Growing Up

Survive

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Some years you just survive

Some years were not meant to win. Some years were meant to survive.

Whether it’s because you are in the weeds with children or nursing a broken heart or mending a struggling relationship or knee deep in illness, some years you have to struggle just to stay above water.

You survive by giving yourself grace to say no to things you can’t do. To let others pick up the slack.

You survive by leaning on your friends. By accepting their offers to bring dinner and their understanding when you can’t show up. Read more...

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Growing Up, Parenthood, Summer, Uncategorized

The Beginning and The End

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Beginning of school year

I have always measured time not by the turning of calendar pages from one year to the next, but rather by the beginning of a school year.

Maybe it’s a vestige from having spent the better part of 2 decades in the educational system.

Maybe it’s my stubborn reticence to return to the monotony of obligations and expectations, alarm clocks and routines. God I hate routine.

Maybe it’s because I am a 7 year old trapped in the body of a 42 year old who relishes in the lazy days of summer, the heady smell of sun tan lotion and chlorine, and the simple pleasures of letting adventure find you. Read more...

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Growing Up, Parenthood

Why Participation Trophies Have It Right

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Here we go again. A new crop of smug articles about how participation trophies are creating a generation of entitled brats.

Can we step off the ledge and be honest for a second? You and I both know that a participation trophy isn’t making kids believe that they won something other than…a participation trophy.

Kids aren’t dumb – they know who won and who lost even when you don’t keep score. They can tell you who is the fastest, who is the smartest, who is the best – even if they do so grudgingly. Read more...

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Growing Up, Love, Relationships

This is Hard

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This is hard, this season of life.

Marriage is hard. Not hard like when our babies were young. When hard meant tired half-conversations that took place as we passed each other in hallways and meals scarfed down in turns, not together.

No, this season of marriage is hard because when you emerge from that tunnel of exhaustion, you have to re-learn how to have a relationship that involves just the two of you. You can barely remember what you said to each other before you had kids and the problems you have to work through aren’t just overlooking those pecadillos and quirky personality traits. You learn what for better or worse really means in a way that you couldn’t anticipate when you first uttered those vows. Read more...

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Believe, Growing Up, Love

Don’t Wait

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Dont Wait Happiness is All Around You Love Hard LuckyOrangePants.com

We expend so much emotional capital waiting.

Waiting for the weekend, for a new job, for when we have more money, for Christmas, for the right timing, for some magical time and place where the stars align.

But the truth is, friends, happiness isn’t a destination. It isn’t a date on the calendar. It certainly isn’t a notch we check off on the imaginary to do list of life. And all that waiting just blinds us to the happiness staring us right in the face.

Don’t wait for Christmas to make your house glitter with lights. Read more...

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Growing Up, Love, Parenthood, Wahoowa

You, Just You

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You just you

When your first born says he wants a date night with you – just you – you scrap your holiday party plans and trade your cocktail dress for your Lucky Orange Pants to drive to Charlottesville for this.

In those early days, when your babies want you, just you, all of the time, it can be exhausting. And you think there isn’t enough of you, just you, to go around. You feel like you are not enough. For your children. Your spouse. Your parents. Your friends. Yourself.

The older they get, the more they let go. The more they rely on a tapestry of people to hold their hand as they navigate the waters of  childhood. Like they’re supposed to. Read more...

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Believe, Growing Up, Love

We Make

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We make things and we break them

We make things. A million times a day.

We make beds and appointments and late night trips to the drugstore for ibuprofen.

We make time, even when there is none. For the school project. For the friend who needs to feel loved. For the little hands reaching up for help.

We make meals. Sometimes 3 different ones on the same night. Sometimes it’s a stop at a drive-thru. Sometimes it’s an all-day elaborate affair.

We make mistakes. We fumble and fall and fail. Sometimes we laugh them off. Sometimes we see the lesson, even if it stings. Sometimes we make things worse. Read more...

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Growing Up, Love, Parenthood

I Am the Keeper

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I am the keeper

I am the keeper.

I am the keeper of schedules. Of practices, games, and lessons. Of projects, parties, and dinners. Of appointments and homework assignments.

I am the keeper of information. Who needs food 5 minutes before a meltdown occurs and who needs space when he gets angry. Whether there are clean clothes, whether bills are paid, and whether we are out of milk.

I am the keeper of solutions. Of bandaids and sewing kits and snacks in my purse. But also of emotional balms and metaphorical security blankets. Read more...

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Believe, Growing Up

What Do You Wear To Get The Results of a Biopsy? Random Questions I Never Thought I’d Ask…

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What exactly is the appropriate dress code for getting the results of a biopsy?

In case you’re wondering, Miss Manners has not yet expounded on the topic, which, frankly, surprised me considering she once deemed “business casual” to be less of a dress code and more of an accounting practice accessorized by handcuffs.

Look. I understand that this question seems ridiculously inane, even for someone who is regularly consulted on matters of traditional, albeit arcane, fashion etiquette. Read more...

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Believe, Growing Up, Writing

My Voice

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My voice has always gotten me into trouble.

Feel free to ask my mother, who has spent 40 years telling me to lower my voice in quiet places like, well, everywhere.

Or ask my former teachers, who had no choice but to give me an S- or N on my report card in “Cooperation and Consideration” because I used my voice, well, all the time.

Or my exes (all of whom are still close friends), who will tell you that I do indeed say everything I feel the exact moment I feel it. Even if the timing is, well, inopportune. Read more...

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Growing Up, Parenthood

Almost 8 and Almost 10

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almost 8 almost 10 adolescence is harder than having a baby parenthood

To all of you in the throes of babyhood and toddler madness, please let me assure you that you will get through this.

And when you do, you will get down on your knees and pray to the gods of squeaky toys and late night feedings to go back.

I remember. I remember the sleep deprivation, the constant trail of unidentifiable gunk on your shirt and wondering bemusedly whether it was applesauce or poop, the endless delays because I can do it by MYSELF mommy, and the throw down tantrums in the middle of Target. Read more...

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Growing Up, Relationships

This is Forty

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40th birthday this is 40

Last month, I bid my thirties farewell. There wasn’t much fanfare. No dark clouds in the sky heralding the end of life as I know it. I just woke up one day and was 40.

40 is a tricky number. To some it is a dirty word. To some it is a chance to throw a big fun party that rivals your wedding. To some – judging by all the articles titled “40 things I’ve learned at 40” – it is apparently the age of total enlightenment.

But no matter how you slice it, 40 can be weighty. Read more...

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Growing Up, Loss

A Mother’s Farewell

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IMG_20160404_231121

Update: See this piece featured on Mamapedia!

A few weeks after we were married, Billy and I strolled into a coffee house in Alexandria. There on the bulletin board was a sign advertising beagle puppies born on our wedding day. If ever there was a sign, this was it. It seemed serendipitous to start our new life together with a little ball of fur to whom we were forever joined by a sunny day in January. We named him Charlottesville, in honor of the place where we met and fell in love.

Charlie shared our first home, our first months as newlyweds, our late nights and our early mornings. He took our loud voices and our moves in stride. We cut our parenting teeth on him, learning that when you become a parent, the things you give up pale in comparison to what you receive. Read more...

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Growing Up, Love

16 Years of Choices

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2015-10-22 21.32.32

This week, Billy and I celebrated the 16th anniversary of our first date (our “dateaversary” as we call it). A night that we walked into a bar as friends, just like so many other night. We drank some beers, watched a ballgame, and chose to take a leap.

Our story did not begin that night. Stories, after all, do not have beginnings or endings but simply arbitrary dates from which we mark a before and an after. October 19th is that day for us.

Billy once told me that fate brought us together; that there were too many coincidences, too many ghosts, too many decisions that could have gone the other way for it to be random.  But even if fate brought us together on the lawn of the law school, it was we who made the choice to be together that night in October. Read more...

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Growing Up, Loss

August 21st

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One year ago, as our family vacation at the beach drew to a close, I felt more than the usual end-of-vacation melancholy. All summer long we had been living with my mother, sheltering each other after my father’s unexpected death in July. And it had worked like a dream: in that idyllic bubble we created, temporarily freed from any commitments or expectations, we had managed to buffer each other from the worst of the shock and pain.  But like all dreams, it couldn’t last. After our vacation, we would be returning not to my mother’s house and our safe little bubble, but back to our house. Back to real life. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for it. Read more...

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