn common core math and feel like the biggest idiot on the planet when we don't get it and realize we can't help our second grader do their homework.
We're going to try not to hate their teacher for sending this crap home.
We're going to breathe deep and not freak out over their room that has exploded with clothes (Are they dirty? Are they clean?)and empty mountain dew cans and a floor littered with pink squiggly wrappers from their maxi-pads.
We are going to give them "space."
And then a week later we're going to say, "Screw this effing space crap!" and yell at them to clean their room before we throw away everything in it except their bed and underwear.
We are going to do our best to not seem psychotic.
We are going to tell ourselves this is normal.
We are going to hope that's true.

Moms. Mothers. Mums. Ma's. Mommy's.
It is true.
You are doing the best you can.

And if it makes you feel like you're excelling at the mom-job to offer them a mom-made sandwich, an apple and peanut butter, a slice of chocolate cake you just frosted; then go ahead and do it.
Food pushers unite.

XO



-

THINGS that are HARD to SwaLLoW

THINGS that are HARD to SwaLLoW:
Warm milk in the desert, mid-day.
Prenatal Vitamins in your first trimester.
Peanut butter.
The thick outcome of oral sex.
Preachers who sermonize about lust while driving their Cadillacs, staring at hookers.
The smell of period farts.
A mouthful of skittles when you're stoned.
Smiling in spite of hurt feelings with a repeat offender.
Rejection.
Pride.
My words when confronted with your ego.

Let's break up with the idea of us.
I want to unclog my throat.

Difficult people is a mandatory in life. They rub us like sandpaper against a raw sunburn. Like a side cramp in mile five, with two more to go, they cause us to clutch and limp, and for goodness sake, breathe in your nose and out your mouth, and keep that shit even.

But they also challenge us to be our better self.
Rise above.
Whether it's the idea of not wanting to be anything like them, or if we go deeper into some kind of Jesus calling to love thy neighbor;
even if it is with clenched fists and grinding teeth.
We reach out, we "like", we ask for visits, we LOL; knowing each time the response is a haughty, pointed, silence from an impenetrable wall.
Ah.
But is that love I'm really showing?
I'm not sure. Probably not the pure kind.
I can tell you what it is though, it is an effort. And if that kind of effort is being given, there is love somewhere, for someone, motivating it's continuance.

I've reached some sort of self-inflicted rejection limit.
I've never really mastered the social angst of high-school; cowering beneath any type of Queen Bee. I was more of a "here's-my-middle-finger-why-don't-you-suck-it" kind of girl.
I'd like to think I've grown a little. Learned to give a measure of grace.
I mean, there is Jesus.
Although I picture him constantly shaking his head in exasperation, I'd like to think every now and again he gives me a heavenly high-five.
So,
I try to keep my middle fingers to myself.
And I also try to remember, we are walking a path unique to each one of us, and sometimes that path is rocky, steep, and hot damn if I don't keep stumbling over that same freakin' boulder. Someone please give me a leg up or let me learn to go around it already.
And also, maybe I am someone else's boulder too. There is that.

It is asked I turn my cheek. And then the other one,
It is not required I lay down on the floor and allow another human, no matter their position, pass over me as if I don't exist.
We both know I am here.
We both know how hard it's pretended I am not.

I'm going to let us off the hook.
I'm going to make it easier for us to swallow.
I'm not going to entice you to like me anymore. No more auctioning off myself in bewildered bits and placating pieces, to someone who continues to look at me like a garage sale slip of underwear.

Here's a truth that's real for everybody; most certainly a truth I grabbed a hold of at age nine and held it close to my chest as a vigilant shield, or swung it like a bat if someone came pitching at me with their small, teeth-barring, lies.
I decide what I am worth for myself.
If I don't, some asshat struggling with their own value and usefulness is going to decide it for me, and it will always be at a clearance price.
If I don't set a boundary, someone unworthy of my core self, will cross it
every. single. time.

Why?

It can be because they think they are better than you.
It can be because they are intimidated by you.
It can be because they are jealous of you.
It can be because they don't know how to handle you.
Or it can be because they don't know any better. (But come on. Unless they are four years old .... bullshit)
No matter which reason it is, every single one is unacceptable.
Each one is small.

We are ALL worth something. To God. To ourselves. To the ones that love us.
We are NOT always liked. Or appreciated. Or valued.
By our own tribe or the masses.

Choose your people. Choose who speaks into you and over you.
You can't help who speaks about you.
But you, and me, we can choose what we listen to, what takes root, what grows, and what we let go of.

XO