VerySo

 I’ve had so many things to say this past week but no time, no energy at least. But I promised myself I’d remember. I made a list of things to remember to say.  My worry wrinkle to the right of my left eyebrow, between my eyes, a lined indention that appears after a hard time episode came back this week. Physical reminders deserve my attention.  There’s a list of things but it’s just too much and I could write them all out but what good would that really do. It’s a lot. We all have a lot.  Oh, I did want to remind myself to think more about how I’ve joked about being fearless, like at work, how I’ll go in the dark empty house and check out the sound in the basement, alone. Just last week I had to meet a client - a single man, meeting him for the first time, at his house, no idea what I was walking into — when I approached the house I could hear loud music... Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s get it on...” I thought, what? For real? He was expecting me. He opened the door with the...

How dare we be brought up  Thinking we aren’t enough? That we must pair off  And create more singles to make more doubles No  We are enough and can do so much on our own  We don’t need to need others to need us  We can need ourselves and that’s enough How dare we be sold romance  False advertising  Scam It doesn’t exist  I’ve been there and have seen it with my own eyes  It doesn’t work out  I mean, I’ve been let down so hard  But I climbed so high so fast  I take full responsibility  And that is who I am and who I want to stay 

 I know what it feels like to love so deeply and strongly without explanation. And I know what it feels like to grieve a separation of that love. A stomach drop any given moment of any day, at a fleeting thought of it, even when I got really good at completely compartmentalizing and convincing myself that I felt nothing anymore. Walled off cold and black. He wouldn't have made a good dad. He wouldn't attend church and I had envisioned someone who would teach a Sunday School class with me and to this day it is hard to remove that requirement for the person I would date because the person I was going to date should only be someone I would intend to marry. I lived for a long time believing that when James broke up with me late that summer it meant our second chance at being boyfriend and girlfriend was over and second chances are all you get, right? I was 21. I was 21 and a half years old and ran in the exact opposite of the immense pain and sadness I was in. I did not run home. I...

5 a.m. is my time. I guess I am just owning it now. I wish I could sleep in, sometimes I’m a stargazer and moon chaser but I am still up at 4:30 in the morning ready for my day. The stars and moon are still out this early, too. Perspective.  I am alone. My being is awakened when everyone else has finally gone to sleep. The house is quiet. I am alone.  Noah is always up early and goes to bed early and never ever strays from that schedule. So I get to see him first thing when he gets up and that’s a good hang out-ish time, he does his thing in the kitchen and I stay on the couch and write, listen, think, play, plan.  Luna was just out scrounging for a midnight snack because 6am on a Saturday morning is midnight for fifteen year olds. And she asked me if I would make her some oatmeal and I was like omg yessss I want to make you some oatmeal (I really did. If my kids ask me for anything these days especially food related I am so happy to oblige. It’s like the easiest way for ...

(It’s the middle of the night.) I can’t turn my mind off. I love hearing James and his sleeping sounds next to me, and Penny’s snores beneath the blanket with her legs entwined with mine. But there’s a program running in the background of my brain. Task manager please stop the ride. My job ebbs and flows and this week it’s been all consuming. Throw in this school at home business and I’m wiped out. Will it always be triage? Can there be a time there are no urgent matters, no wounds to tend to? Or is that always? Is that life?  So many balls in the air, do I just live up in the air now? Is this all just air? I think I’m floating away now. 

There are things that I forget to count as wins in my day. I have a playlist of songs that I use for vocal warmups- often while I’m driving or sometimes on the couch while I work with my earbuds in. I try to run through them every day, at least a few songs. Then James and I do try to find time once a day to run through a set of songs together - current set list is Carey-Comes a Time- California- Friend of the Devil. And even if it’s just the two of us in an empty living room concert for the rest of our lives I’m glad I practice this daily. My voice is stronger and we get better each time. When live theater comes back I definitely want to audition for something the first chance I get.  (I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before but my ex had a disdain regarding me doing any acting and told me he would refuse to watch me if I did, so I gave that up for the longest time. I shouldn’t have done that. I wish I could have been strong enough to hold on to the things I didn’t want to let go....

  My first born is twenty today. He requested chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and white cupcakes with white icing and of course I will go to the moon for him and so we had a lot of cupcakes. I made the chocolate ones gluten free so that I could partake. Also I might have thrown out half the white batter because we do not need that many cupcakes. And let me tell you I had a moment spreading the icing in a swirl. I took some deep breaths and slowed the madness for a sec. Meditative.  He is twenty and I still feel twenty and he’s just starting life and I’m still just starting life and again, why do we call this time what we swim in? it’s fluid and there’s a deep end and there’s a sandbar and there’s the shore. 

I played Gardenscapes on my phone while listing to Lindy West read "Shit, Actually" on Audible. In a quiet living room, and it was glorious.  We made wings & pizza and watched It Happened One Night (1934) and City Lights (1931) and James avoided another year of my trying to get him to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) with me.  My boss stopped by with a giant heart-shaped box of Seattle Chocolates truffles (my favorites). She passed it to me through the door while Penny slipped out and did a quiet dance around her and then slipped back inside. (My boss does not like dogs and didn't even glance at Penny LOL). We kept remembering and laughing about it all night.  We facetimed with my parents and that was a good time.  As far as Valentine's Days or any days go it was one of the better ones. 

Sometimes a wave of panic approaches  ^\/^\/^  threatened by an intent of exposing me. Stories I haven’t been able to tell my kids yet. And why.  It’s come down to being real, and letting them know I’m still learning about my own stories. Here is me telling those stories from my heart and not a head controlled by others. Who took my feelings which are as strong as steel chains and they used them to direct me and confine me to one small corner of my potential.  A lot of times I obeyed only because I wanted to be good, but it was not what my heart wanted. And it would be a long time before I understand what “good” is and isn’t, and that what my heart wanted was not bad. It never was.  I feel as their mother it is my responsibility to prepare my kids’ feelings for this world. And how can I  if I don’t have the reins on mine?

I don't mind that the house smells like popcorn right now. It is my office 24/7, after all. I don't mind and sometimes I do and I don't say anything but if I had the choice my house would never smell like popcorn had just been made in it.  I am currently listening to a Spotify playlist named Headache & Migraine Natural Relief: Calming Sounds of Nature by the Headache Relief Unit . It is helping.  Here are the photos of the cute little duplex I staged the other day. I should start doing befores and afters. Noted. PS LET ME BE CLEAR  I don’t know what I’m doing and I never have. Every day is brand new to me. And you don’t know what you’re doing either and you know it. Give people a break. There’s plenty of room on this hill to shake your picnic blanket out and spread out all your mess while we enjoy the sun together. 

I want to write about my life and I get stuck going back to the past thinking my memoir is going to be mostly that for some reason and I would like to try to get stronger  in telling my story that is happening right now so that it doesn't slip from my fingers while I'm carrying so much of yesterday  And a nudgeminder that: My previous history doesn't define me and would be fine if it actually did What I sometimes think is my whole story is truly just the set up for my whole comeback. 

The clients selling the most recent property I’m getting ready to market messaged to let me know that they had just saged the house in case I wondered what the smell was. I thought it smelled fabulous and it made me feel happy.  I have to stage both sides of it tomorrow- it is a duplex and is vacant (my fave- easy to stage and show). Both sides have equally creepy bedrooms in the attic and a rare dark basement (basements are not common out this way). One of the attic bedrooms has one of those long deep closets with a pencil sharpener on the wall and shelves which of course makes me think a Flowers in the Attic situation has happened here.  Later I took Ivy for a bra fitting and wrote out some Valentine’s cards (I am determined to be a better friend this year and beyond) in a big comfy chair while the sales person took care of everything and that was super nice. 

That's when it's time to get things done. Or if you're like me you just grab your laptop.  I can write while my bagel cools. One of the constants in my life is that I get way more enjoyment out of whatever it is I am doing if I am also getting something else done at the same time. WHY.  I've been listening to the Something Was Wrong podcast and have found it to be rather deep at reaching parts of me that still hadn't awakened to my own history and experiences growing up and marrying in the church I knew. Kind of like uncovering some answers to questions I didn't know I should have been asking. As an explorer in this life let me tell you that the revelations keep coming if you allow them to.  I'm keeping a list, of the things done to me or that I witnessed that I know now are wrong and were extremely damaging to my self. It is incredibly validating and feels a lot like healing. I'm sure I'll do something more with the list as I go on but for right now...

 It is a familiar rush, this new buzz I feel when I am compelled to write first thing in the morning. It is literally my "ON" switch, the gas. Then I have accomplished something already at the very beginning of my day and also, I've opened the gates to get everything flowing. Why this is how it opens up for me I do not know but it seems like something so small and effortless and how did I let myself get so far away from it? I'm remembering that I get a lot more answers by parallel play, especially with my kids. Interrogations (or anything involving eye contact) — no matter if it is just me asking if they need anything at all and if they know how much I love them — are not effective. Hanging out side by side, finding a movie we all want to see, driving in the car somewhere, walking together in a store, moving about our galaxy as we all orbit the kitchen. This is when they will mention they've been wanting to try this, or they ran out of this thing two weeks ago and...

I don't think I look forward to any season more than spring. But then I think about how excited I am when fall comes. So handy that our seasons take breaks I guess, is how I see it. I would prefer a strict spring/fall calendar and take the hot summer and dreary winter out of it completely. But that is me. Trying to just remove the uncomfortable parts rather than learn to love something about it and live with it already. And see how vital the other seasons are to be able to enjoy the fruits of the next. This spring just might save me. I feel it when I wake up. I can smell it. This morning a squirrel shook his tail at two black crows and a little bird as they had it out on the power line in the back yard. Spring! When I was a freshman in high school I was obsessed with Victoria's Secret lily of valley scented lotion. It makes me think of spring... and how I was wearing it when I fell in love with James on an Easter Sunday at church. I think I wore white tights with white shoes wi...

I have fifteen minutes before I was going to start making dinner so I'm commandeering this time to write. I'm going to make the feta tomato pasta recipe that went viral on TikTok and I probably saw something about it on Instagram because I don't have TikTok. I'm making it gluten free and we'll see if it's really worth writing home about. I have had a bout of insomnia this week. Waking up at 2:31 am two nights in a row what does it mean?  Despite all that, I had an early start to my day, driving with the sunrise behind me to some new properties for work. Gorgeous mountain views. The trees sparkled this morning and the mountains have to be one of the reasons the PNW hosts so many writers and stories.  I took some photos on my phone for my boss' instagram to share later. I checked in on one of my favorite clients and made plans for a socially distanced coffee meet up. These are my favorite parts of the job. A coworker and I caught up in passing, ran down the up...

I am so tired of my phone and working from home and feeling like life is one screen on top of another. It is so hard. I am so overwhelmed. I feel so much better when I say it out loud.  The swirl of the newsday flattens out and settles in the cracks when I read and shut out everything else. I place books everywhere and buy more books and I have too many in my to read pile and it is a security, it is my investment that I can look at like artwork because they are so pretty and someday I will read them.  I want to only use the internet to find more books. I want it to be that way again. Because we are book people. And there is too much static.  We drove to a hill to catch the sunset. I felt thankful for the light and how it made a rich blue backdrop to the curly branched leaf-less trees. I am thankful for the help I get in my life. Noah is going to be twenty this month and he attends school and also does all the dishes and laundry, sometimes even my laundry. He is so kind a...