-
Mothering
I never thought I would be a mom. In my younger years, I didn’t really spend a lot of time with children other than the occasional interaction with the littles who were at my church. I completely lacked the desire to do activities with them or to volunteer to work in the nursery. None of that appealed to me. Kids were gross. I was only 22 when Kylie was born, and it is shocking to me now that I was so young when she came along. I loved being a mom, even though I had no idea of what I was doing. I was just getting established in my career,…
-
Mad Woman
“No one likes a mad woman. You made her like that.” -Taylor Swift It is true that anger eats a person up inside. I have spent years of my life being angry with the Captain for what he did to me and to our girls. There were days when I would allow myself to fester in it, let it eat me alive, lose sleep and be miserable. It was horrible, an existence that I wouldn’t wish for anyone, simply because it gets in the way of happiness. I deserve to be happy. Our custody and child support case was resolved at the beginning of April. I had spent a year…
-
The Un-Brave Girl
A couple of days before we flew out of Michigan, the twins and I stopped by the park in Elk Rapids so they could play at the playground on the beach for a bit. The weather was perfect, even though the breeze from Lake Michigan made it slightly chilly. I brought a new book and read while stealing glances at the water. As nightfall approached, I realized that we were going to have a perfect view of the sunset. I know that the girls did not particularly care, but I wanted to see it, every single second of the beauty of the sun setting over the lake that I have…
-
The Heart of the Lion
My grandpa died a week ago. I am not a girl who handles death well. On my best days, I am an anxious ball of stress and worry, and the smallest reminder that all of our days here are numbered is not good for my already fragile mind. My grandpa was my last grandpa, the patriarch on my dad’s side. My grandma died a decade ago, and he spent those ten years missing her so much. It was always heartbreaking coming to Michigan for a visit and hearing him talk about how sad he was without her. I will never know what it is like to be loved that way.…
-
Curveballs
My feelings are too big for my body right now. A few months ago, I felt like a completely different person. I was so proud of myself for finally paying off every single dollar of my credit card debt. I felt like a girl who had her life together: financially secure, independent, achieving her goals. But after only a couple of days of privately gloating over my ability to finally successfully adult, a deputy sheriff showed up at my door and served me with custody paperwork and a reason to drop $4k on a family law attorney. After all these years, guess who decided to show up. There it is.…
-
Permission to Fail
I am a quitter. There has never ever been a girl who has been harder on herself than I have always been. I have always compared myself to the masses, wondering why my grades weren’t higher, why I wasn’t getting promoted as fast as someone else, wishing I felt like more of a success even while others probably view me as successful. For my entire life, I have worried too much about what everyone else thinks of me, putting such intense pressure on myself to be better than I am, almost paralyzed by self-doubt and self-consciousness. The worry and panic that I feel when I come face-to-face with my own…
-
The Quitter
I am not the girl who stays. Longevity is not my strong suit. I have a tendency to walk away from anything and everything that does not serve me well. I will never be the girl who earns a 15-year service award at work or who celebrates her 50th wedding anniversary with the man of my dreams. Perhaps it is in part due to boredom. Maybe we put too much pressure on ourselves to stick things out just so we can brag about it to our friends. Look at me! I outlasted everyone! I will probably never really personally relate to any of that. When things get sticky, I bolt.…
-
Christmas Lights
I admittedly am the girl who puts her Christmas decorations up the second that the last Snickers bar has been distributed from my Halloween treat bucket. I probably would have done it sooner this year had my daughter not forbidden me from even looking at the pile of Rubbermaid boxes in the basement filled with ornaments and glittery reindeer trinkets. I haven’t always been this way, though. I spent so many years barely willing myself to put a tree up, sometimes only dragging out the 3′ tall fiberoptic tree that my dad bought me for my college apartment seemingly 100 years ago. The Christmas spirit was just not always easy…
-
First Days
My baby girls started kindergarten today. It was their official first day. Last week, they had a stagger start day where only a quarter of their classes went for half the day to allow them to get used to the structure. Open house was the week prior, and I left work early to make sure that we made it. There were two gigantic bags of school supplies to carry in, and we had to park a mile away from the front entrance because there were so many families there. I wore a cute blazer so I would feel trendy and pretend that I wasn’t the oldest mom at kindergarten. It…
-
The Cardinal
Today is the one year anniversary of my best friend’s death. I never imagined that I would type a sentence like that. I have survived an entire year of not having her. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, both of our 40th birthdays, Nurses’ Day when I would normally send her a card, and an unimaginable number of ordinary days in between. It’s the normal days that sting the most, I think. Those are the days when I think of her out of the blue and want to tell her something silly that makes me think of our childhood, or when I want to tell her about a moment that she…
