tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12355026772578825772024-02-19T16:56:49.644-08:00Sometimes it's hardAnd other things mommy doesn't want to admitstory girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.comBlogger386125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-78372009982102909682023-03-14T18:53:00.002-07:002023-03-14T18:53:51.748-07:00I quit<p> I try to be a good person.</p><p>First and foremost, I try to be good, to be kind, to do right.</p><p>I quit.</p><p>Two weeks ago, someone in a local Facebook group attacked my friend's teenage child with autism. "If a child with autism attacked another child unprovoked, and if he had a history of doing this, what would you want to happen to him?"</p><p>Friends. This is not how discipline is done.</p><p>We don't crowd source it on Facebook without any actual facts. We don't publicly shame disabled children.</p><p>And so I wrote, on my own wall, this:</p><p><br /></p><p>"Last week, I told some third graders that when another kid is breaking a rule and a teacher is handling it, their job is to say NOTHING. Some adults on Facebook could stand some lessons in 3rd grade behavior. #subtweet #snarkyday"</p><p><br /></p><p>Friends, it so happens that I am a substitute teacher in our district. It also so happens that that has nothing to do with what a subtweet is.</p><p>So today I got a phone call from one of my administrators that these same parents who wanted to publicly shame a disabled child had called and reported my post.</p><p>That I, an employee of the district, was posting on Facebook about telling kids to keep quiet and keep secrets.</p><p>And this administrator called me and said that if he read that post, he would have those same concerns. That I, a substitute paid $100 a day for 1-2 days a week, was a representative of the district and as such was held to a different standard on social media.</p><p>I deleted the post. I cried for the rest of the afternoon. I went into a shame spiral. </p><p>I'm tired of trying. I'm tired of being a good person. I'm just so tired.</p><p><br /></p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-52227493998375255522023-02-21T14:26:00.001-08:002023-02-21T14:26:26.713-08:00Self care<p> I went for a walk today. </p><p>Every session, my therapist asks me, "Did you get to any self care since I last saw you?"</p><p>"Wellll."</p><p>Yesterday I went to my endocrinologist. I have Graves Disease, have I mentioned that? It means that I have an autoimmune condition that makes my thyroid VERY CONFUSED and so it spits out too much thyroid hormones all the time unless I take medication. If I'm high, it can make me jittery and anxious and can also give me a lot of extra energy and productivity. And make me lose weight.</p><p>"Your thyroid is a little high."</p><p>WHAT THE HECK BODY? WHERE HAVE MY BENEFITS BEEN? I've spent the past month barely able to get off the couch.</p><p>Thanks for nothing, thyroid.</p><p>Anyway.</p><p>I went to my endocrinologist yesterday and he said my thyroid was high, and he increased my medication but he also asked my how my stress was.</p><p>Hahahahaha.</p><p>So today seemed like a good day to Do The Self Care.</p><p>I went on my group chat of local mom friends and said "Does anyone want to go for a walk to ignore our meaningless lives for a while. I mean, my life is meaningless. I'm not saying your lives are meaningless. I'm just. I'm gonna go."</p><p>And I laced up my shoes and went for a walk with my own self, Glennon in my ears, the (okay I didn't know it would be THIS strong) wind in my hair.</p><p>45 minutes later I thought to myself, Self, that was a good walk. I walked a lot of the demons out and I feel better and now I sure am spent.</p><p>I was about a mile away from home.</p><p>20 minutes after that, I stumbled through my front door, plugged in my now dead phone, and rooted around my room until I finally found a marble notebook because if we're doing this, we're doing it. Coffee in hand I plopped on the couch, flipped the notebook to the front cover,</p><p>And it had biggest girl's name on the front. Son of a.</p><p>Back up to my room I practically crawled, dug around some more, and found another notebook. I grabbed it and the pen next to it and sat down on my bed, my hand moving across the page in a was it somehow apparently did still know how to do.</p><p>And then I went downstairs to get another pen because the one I'd been trying to use was completely dead .</p><p>How's self care going for you, friend?</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-80839951508807624322022-11-30T19:05:00.001-08:002022-11-30T19:05:49.471-08:00Behind<p>I am sitting on my couch with my feet to on my ottoman. There is a pain running up the side of my shin. I took over 10,000 steps today. I was a substitute intermediate school librarian, which you wouldn't think would result in a lot of walking or A lot of shin splints but here we are.</p><p>Today was better. It was better because I was busy, because I was serving, because I was with children, because I didn't have time to be in my head.</p><p>Yesterday my school district, where my kids go, where I sub, called every family in the district urging everyone to come in and interview for teaching jobs. Teaching jobs I don't think I actually want, that I'm not sure I'd be able to handle, but that I deeply resent other people leapfrogging me to get. That I am afraid of missing out on, afraid of losing. Afraid of getting. Afraid of not getting.</p><p>I am doubting all the life choices that led me here, the years of mothering that left me behind, left me with no resume, no confidence, no marketable skills. I'm sad and I'm scared and I'm angry and I'm resentful and I'm filled with regret. </p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-84217027818383715062022-11-28T20:22:00.002-08:002022-11-28T20:22:36.269-08:00I really shouldn't wait until 11 to write these<p> It is 11:00 at night. I'm curled up in a corner of my couch. YouTube comedy videos are playing on my TV but I'm not entirely watching them. I have to be up at 6:00 am to get my kids off to school. My coffee pot is already set up. I should probably be in bed already. But I'm not.</p><p>I have been spending the past few days looking at writing jobs and online teaching jobs and curriculum design jobs. I tried to learn more about freelance writing and copywriting and content marketing and virtual assistanting (I'm not sure that last one is a verb, but PARALLEL STRUCTURE) I made a few things for my teachers pay teachers store and tried to promote them. </p><p>And I've come to the conclusion that everything sucks and I hate it all. I don't want to do anything. I'm not already good at anything and I don't want to be bad at everything. </p><p>I've never been anything but a teacher and a mom, and I am afraid I'm too old to learn to be anything else. I'm afraid I'll never be able to choose anything or commit to anything. I'm afraid I'll just be rejected at everything and it will SUCK SO HARD and I DON'T THINK I CAN HANDLE IT. </p><p>I don't know anymore. It's 11:20 at night and I should already be in bed but when I wake up I don't know what I will do. Well. I know I'll put my kids on the bus, but beyond that I really just don't know.</p><p>I'm not sure this went anywhere or that I said anything but it's 11:20 at night, and this is what you get.</p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-3673255528774161762022-11-27T20:47:00.005-08:002022-11-27T20:47:54.200-08:0010 things my gremlins say at 11:43 at night<p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>You didn't do anything that matters today.</li><li>You will never create anything that anyone cares about.</li><li>Everyone but you had something better to do today.</li><li>No one would notice or care if you just disappeared.</li><li>You don't have anything to say, anything to write, anything worth adding to the world.</li><li>No one wants to talk to you and they're relieved when you don't reach out.</li><li>All your best work is behind you.</li><li>You quit everything you start and honestly it's just as well.</li><li>You disappoint people.</li><li>You'll never be enough. </li></ol><p></p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-45567044188768963032022-11-02T10:58:00.002-07:002022-11-02T10:58:47.303-07:00Substitute<p> I am sitting in someone else's chair, at someone else's desk, in someone else's classroom. In 4 minutes, her 3rd graders will come back from gym and I will teach them compound sentences with her slides and her lesson plans. </p><p>In front of me on my desk - her desk - is my green travel mug of coffee from this morning. In the bottom of this cup, there are only a few drips of cold, stale coffee I made at home 7 hours ago. Still, in these last 4 minutes of my prep - HER prep - I repeatedly raise this cup to my lips, letting the bitter drops fall into my mouth. </p><p>And in these last few minutes, I scribble in my notebook. I scribble about how my 12 year old daughter is writing 50,000 words this month and I can't. I write about diagramming sentences. And as I grasp at the last few bitter drops of creativity still in my brain, I realize that none of that can substitute for making something that's mine.</p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-14938316185459987682022-11-01T11:28:00.001-07:002022-11-01T11:28:59.644-07:00More<p> Both of my kids are in school. In school in person. Not here with me. Not doing reflex math in my lap. Away.</p><p>I have time to myself. Time to do whatever it is I want to do with my life. I just don't know what the heck that is.</p><p>I know it's not laundry. I know it's not decluttering. I know it's not watching Schitts Creek for 6 hours a day.</p><p>I don't know what it is that I want. All I know is that I want more.</p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-47293694060835926152022-08-27T16:40:00.001-07:002022-08-27T16:40:23.929-07:00Back to schoolIt has been the case for many years now that back to school brings with it for me a kind of grief.<div><br /></div><div>It seems like it should be too long by now for me to be grieving, too long for me to be sad and to be missing that completely different life I stepped away from 12 years ago when I left the classroom. 12 years ago when, for the first time since I was old enough to remember, I didn't go back to school.</div><div><br /></div><div>And the grief passes and is replaced by other things, by busyness, by self doubt about the choices I've made, by longing for something that feels far out there, by guilt for thinking of these years with my children as wasted. I had a plan, you see, to get back. To start by subbing and to work my way back to being a full time teacher, to ease into it. And then a year into that plan the world shut down and I got stuck.</div><div><br /></div><div>And now I'm afraid that I've missed my chance. That it's too late. That there is no way back anymore. That I'm too old to be figuring this out, that I've wasted, lost, too much time.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not the same person I was 12 years ago and it's not the same job it was 12 years ago, and I can't step back into it like nothing happened. And I don't want to start over and figure out who I am and what I want to be. I don't want to be someone else.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I don't want to be no one anymore.</div>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-8092495183321005342022-05-25T10:09:00.001-07:002022-05-25T10:09:05.109-07:00I can't today<p>The news is heavy today. I see it. I hear it. I know.</p><p>But I can't today.</p><p>I know that there is action to take, good work to do, right words to say, and I see the people I love deep in it.</p><p>But I can't today.</p><p>I want to be the kind of person who sees a need and leaps into action, who fights the good fight, who makes all the right kinds of trouble at all the right moments. Who goes after the guns, who protects trans kids and reproductive rights, who saves Ukraine and stops climate change. I want to be that kind of person and I love and admire those people and I know I KNOW there are right things to do.</p><p>But I can't today.</p><p>Today is heavy, and I have a brain and a body that crack when it's heavy, that need quiet to process and feel, that buckle under the pressures of tragedy and conflict and the unbelievable enormity of the world's grief. Tomorrow I will write my congressmen. I will do whatever it is I can think to do, whatever the people who are braver and smarter and stronger than I tell me to do. And you won't necessarily see it on my social media echo chamber. But I will be doing what I can in my own way. Tomorrow.</p><p>But I can't today </p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-61010754482956717172022-05-19T08:40:00.003-07:002022-05-19T08:40:28.657-07:00Lost<p> I am sitting on my bed in the middle of the morning. My kids are at school. My feet are cold. Outside my window, the sky is gray and misty and I have to turn on a few more lights to be able to see in my room.</p><p>In my head, it's gray too.</p><p>I am feeling lost in my life lately. I am fairly certain that I want to create, that I want to make something that's mine, that's special, that I can put out into the world. I am fairly certain that it's not optional, that not creating anything is eating away at my insides. Festering. </p><p>But I'm still just sitting here, lost.</p><p>A few years ago, when both my kids started school, I went into a place when it was time for me to go out into the world. When I was ready to try things. When there was time and space to be not just mom. And I started, tentatively. I substitute taught. I wrote, some. I ran. I tried a variety of things, and I was just starting to maybe find my way.</p><p>And then the pandemic hit, and my kids were home with me all the time again, and there was no space in my head or in my life for everything, and I went into stasis. Survival. Get through the day mode. And that was okay.</p><p>But now I'm back to this place with the space, with the wide open world in front of me, and I don't know what to do. I'm paralyzed. I'm stuck. I'm hiding in closets or under the covers to keep from being alone and lost in the world. </p><p>I know that I need to do something, make something, but I don't know where to begin. </p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-60654469622811936162022-04-26T19:12:00.001-07:002022-04-26T19:12:25.532-07:00Who do I want to beI sat in the armchair in my therapist's office, my hands in my lap. She read from the open binder in front of her on the table. <div><br /></div><div>"So. The next target on your map for this brown is trouble setting up your teachers pay teachers store. Do you want to work through that one today?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Ha. Umm..yeah. We can work on that. That's ... Kind of an ongoing thing?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Oh? So" she glances down again, "you'd say that's a present target?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yeah. Yeah I'd say."</div><div><br /></div><div>Chasing gold stars. Beating failure to the punch. I think those are the only two modalities I've ever had. If I'm not going to be immediately successful, if I'm not going to be praised and appreciated and adored, I don't want to do it. If I'm not sure I'm going to be successful, I don't want to try. If I don't try, I don't fail.</div><div><br /></div><div>Or I fail every time.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been trying.</div><div><br /></div><div>I took classes. I learned power point. I learned Canva. I practiced. I revised. And I'm not succeeding. </div><div><br /></div><div>No gold stars.</div><div><br /></div><div> And I haven't quit yet.</div><div><br /></div><div>Except for all the times I've quit.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I've started again. I've tried. Trying is hard. Trying is scary. </div><div><br /></div><div>So now I'm sitting in this arm chair and tears are running down my face. The floodgates have opened and honestly everyone in the room is surprised that this is the thing that did it.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I just ... Wanted to feel successful. Wanted to be good at something. I think I had unreasonable expectations for what this was going to do for me."</div><div><br /></div><div>"I'm sure," she said, "that you've been successful at a lot of things if you think about it. I mean, look at your girls! You're raising these wonderful girls."</div><div><br /></div><div>I pause, longer than I mean to. "But. They aren't me. And the older they get, the more obvious that becomes. They are their own people. Their accomplishments are theirs. And that's good, that's right. But I want something that's mine. And I know I .... Have. I have done things that I'm proud of. But. They're in the past. What now? What do I do now?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Well. Why don't we talk about that next time? Why don't you try some things, some hobbies, try to come up with some things you can feel successful at?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Sure. By next week, why don't I try to come up with some things I can feel successful at. That's not what I've been trying to do for my entire adult life or anything. I'll just ... Get right on that.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, dear reader, do you know? Who do I want to be when I grow up? </div>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-63637374245310117482022-04-07T05:59:00.004-07:002022-04-07T06:18:33.071-07:00Sad<p> She sat in the chair across from me, looking down at her binder of notes open in her lap. "Can you rate your depression over the past week on a scale from 1-10?"</p><p>"3?"</p><p>She wrote it down before looking up at me. "What ... What do you think is keeping your depression going? Because it seems like every week you have some. You're on medication for it, right?"</p><p>"...Yeah."</p><p>"Then why do you think it's never at a zero?"</p><p>I paused for a long time. We'd spent the previous half hour talking about my week, about how it had been hard. About my anxious 11 year old screaming every morning before school. About my perfectionist 9 year old crying for an hour instead of writing one page of a draft. About me trying a project that I thought would make me happy and realizing it wasn't what I hoped it would be. Why wasn't my depression at a zero?</p><p>"I think.... I think I'm just at a stage in my life that is full of a lot of drudgery and a lot of emotional labor, and not a lot of intellectual or creative stimulation. And I think that's really hard. And sometimes I get big ideas, like my blog or my teachers pay teachers stuff, that I think are going to just FIX IT. And then they don't. And it's disappointing. And if I wait until I WANT to do things like write, I'll be waiting forever. So I end up not doing the things that would make me happier."</p><p>"Oh. Okay." She flipped back through the binder. "You said before it's the weather. Do you think the weather contributes?"</p><p>Pause. "Yeah. Definitely the weather."</p><p>And. It was true. It was all true. It's the weather. It's the laundry. It's boredom. It's disappointment. It's emotional exhaustion from carrying the feelings of small people. It IS. </p><p>BUT.</p><p>What I really wanted to say was, A zero?? What's a zero? What would it feel like to be at a zero on the depression scale. Would I even want that? Do I know anyone at a zero? Would I want to??</p><p>This morning, after fighting with my kids to get up and get dressed and get in the car, after sitting in two drop off lines, I switched on the We Can Do Hard things podcast. As one does.</p><p>And the episode was "Susan Cain on sadness as a superpower."</p><p>And I exhaled from somewhere deep in my body where I hadn't known I was holding my breath.</p><p>Susan Cain has a book out today called Bittersweet. A book about the beauty of melancholy. About being what Glennon Doyle calls midnight blue, about seeing what G calls brutiful.</p><p>And I thought, yes. Yes. This is who I am. I'm sad because I'm paying attention. I'm sad because it's brutiful. I'm sad and I'm okay with that. I'm sad and I can use that.</p><p>I'm not glorifying depression. When I'm at a 6 or 7, I need help. Real help. But I'm never going to be a 0 because that's just not who I am. I'm sad. And I'm grateful.</p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-56235072735642376732022-03-27T18:16:00.004-07:002022-03-27T18:16:26.768-07:00Hate<p> I hate the laundry, how it's never done, how it expand to fill all the time and space available. </p><p>I hate the dishes, how they are somehow simultaneously all dirty and all in the dishwasher clean and waiting to be unloaded.</p><p>I hate school drop off and pick up, the hours I spend in lines, following rules, just to get my girls out the door of my car and into school.</p><p>I hate when my kids fight, when they scream in each other's faces and push each other's buttons. I hate that we can't get out the door without one or more of them screaming or crying or losing their ever loving minds. I hate that at 9 and 11, the anxieties and worries and pain have gotten bigger instead of getting better. I hate that I can't fix it.</p><p>I hate when I try to explain my problems to someone, and instead of listening and acknowledging, they try to tell me why, really, I shouldn't feel the way I do because everyone compares, because I do things well, because everyone has different talents, because really what do I have to be upset about or disappointed about or discouraged about really ... Really.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-49680611255574495962022-03-26T13:40:00.004-07:002022-03-26T13:57:09.244-07:00Do something<p> I am sitting on the couch with my feet up, my feet bare in front of me and my toes wiggling, even though outside the window, there is snow. Leaning against my chest is a half full cup of blueberry white tea that I choked on moments before I started writing, when while drinking I tried to answer my eldest daughter's question about whether Piper appeared again in the last two Trials of Apollo books. She is writing. She is always writing. </p><p>I feel like I've been sitting on my couch for years.</p><p>Depression is an old friend that comes to visit from time to time. That brings with it heaviness and darkness and doubt, an unwillingness to try anything, an inability to get off the couch. And I sit with it, I make it tea, I put out plates of Girl Scout cookies. And I sit.</p><p>I'm tired of sitting.</p><p>My cheeks burn with the salt left behind by dried tears, tears that have been falling silently down my face all day, though somehow no one who lives in my house has noticed. </p><p>Today, I feel discouraged. </p><p>I've tried things. I've been subbing again, but it has ended up being only one day a week. I tried to set up a teachers pay teachers store, but I haven't actually sold anything. I listened to podcasts and books on overcoming depression, on overcoming writers block, on starting a teacher business.</p><p>And nothing has broken through this shadow. Nothing has "worked."</p><p>I empty my dishwasher. I fold my laundry. I read Trials of Apollo to my children. I watch Mrs. Maisel. I go to bed. </p><p>I want to do something. I want to do something that matters. I want to get off this couch, to get out of this funk, to get out into the world, to be seen and heard to DO SOMETHING.</p><p>I set down my tea.</p><p>I pick up my pen.</p><p>"I am sitting on my couch."</p><p>It's the only place I know to begin.</p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-76984014856147387822022-01-26T12:08:00.001-08:002022-01-26T12:08:17.004-08:00Delay<p>The text came through five minutes ago: "The school district will be on a two hour delay tomorrow due to the sub zero temperatures." </p><p>I exhaled.</p><p>Another morning of not having to leave the house until after 9. Of extra snuggles with my kids on the couch before they go to school. A little more of this frigid January that I can spend doing what January is meant for: resting.</p><p>This is our 3rd delay this week and our 4th in two weeks. I feel a bit of a wash of shame at my delight over it. Ashamed of the privilege implied by being able to spend the extra two hours at home instead of scrambling for child care. Ashamed of my lack of productivity, at the thrill with which I melt into nothingness. Ashamed and afraid that once again, I'm doing everything wrong.</p><p>What is wrong, exactly? Is there a right way to do life? And if so, how do I find it? Is there a way to know that what I'm doing, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, are the right things? I don't know. I doubt it really. Is it okay to be happy about things that also seem like faults? </p><p>Is my whole life just one big delay, melting into the couch to avoid the cold out there? And when I get there (where??) will there be time to do the things I had planned? Or will it just be a lost day, year, life. </p><p><br /></p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-844147942622480882022-01-25T12:22:00.002-08:002022-01-25T12:43:08.411-08:00Pick up<p> I am sitting in my car in the pickup line at the Intermediate school. This is where I am at this time every day. Every day, I send my children into the lion's den, into this mask optional, quarantine optional school with 40 active positive covid cases. I grit my teeth every day and I send them in here because I cannot find any better option, but I am not yet ready to add school bus to the equation. So I sit in my car for half an hour every afternoon, securing my spot in line so that they never need to wait for me.</p><p>I am 4 hours into my audiobook. I'm starting to fill journals again. I've recently upped my meds and gone back to therapy. Right now, the sun is higher in the sky than it was when I sat here yesterday. And I'm writing. </p><p>Two years ago, I was subbing in that school. I wasn't afraid of what my kids might catch there. I wasn't scanning my email for exposure letters, wasn't picking up the pieces from damage I did myself when trying to do what was best. </p><p>It's been a long two years. I think, in trying to just get through each day, I've lost the thread of things.</p><p>I think it's time to pick it back up. </p><p><br /></p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-67905824665221963782021-12-16T10:22:00.001-08:002021-12-16T10:22:11.795-08:00On not quittingI didn't quit something today.<br /><br />A few weeks ago, I decided to get serious about selling teaching resources on<a href="https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/This-Mom-Teaches"> Teachers Pay Teachers</a>. I was excited. This was going to be *my thing*. I had an idea. I had a plan. I was going to be good at this. <br /><br />And then reality hit.<br /><br />I haven't taught full time in 12 years. I'm not good at design. I'm not good at marketing. No one is really interested in anything I could possibly sell. I don't have anything special to offer.<br /><br />This is the story of my life.<br /><br />I know that depression lies. I know. I increased my Prozac dose the other day. I've been using my SAD lamp, drinking my water, getting some exercise. I started therapy again, and maybe this time I'll actually tell her things instead of showing up and trying to be a good, obedient student, and then being resentful that my therapist couldn't read my mind and fix me. <br /><br />I know all the right things to do.<br /><br />But this, I'm not sure my brain chemicals can fix.<br /><br />I start things, I get discouraged, I get disappointed by life, I feel defeated. I get overwhelmed by all the things I don't know how to do, by all the things I would need to learn, by the enormity of what I'm not yet good enough at. And I quit.<br /><br />I've done it my whole life. <br /><br />Today, I woke up and said "This is stupid, I'm stupid, everything is stupid, I don't know why I thought I could do this. I don't know why I even try. I don't wanna try. I give up."<br /><br />And I wallowed on my couch for a while.<br /><br />And then I logged into my Teachers pay teachers account and I made one little change to my product descriptions.<br /><br />It doesn't mean I'm successful. It doesn't mean I'm going to be successful. It doesn't even really mean that I'm not GOING to quit. But today, I didn't quit. So. There's that. story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-926852324577750052021-12-08T10:35:00.002-08:002021-12-08T10:35:06.650-08:00Today<p> I am sitting in a coffee shop writing. It's been a really long time since I've done that, probably too long. There is something about a change of scenery, about being out of my house, about not having anything to do but write, that really makes a difference. </p><p>This morning I woke up with a headache, a headache probably caused by a combination of stress, the glass and a half of wine I had last night, and a general predisposition to headaches. I woke up, I made the coffee, I packed the lunches. I woke the children -- they're 8 and 11 now, did you know that? -- woke them, cajoled them into eating breakfast, into getting dressed. Got in the car, drove them to school. Came home, and looked at my husband watching a telecon on the couch and said, I need to go lie down.</p><p>And I slept for 3 hours. </p><p>And now here I am, sitting in a coffee shop at 1:30 in the afternoon, writing. In an hour and a half I need to be back at the school, in the pickup line, waiting to re collect my children. But right now, it is just me, this latte, and my words.</p><p>I worry that I don't do enough. I worry that my worth is tied to things that are beyond my capacity. I worry about not working, about not creating things that matter, about not leaving any kind of mark on the world. </p><p>But today, I napped for three hours and I'm having a latte and writing in a coffee shop. Today I'm taking care of the human who is, after all, a prerequisite to any act of creation or productivity. Today I am, in little ways, finding my way back to me. </p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-78537340033640521412021-12-07T06:34:00.001-08:002021-12-07T06:34:21.437-08:00Showing upThe hardest thing for me is showing up. Not for my kids. I'll show up for my kids every day of the week. When I have a rare moment in which I am unable to be present for my kids when they want my attention, I sink into a shame spiral. But showing up for me, that part is hard. <br /><br />The past two years, the pandemic, have given me more excuses than I needed to sink into my couch and not try too hard at anything, not do anything but survive. It wasn't a time for growth or accomplishment and honestly I took that further than I probably needed to. My depression is the variety that includes a complete lack of motivation, and it and I and the world were in so much agreement, that I just let it run the show. <br /><br />But now I want to stop. <br /><br />I want to stop stopping? I don't know. I want to show up for myself. To do things that I think are important. To make things. To be someone other than just the person who gets dinner on the table and makes sure homework is done. To actually be a human being with wants and needs and accomplishments. I want to feel happy and proud at the end of every day instead of just feeling done. <br /><br />I don't even know where to begin. Except I guess that's not true. I've always known where to begin. Pen to paper is where to begin, and it's scary as hell. Glennon Doyle says that the only way to be a writer is to write, that she's tried all the other possible ways. Damn it. <br /><br />So here I am. Showing up. Babbling away. Being real, even if real is as boring as I fear that it is. Putting myself back out into the world, in a way, and trying to remember who I am at the same time. <br /><br />It's a beginning. story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-26289974200408326882021-12-06T10:24:00.002-08:002021-12-06T10:24:32.857-08:00Let's write (again), shall we?<p> Hello friends. I don't know if anyone is here, so I don't know if anyone is hearing this, so maybe I'm just talking to myself, and maybe that's okay. <br /><br />Maybe it doesn't matter who I'm writing for as long as I'm here and I'm writing. <br /><br />It's been a really hard year. <br /><br />I think you all know that because I think it's been a really hard year for everyone, but me being who I am, the things that are hard for everyone take on a different level in my brain. I know some of you (if there are any of you out there) know what that is. When every minor catastrophe or challenge feels like the thing that is going to end you. Where you genuinely do not believe that you have the capacity to keep up with the things that are coming in, even when you see that everyone else is dealing with those things. <br /><br />When the depression wins. At least for a while. <br /><br />But here I am. <br /><br />I haven't written, really written, gotten into the grit of it, for much too long. And some of that had to do with just being overwhelmed by life, by having a husband and children who were for the first time in a long time just ALWAYS HERE. And some of it had to do with my brain and it's inability to keep moving forward when things felt heavy and swampy. <br /><br />But a lot of it had to do with this problem that I've really had for a long time. With not knowing what to write about, with worrying about not being good enough, with waiting for the exact right thing to fall in my lap and not believing really that it ever would. With not thinking that I or my words would ever be enough in the world, that I didn't deserve to put myself out in the world, that nothing I do or say could possibly matter. <br /><br />I still believe all of that to some degree. But I'm here, and I'm writing, and I'm putting it out into the world, and for today that's enough. <br /><br />Hello friends. I missed you. I missed me. Let's write, shall we?</p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-78811380160331437432020-12-25T18:47:00.002-08:002020-12-25T18:47:46.203-08:00I made you something<p> So this year. 2020. The dumpster fire that it is. It gave me some pretty incredible gifts. For example, this morning I poured coffee on a cocoa bomb that was left on my doorstep two nights ago by one of my dearest friends. A friendship that came to be because of the mess.</p><p>I should back up a little.</p><p>Since the beginning of the year, my kids' school district has offered the option of hybrid (and later full time in person) school or full time online synchronous school. From day one, my kids have been all online. It felt like the right thing to do, for a lot of reasons.</p><p>It also very quickly felt very lonely.</p><p>So I decided to do something brave. I made a Facebook support group for the families in my district whose kids were 100% online. Dozens of people joined. I suddenly felt at home, like I'd found my people.</p><p>And then something even more spectacular happened.</p><p>One of the wonderful moms in the group, M, sent me and a few other moms a group chat. Would we come to an outdoor, socially distant, happy hour in her backyard?</p><p>I think the 3 of them were already close. I was the outsider. I'd known A for years, moved in the same circles as L, and had met M once at a girl scout leaders meeting, but this was not a group I felt part of immediately. And yet. And yet I did.</p><p>So I went. Numbers were lower then, and none of us really went anywhere, and it was really safe enough. And it was lovely. Exactly what my soul needed.</p><p>But the most wonderful thing was that afterwards, the group chat continued. And I was included. I BELONGED. Because these were our people. Anxious moms with anxiety kids. Smart, socially conscious, kind women. The truest of the true hearts. Kindred spirits.</p><p>And I wouldn't have found them if it hadn't been for the flaming pile of shit that is 2020.</p><p>In the past week, those 3 friends all dropped off generous, thoughtful, creative gifts on my doorstep. A Joe Biden ornament. A wine glass decorated with the name of our group chat. A bag of candy and hot cocoa bombs. Gifts that weren't necessary at all because of course the real gift, the gift that Covid gave me, was finding a place I belong. It took my breath away. </p><p>But also, I was filled with shame and doubt. I didn't have anything to give to them. Certainly not anything as creative and thoughtful and they'd given me. So this, I thought, is where they realize I'm a fraud and exile me from the tribe. Where they realize I don't have any talent or worth and they don't need me after all. I don't have anything to give.</p><p>Nothing but my truth.</p><p>"Y'all want an essay?" I joked. </p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-21892199976764329822020-11-02T20:07:00.004-08:002020-11-03T06:54:04.421-08:00What is<p> I am sitting on my couch with my feet up watching Schitts Creek. I am tired, all the way down to my bones. My kids have been asleep for hours. My hair is in a messy pony tail on top of my head with strands falling in my face. I haven't worn makeup in months.</p><p>It's 2020. I've been staying in my house for months, staying in with my kids whose mental health is starting to falter, just as mine is. This is hard. So hard. </p><p>I want things to be different. I think almost every day, I mumble to myself, "I just need everything in my life to be completely different." </p><p>I feel like I've been training for years to learn to accept what is. There were dark days when my babies were little and you, you were the ones with me through it all,.the ones who got me through. And as much as I want things to be different, I see what is and I am practicing every day accepting it.</p><p>I am sitting on my couch watching Schitts Creek and I am here now. I'm going to try to remember that when things feel like too much. I'm going you try to be there then too.</p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-51666144938767475622020-11-01T21:18:00.000-08:002020-11-01T21:18:11.229-08:00Hi again (or Grace)<p> Well hello. It's November. It's November 2020. Everything is screwed. But I thought maybe I'd show up here and do this thing anyway.</p><p><br /></p><p>It's 12:15, which means it's technically not the 1st anymore which means technically I missed a day which means technically I failed.</p><p>But there's this gift that my depression and anxiety have given me over the years and it's called grace. So I'm giving myself grace. I'm saying it's okay that it's not the 1st anymore. I'm saying hi, I'm here, and That's enough for tonight. </p>story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-84183803058385928902020-02-20T09:26:00.002-08:002020-02-20T09:26:55.987-08:00StayAt 1:30 in the morning last night, my 9 year old was standing next to my bed. My eyes fluttered open to look up as she spoke.<br />
<br />
"Mom, is it bad that it's 1:30 and I'm awake and I can't get back to sleep?"<br />
<br />
I don't think I said anything. I reached for her with one arm and lifted the sheet next to me with the other. She folded herself into my arms, and within minutes was asleep.<br />
<br />
I lay there, awake for a bit but just barely, curled around this preteen who somehow once grew inside my body, and just breathed.<br /><br />I saw a post today on facebook where another mom of a third grader was lamenting her daughter's baby days. The baby days were rough for me, man. Sometimes I feel sad about that, wondering if I missed something, if I was supposed to feel differently about it. If feeling anxious and sad and frustrated and lonely all the time was the wrong thing. If I did at all wrong, if the baby part was supposed to fill me with something that I would always long to get back.<br /><br />And these preteen days, they're hard too. They're different hard. Putting this girl to bed last night, I listened to her cry about school, about friends, about not knowing her place and worrying about whether people would like her. An hour before, I'd sent her to her room for hitting her sister because she was frustrated with me for not sending said sister to bed yet. Two hours before that I'd followed her and her friends up and down the street while they picked up trash, an idea that had been entirely their own.<br /><br />At 1:30 last night, I held my big little girl in my arms, and I just wanted her to stay here now. And she won't, we won't, we'll all keep growing. And the next stage will be wonderful and terrible, beautiful and crushingly hard. And I hope that when we're there, I can BE there like I was for a little while last night, when my brilliant, dramatic, anxious, wonderful daughter curled into me like she did nine years ago. I hope that I can just stay.<br />
<br />story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1235502677257882577.post-67565111486035379542020-02-07T19:25:00.000-08:002020-02-07T19:25:42.723-08:00Snow dayThe phone next to my bed rang before my alarm did. 5:00 AM. I fumbled with the phone, managing to pick it up without knocking it over.<br />
<br />
"Schools will be on a two hour delay."<br />
<br />
"Oh thank God," I muttered, clicking off the phone and rolling over.<br />
<br />
I stayed out too late last night, at a Girl Scout volunteer meeting that included more wine and gossiping than I'd expected. A meeting/impromptu girls night that I had been incredibly grateful for.<br />
<br />
But it was morning, and I was supposed to substitute for third grade today, and I was not prepared to get up.<br />
<br />
And now I didn't have to.<br />
<br />
An hour later, without much surprise, I picked up the phone again to hear that school was closed. Told my kids to go ahead and turn on the TV. Fell asleep on the couch.<br />
<br />
I slept off and on for hours. We played in the snow. Did crafts. Baked cupcakes.<br />
<br />
It's night now, and my kids are in bed, and I'm grateful for today. Grateful and also... Vulnerable? Wondering if I wasted the day? Feeling guilty for my laziness? And I'm trying to remember that it's okay to have a lazy easy day.story girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16876607625116932174noreply@blogger.com0