It’s like I closed my eyes for two minutes. Maybe it was just a blink. I swear, it couldn’t have been that long. Fall came and went. My daughter now too old to be taken door to door by her mother, made plans to trick-or-treat with friends. Did we even buy a pumpkin this year? I don’t think so.
Coming Home
I think this is what happens when a heart gets broken too many times. When a person gets criticized too many times. Or when a body is lonely for too long. To save our own lives, we cut pieces of ourselves off in an attempt to drag ourselves to whatever we are desperately seeking.
Looking Into the Eyes of Freedom
These were little compromises, tiny seemingly-harmless shape-shifty-things. I'd backed myself into a corner of a very small cage. And I wasn't okay in there. Something needed to change.
Finding Refuge in Uncertainty
In an effort to find quiet space in my house, somewhere that I could find solace -- a place to be able to write in peace, I decided to move outside. Our back deck looks over a canopy of oaks stretching from our home down the canyon toward the beach. I created a luxurious outdoor room with a super comfy sectional sofa and overstuffed pillows. I stocked it with cozy blankets (heated ones for cold and foggy mornings) and music (Sonos: I love you). My outdoor living room gets nuclear amounts of sunshine at certain parts of the day, so we hung some extra long outdoor drapes that can pull across part of the deck to shade the patio area.
How to Find Balance
Balance? Are you kidding me? Is that even a thing?
Work-life balance seems to be not only my own nemesis, but just might be the great white whale of our time. It's the thing that we are constantly seeking to conquer, yet never quite able to attain. We wish that there was some kind of magical pie chart that would show us the exact proportions of a life well-lived, but in my experience, the math never really adds up in real life.
I work twelve hour days, seven days a week. I wake up before dark just to get my four miles in before the kids wake up. On any given day, I've got three companies to run, yoga to practice, reading to catch up on, and any spare minute is squirreled away for my writing projects. My husband and I high-five each other on the way out the door in the morning and pass out on the couch hours before the kids put themselves to bed. (Sexy, I know.)
What to Do if Your Daughter Hates You
Divorce is horrible. And unfortunately, it's even more terrible for our children. This week, one of my students posted on my online forum asking for help. Her tween daughter is unhappy which means she is unhappy. My student is newly divorced and their entire lives have been upended. Once having lived in the expansive stretch of a McMansion, now living in a tiny two-room apartment. Her daughter complains about the apartment, the clothes, the new life. The mom feels guilty and ashamed and is grasping for anything she can do to help her daughter feel safe. Feel loved. Feel like it's all going to be okay.
I remember what this was like. I remember that first year, living in my little house. I remember the tears, night after night, as I tried to put my inconsolable daughter to bed. I remember her fury and her heartbreak.
"You've stolen my happiness," she told me.
A Mother's Loss
It happened again.
I watched my daughter get out of the car, sling her backpack over her shoulder and run after some friends. I watched as she crossed the busy street to the inner sanctum of junior high. She was laughing, face to the sky, hair flying in the wind, so beautiful that time seemed to stand still just for her.
I sat in my car watching, waiting for her to look back in my direction, if even for a second.
She did. She always does. A smile and a secret wave saying, "Bye, I love you."
The House That Built Me
I'm sitting on the cold terra cotta tile floor. My finger tracing grey squares of gritty grout. The sun's warmth opens all the white lilies that line the deck, not strong enough, even on the sultriest of days, to bring this floor to even a corpse-like temperature. Its cold seeps through my jeans now and I laugh through tears. Thinking of how many times I've cursed that cold tile. Sucking the life force out of my feet for the past five winters. And even so, how I remained barefoot most of the year.
This beautiful floor. The hardness of it is highlighted by our quiet echoed conversation. Its unwillingness to bend or comfort. It had a job to do and it didn't get caught up in softening a blow to a foot or to a head. It was unconcerned with offering warmth or pliability.
It held this house together. And it kept us suspended and supported in this place.
What We Touch
I am holding a beautiful Wedgewood porcelain tea pot.
I found it high up and way in the back of the kitchen cabinet during my move.
This beautiful thing.
I don't know its history. When it was purchased. Who it served.
I don't know if it holds happy memories. Or terrible ones. I don't know if it held hopes and dreams of beautiful dinner parties. Or if it has served an army of broken hearts, mistrusts and betrayals.
I only know that it has been carefully stored. And that it is not mine.
And that I am sure it has stories to tell.
Independence Day
Last winter, my heart was broken. Someone I loved very much walked out of my life. Out of my daughter's life.
He gave no reason.
He just bailed.
And for months after, I tried to heal. I tried to forgive. I tried to forget.
I tried to pick up the pieces of my heart and scotch-tape them back together.
My chest literally hurt. My rib cage ached. I felt haunted by the Ghost of Relationships Past. Everything I did. Everywhere I went. He was there.
I came to realize this heavy brick on my sternum was grief.
And that it is normal.
And that it sucks.