Growing Up, Love

My 20th High School Reunion: What We All Learned. Together.

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This weekend is my 20th high school reunion. That’s what I tell people anyway, because it’s just easier. But high school is a bit of a misnomer for us.  Our class of 100 went to school together for twelve years.

Twelve years.

When you go to school with people for that long, it’s not just high school. It’s your whole childhood.

You walk with each other down the long hallway on the first day of first grade and you pretend not to be scared.  You lose teeth together.  You chase each other on the playground.  You get lice.  You learn bad words.  You get braces.  You get left out.  You fall in love for the first time. Read more...

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Believe, Growing Up, Loss, Love

So You Had a Bad Day…

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Of all of life’s pleasures that are wasted on youth, the most overlooked is the luxury to indulge in a bad day.

Children can throw themselves on the floor wailing and moaning over a seemingly inconsequential disappointment.  Adolescents can walk around sullen and slam doors, just because they feel like it.  Brokenhearted college kids can curl up in the fetal position, play sad songs, put a straw in a bottle of wine, and sleep for 18 hours.  Because sometimes it feels good to just wallow.

But wallowing is an extravagance for the young. Read more...

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Growing Up, Loss, Love, Parenthood, Relationships, Wahoowa

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

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Last week marked the official end to summer.   This was old news to many of us who said goodbye to summer weeks ago.  Perhaps at the exact moment we were photographing our children (looking the best they will look all year long) holding their Pinterest-inspired first day of school signs.  We have already grudgingly readjusted to the strictures of routine and schedule and simultaneously given up caring what they look like when they go to school.  Nearly one month in to the school year, my boys left the house looking as if they had not brushed their hair in 4 days.  And last week I let them wear stripes on stripes.  Don’t judge. Read more...

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Doubt, Growing Up, Love, Parenthood

Not Everything Has To Be A Teachable Moment

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Last week was a hard week to be a parent, especially to two little boys who love to watch football.

Everywhere you turned, someone was talking about the massive scandals involving several NFL players and their deplorable conduct.  On television.  In the newspapers.  In line at the grocery store.  I did everything in my power to shield them from all of it.  I didn’t even let them watch the NFL halftime shows on Sunday because I knew what the topic of discussion would be.

I suppose I could have told them a watered down version of events.  It is, after all, in vogue in the parenting world to turn every moment into a “teachable moment.”  I suppose we could have had a didactic discussion about whether employers should be able to fire you for your off-the-job conduct.  Or whether when you hold yourself out as a role model, you accept that you should be held to a higher standard. Read more...

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Loss, Love, Wahoowa

Are You Ready for Some Football Part II: How Football Finally Made Me Cry

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You can read Part I of the story here.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve cried this summer.  I’m fine, remember?

I didn’t cry at my dad’s memorial service.  In fact, I reveled in the celebration of his life and took odd comfort in consoling the people who came and cried on my shoulder.

I didn’t cry as I spent 8 weeks living in my parents’ house, the house I grew up in, surrounded by his things. I looked at his clothes hanging in the closet, at his briefcase filled with law review articles, at the pictures of him scattered on tabletops and bookcases. I liked seeing those traces of him everywhere, as if he was about to bound through the doorway at any moment, ready to kiss my mom on the forehead and tell the boys a silly joke. Read more...

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Loss, Love, Wahoowa

Are You Ready for Some Football?: Love, loss, and America’s Game

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After months of despondently pretending to care about tennis and golf and baseball while secretly watching reruns of the 1982 Peach Bowl on ESPN Classic, the drought is finally over.  With August comes a return to all that is good with the world.

Football.

I love everything about football.  College or NFL. Televised or live.  I love the play calls, the pageantry, the speculation over coaching hires and recruiting.  Most of all, I love being a fan. Since I was a little girl, I have loved my Giants and my Wahoos. But truthfully I will watch any game, any time, anywhere. Read more...

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Loss, Love, Parenthood

‘Twas the night before school

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Today is my least favorite day of the year.  The day before school starts.  The end of summer.  The beginning of homework and drudgery.

The end of fun.

Jack has been dreading this day for weeks.  He angsts. He frets. He worries about things to come instead of basking in the remaining moments of his freedom.  He is, after all, his mother’s child.  I do my best to distract him, to cheer him up, to reassure him he will love it once he gets there.  But I am pretty sure he can see right through me. Read more...

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Believe, Loss, Love, Parenthood

Summer Crushes

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07 16 14_0001Oh the summer crush.  There is nothing like it.   I don’t know whether it’s the potentially fleeting nature of the relationship that makes it so intense.    Perhaps a summer crush is special because it is accompanied by the exhilaration of seasonal freedom.  Unlike the other nine months of the year, reason and obligation take a backseat to the vagaries of the heart in the summer.  Maybe everything is amplified by warmer temperatures and the heady smells of suntan lotion, chlorine, and french fries from the snack bar.  Whatever the reason, in the summer you sit a little closer, gaze a little longer, giggle a little louder, and love a little harder. Read more...

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Growing Up, Love, Relationships

The Family We Choose

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08 12 14_0001This is what 38 years of friendship look like.  Easy.  Real.  True.

38 years ago, our mothers asked each other to be godmothers to their new daughters.  27 years after that, we were each other’s maids of honor.  Fast forward another 3 and we are godmothers to each other’s babies.  And all the moments of all the years in between are just too good to reduce to words.

When we were younger, I idolized her incredible spirit of adventure, her fearlessness, her inimitable ability to make everyone laugh, her giant heart that embraced everything and everyone.  I still do.  But now I admire how she didn’t sacrifice those qualities on the altar of adulthood.  Instead, she effortlessly parlayed all of them into her marriage, her children and her work. Read more...

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Believe, Loss, Love

I’m Fine

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“I’m fine.”  I don’t know how many times I have said that over the last 6 weeks since my father died.  My father died.  Those words still seem odd to say.  Odder still that they flow trippingly off my tongue as if I were simply recounting where we went for summer vacation.

It is a well-established fact that I am a regular crier.  I excel at crying.  Happy tears, sad tears, exhausted tears, frustrated tears, nostalgic tears.  They have all been a part of my weekly repertoire for 38 years.  Sappy commercial? Check.  Wistful memory of the boys when they were babies? You bet.  Random song on the radio? Yup.  Hard day?  Too tired?  Proud parental moment?  Bad blisters?  Yes, yes, yes, and yes.  You name it, I have cried because of it. Read more...

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Loss, Love

Love Never Ends

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When I was seven years old, a particularly fierce thunderstorm swept through town one night.  One of those southern summer storms that shakes the walls of the house and the nerves of its occupants – especially the little ones.  Sensing my palpable fear, my dad quietly took my hand and asked me to come watch the storm with him.  I shelved my trepidation and accompanied him to the sun porch on the side of our house that had floor to ceiling windows.

As the storm put on a magnificent display, I sat on my father’s lap and listened to him quietly talk about calculating the distance of the storm by counting the seconds between thunder and lightning, why light travels faster than sound, and the origins of electrical pulses in the sky.  Every time I jumped at the sound of a thunder clap, he gently put his hand on my forearm and immediately my heart rate slowed down.  When the storm finally ebbed, I realized that I was completely relaxed. Read more...

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Loss, Love

A gentleman and a scholar

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03 07 14_0127There are certain special people in this world.  There are those that do things on a grand scale for the whole world to see.  And then there are those who quietly, but perhaps more powerfully, change the world through a myriad of tiny, seemingly inconsequential, acts of love.  Acts of generosity done completely anonymously.

This man was one of those people.

This man was the smartest man I have ever met, and everyone who met him would tell you the exact same thing.  His rapacious intellectual curiosity led him to read everything.  Everything.  From 19th century art to European military history to how Steven Speilberg filmed Jaws.  He wrote his own crossword puzzles for fun in the middle of the night and could beat you in Scrabble with one hand tied behind his back.  But when you talked to him, he made you feel as though you were the most interesting and intelligent person in the world.  He had the answer to everything, but he always helped you figure it out yourself.
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