Making Rainbows, Remembering Wonder and Feeling It All

"Look what I can do with my eyes," the little girl said. She had a giant red and green bow in her hair. Her voice was husky for a tiny little human who is only three. Her dress was covered with Christmas trees and ruffles, lots of ruffles. "I look into the light [she paused and looked out the window] and then blink and guess what, I can make rainbows with my eyes. I see so many colors everywhere," she said excitedly stretching her hands out wide. "Did you hear me? I can make rainbows with my eyes!," she said almost losing her breath she was so excited. She couldn't believe her newly discovered superpower.

That happened last week at work. I work in a preschool full of three-year-olds who teach me things like rainbow powers every day. They also teach me about finding joy in well, almost everything. It's raining? That means puddles to jump in! It's snowing? Well come on, that is just ridiculously exciting and magical and gosh, isn't the world amazing? These kids will make even the hardest of hearts melt and truly see and feel the wonder of being alive. Not just at Christmas, but every single day.

I'm so grateful to know these kids. Especially this past year because man, it's been a weird one. The political upheaval and mean-spirited compassionless agendas in our government are coinciding with my ever-changing perimenopausal hormones, my middle forties (maybe a midlife crisis?), my children becoming mini adults who drive and get jobs and have independence, and more financial stress than I anticipated.  It's a lot. Especially for someone with mediocre coping skills at best. 

Planning ahead has never really been my strong suit. I don't know what I envisioned this stage of my life to look like. I do know that it looks better than what my mother's life was like at this age and for that I am grateful. (And really, who could have ever predicted Trump? I don't know how to write a blog anymore without mentioning how affected I feel by the president and his supporters and how it all feels strange and unsettling and frankly I am still shaking my head with dismay...)

I am also grateful to be married to a pretty amazing person who encourages me to remember the good stuff about life and know that how I react to it just is what it is. He reminds me what he said to me when we first started dating almost 20 years ago. "You bring so much color to my life," he told me then and reminds me now. "You feel more than I have ever or will ever feel in my life," he said/says. "You make me see things differently. I love you. You make life interesting," he said/says.

Feeling a lot is my super power I guess. It's so good when it's good. But when there is a lot worry about, well, it can be exhausting. It can also get a little out of hand. 

The other day I sent my very patient and saint-like husband this text:

"We can't afford the extra car insurance, I forgot to take out the trash, I missed the sign-up sheet to volunteer in Wade's class, Roy Moore will win that election and the polar bears are starving to death. I can't take it Tim! [insert crying emoji/exhausted emoji, broken heart emoji]"

That night I turned off the news and tried to watch a movie with him. I randomly checked my phone and saw the social media posts that Roy Moore hadn't won. The other guy in the Alabama election won. I cheered and cried a little. It felt like maybe things were going to start making more sense, at least politically. 

Since that night, the news went back to being up and down, just like my hormones. Bills get paid but still the car insurance for a teenage son driver does seem a bit impossible to add. Hopefully we'll figure it out. We take steps forward and back and back and then forward. Doing the dance. Riding the ride. There are moments of pride and joy, and moments of stress and exhaustion. Through it all I am trying to let go and feel it all but not get carried away with worry. 

The other night I was sitting in my living room trying to keep my eyes open, trying to stay awake waiting for Peyton to come home. He's had his license for a few weeks and my god is it nerve wracking (even for a non-feeling/non-worrier). I was squinting at the tracking app I have loaded on my phone following the little bright blinking green dot that represented my son driving. The light from my phone made me squint even more than usual. Then I looked up at my Christmas tree and the lights all blurred together, and I saw a bunch of rainbows. I smiled remembering my little friend's super power at preschool. I exhaled with relief when Peyton pulled in the driveway and the blinking green light said "Peyton has arrived at home."

These next few days over the Christmas break I will be looking for rainbows and remembering the lessons of my preschoolers--finding joy in anything and everything, dancing the dance, riding the ride and truly feeling the wonder of being alive.



Here are a few reasons/moments/people from the last couple months that make me love being alive...





















































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Ch-ch-changes--Thanksgiving, Hope, Life

Over the years I've spent Thanksgiving in a lot of different places with a lot of different people. 

There were the Thanksgivings as a kid where I would excitedly watch the clock and wait for my grandparents to arrive from Alabama. We would eat and eat and watch football and play and talk. I remember falling asleep in sleeping bags on the floor with my sister and brother and cousins listening to the grown ups talk. There were a few Thanksgivings after my parents' divorce spent meeting and eating with new people that would be my step-relatives, and then eventually my ex-step-relatives. Thanksgivings spent in O'Hare Airport Gate B 22 with my brother and sister missing our connecting flight  going home to Michigan from my dad's house in Nebraska. There was that one Thanksgiving when I was 20 I spent in Amsterdam with friends, that was a good one. I also spent several Thanksgivings serving turkey at soup kitchens in Pittsburgh. A couple Thanksgivings I spent with friends who had no place to go like me. Years later my first child was born a few weeks before Thanksgiving and I remember being overwhelmed with joy and hormones and swollen breasts at my in-laws for turkey dinner with my newborn in my arms. There was the Thanksgiving night I spent with my sister in the ER waiting room after my mom broke her neck falling down the stairs. There was the Thanksgiving we forgot to defrost the Turkey like characters on a predictable sitcom. 

Thanksgiving 1980-something. 

Me with new friends and wearing a beret in Amsterdam.

My picture of Amsterdam that looks 150 years old. Ha!

Two weeks as a mom not having a clue what I was doing. 

What a turkey. Oh my god, what a cute little turkey JT was.

One constant has been change. I haven't always gone to the same place with the same people and had the same meal or the same happy or sad experience. I should be better at change than I am.

The world feels crazier than normal right now and changing so fast. I've never really been someone who has been that affected by, or to be really honest that compassionate about, those "trigger alerts." But Jesus, I get it so much more now. I feel like the entire year has been a trigger. This administration. Social media. Things I thought I believed but now question and vice-versa. My kids growing up. Losing control. Setting boundaries. Being firm. Being understanding. Balancing compassion and fear and strength and vulnerability. Getting enough sleep. Wishing I could do more. Wishing I didn't feel so much. Wishing everything didn't feel like it was constantly changing all the time so fast. But also grateful for some of the changes. Holy shit. Ahhhhh.

I wish I had someplace to go that I 've always gone this Thanksgiving. I want a constant that feels comforting and safe.  

As usual in times of turmoil I turn to my beloved pop culture. I watch movies like Planes, Trains & Automobiles. I love that movie. I watch Young & the Restless and General Hospital. I delight in the fact that Victor and Nicki are still fighting and loving and trying to get the family together on Y & R.  And that the Quartermaines are still trying to figure out what the hell is going on with Jason on GH. The same things I was watching in 1987!  My comfort zone.

But as I look back on the years and think about this year and Thanksgiving, I am reminded of other constants. There was always laughter. Even in the emergency room that crazy Thanksgiving my mom broke her neck, my sister and I found things to laugh about. Like how the first person my mother asked for when she woke up in the hospital was Justin Timberlake. 

Another constant...there has always been somebody. Whether it was friends or family, my babies or strangers in the airport, there have been people to connect with and talk to and be with. For that I am grateful.

Every Thanksgiving I can remember has been filled with some kind of hope. Hope that the turkey will defrost. Hope that everyone comes to visit. Hope that everyone will get along. Hope that everyone recovers. The thing about getting older is that you've been through enough to know there's another side to things. Even though the world is making me uncomfortable and tense and confused, as I look back I see that we've been here before historically and it's led to great change. I feel hopeful that we can figure this shit out--our government, our communities, our families, parenting teenagers, disagreeing with love, respecting each other, finances, my grandma's dressing recipe, global warming and all the rest of it.

I'm grateful for laughter and hope and perspective. And that there are soap operas that are still on TV. 

Happy Thanksgiving.

2016- The Year of Acceptance, GIFs and More

I'd love to say that 2016 was the year that I figured everything out--the whole work life balance, parenthood, marriage, getting everyone everywhere they need to be, streaming and watching all the shows on my "want to watch" list, money, what I want to be when I grow up, how to let my kids grow up,  accepting my aging skin and body, my anxiety, my mother, and how to afford Hamilton tickets. But that's not what happened in 2016. Nope. My anxiety was worse than ever, my candidate lost and I never caught up on Gilmore Girls OR Homeland in time for the new seasons.

BUT I did figure out a little bit this year. I figured out that I will never figure some of this shit out and I think I feel more okay with that than ever before. This year I started accepting the realness of ups and downs and highs and lows and holding onto the joy of the good moments and trying to learn something, anything, from the low moments. 



This year I accepted and kind of embraced the fact that JT's ADHD is directly passed down from me and that mine is getting worse with perimenopausal hormones. Some days that felt paralyzing and other days I felt inspired to embrace new ways of thinking and coping and helping JT, and me.  

This year I accepted football is a part of my life. My boys love football. I want to support them and I did. It felt good.

This year I said yes to opportunities to use my voice. It led me to Washington D.C. and Chicago to speak to Senators and protest near the Capitol and testify in front of the EPA. It was empowering to use my voice and show my kids that we can all be a part of THE process and work to help create change in the world. I got to be a part of a storytellling podcast hosted by my creative mentor/mother-angel and use my voice to hopefully help people suffering or loving someone with mental illness. 

This year I watched my son start high school and become this man-child going to the homecoming dance and being captain of his football team. I also watched him rehab and fight to get stronger from two surgeries on his leg over the last year. He made good choices and stupid ones, he bounced back, he regained trust, he inspired us and challenged us. We talked politics and religion this year more than ever before. We talk about college a lot because um, it's only three years away. Yup, man-child. 

This year I watched Lucy become more teenage girl than tween. I never knew/know where I stand with her. From what I have read, this is normal-ish. We have found a fun way to communicate however...texting each other GIFS. I am not kidding, there is nothing like a Tina Fey 30 Rock eye roll GIF to express how the both of us are feeling. It's been such a breakthrough for us. Thank you technology!

This year Wade, our sweet homebody, became a pretty confident reader and played tackle football. This year, like other years, Tim and I vowed to make more time for each other and go on more dates. We weren't wildly successful but we did try and that's good right?

This year I accepted we would never grow grass in our backyard (where we killed it with a homemade ice rink during the Polar Vortex of 2013). Instead we built a fire pit area with pea gravel. It has provided us with so much joy in all the seasons.

This year we listened and became obsessed with Hamilton. And while I accepted that I may never be able to afford tickets to see the show, it doesn't stop us from LOVING the music and the message.

This year I messed up so many times. I stressed about deadlines. I had a panic attack in public for the first time ever. I was pretty devastated by the election and I worry about what the future will look like. I was one of those people that cried when I found out Prince, David Bowie AND Carrie Fisher died this year. 

BUT this year all the moments full of love and time spent with my family and at back yard bonfires and volunteering and using my voice and meeting new people and memorizing and singing the songs of Hamilton give me so much god damn hope and gratitude. 

2016 was a year full of saying yes, accepting hard truths, embracing new ways of thinking, finding and feeling compassion, GIFs, a shit ton of my kids' games and races and tournaments, all the Hamilton songs on repeat, a couple dates with my husband, renewed interest in politics and running, a new found love of boxing and bonfires.  

Here are a few memories/pictures from our year:

Here's a video recap of our year to a song from Hamilton, of course:

Year in Review 2016 from Jumping With My Fingers Crossed on Vimeo.