No one lives in her head more than me.
I have an extraordinary gift for analyzing the shit out of nearly every mountain and mole hill I encounter...real or perceived.
I create hypothetical fantasties, proverbial pro and con check lists, wish lists, back-up plans, worst case scenarios...you name it...I've thought it through.
If you value intellect, discourse and lunatic-laden strategy, I'm your girl.
But if you want to get shit done, well...
Listening to one of my favorite podcasts while running errands, I heard the incomparable actress, Ellen Burstyn interview the equally incomparable activist, Gloria Steinem on "Death, Sex and Money." Both women are in their 80's, staring down an impressive amount of life lived with both hope and regret. With no intentions to stop working and living purposefully in the world, they purported a concept that I became fixated on...
Be the verb until you become the noun.
I began to tear up on my way into Trader Joe's.
This simple example of living has unconsciously permeated the way I DO everything in my life.
I had no idea how to be a mother and so I just started mothering. I got up when the baby cried and nursed her. I made sure that they had help with their homework and cheered on the football field. I listened to piano keys bang out notes that made sense and others that were getting there. I showed up. Day after day. Year over year. Until one day, I legitimately felt like it was fair to call me a mother. Not a perfect one--not by a long shot--but a mother...one who mothers.
Five years ago, I wanted to inhabit my body again. I bought a pair of running shoes. Loaded some songs on an iPod. Borrowed a Garmin and tried to make it around the block. I ran nearly every day seeing the sun rise, my shins catch on fire, my hips hurt, my back ache, pounds shed and my confidence restored. I just went through a dresser drawer and decided to donate several of my race shirts. Looking at the overflowing bag, I felt like I could call myself a runner. Not an elite athlete--but a runner....one who runs.
At the same time, I started running, I began publicly writing a blog..."Kelly's Hot Mess." I felt like a fraud...but I was desperate to no longer be an isolated, stay-at-home mother and to have some accountability with putting pen to paper or keystroke to the web. Over 600 posts later, I feel like a writer. Not a Penguin press-worthy author--but a writer....one who writes.
And so it is, that in spite of myself, the best things I have accomplished have come when I just start doing them, especially, when I have no fucking idea WHAT I'm doing. When I listen to that tiny part of my heart that says, "just try it for five minutes...if you hate it, you can always stop, what do you have to lose?"
In the doing or the being, I get out of my head and back to my heart and my hands and my legs and slowly, bit by bit, me as the verb, eventually, becomes me as the noun--one I can claim and identify with.
As I watch my 6th, 4th and Kindergartner growing up, taking on new challenges, with far less baggage than me, I realize that this process of doing until we become is the only way that true change ever manifests itself.
No one is ever ready...EVER. We must stop using that language. We need to strip it out of our vocab. The best teachers and lessons have almost never come when we are ready. They greet us when we least expect it, primarily because we bothered to show up and welcome them into our worlds....mole hills and mountains alike.
Showing posts with label Gloria Steinem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gloria Steinem. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Sunday, August 7, 2016
June Cleaver
Two weeks from tomorrow, summer ends.
It's a bittersweet feeling for certain.
Our summer has been chock-full of traveling, swimming, garden tending, free library making, ice cream inhaling, Lego building, sleeping way lating, sibling fighting, mama yelling, friend laughing, beautiful, chaotic, good times.
Two weeks ago, I took my brood along with my niece and nephew on an epic 1500+mile road trip by my lonesome, and so this weekend, my better half returned the favor and took the crazies on a dad's and kids camping trip.
I was elated to have the space and coveted breathing room. I ran, cranked up the music, shaved my legs, drank too much wine and coffee, stayed in my pajamas until I felt compelled to change into yoga pants, spent time with friends and then made my way into my office.
Above my desk...I have these three mantras:
And while I was organizing Sam, Kate and Claire's school supplies into neatly arranged bags and bags within bags and labeling them with a sharpie marker and making notes to not forget socks for Claire's uniform or a ruler for Sam's pencil bag or Kate's rosary, I started to cry.
This is it.
Nine years of this full-time, stay-at-home thing is winding down.
And really, how did I get here?
My undergraduate degree is in philosophy from a liberal arts institution, my graduate degree is in conflict resolution from an even more liberal arts entity, I practically make my children wear tattoos on their arms that say, "Love is love is love is love." I was hoping against all hope that Bernie would rise with the collective and have a fighting chance to earn the nomination. I am incessantly advocating for the underdog. My heart is alive and happy when inclusion and love are present for all and I'd give nothing more than to live in a world without guns (even the Nerf ones).
And so, the idea that I left my career as a mediator nearly a decade ago to make macaroni and cheese and read "Good Night Moon" and then Junie B Jones and then Harry Potter and sent my kiddos to Catholic school and carved smiles into the peanut butter sandwiches and cried at every preschool recital and religiously asked them at the breakfast table about their dreams and if they were happy in their hearts...feels like a far cry from my mantra, "Take the Risk."
As I look back, I guess I'm more like June Cleaver than Gloria Steinem...which I can promise you, I never thought would be the case.
But as the tears were flowing down my face looking at the Crayola markers lined up and the composition notebooks in a row, this was sticking out of a stack of papers wobbling on a book shelf.
It's a haiku that my son, Sam wrote many a moon ago:
It's hard to read but it says:
A Haiku for you
Mom you are so great
You get me through
Ups and downs
I love you so much!
And in that moment, I knew. I did take a risk. Even though I wasn't aware year over year of exactly what I was doing, I was hopeful that my 'why' mattered enough to keep trying. And after countless tears and I'm sorry's and prayers and girl chats over wine and half marathons, I realized that I was living by design and indeed, via osmosis, I was choosing joy of a different kind. It's the kind of joy that emerges slowly, steadily, ordinarily, quietly and now, nearly a decade later, I can say enduringly.
But it's still hard, there are days when I want to be entrenched in a protest that has nothing to do with battling my five-year old to brush her teeth or go the fuck to bed. There are moments, when I see movements or career paths that seem exhillarating and I think, yes, I'll get my PhD in THAT and then, I quickly realize that for now, tuition dollars belong to my children. And, that's okay.
I have a feeling that life is going to crack wide-open very soon and with it, I will too. Finally, able to breathe and process where I am, which is a strange amalgamation of June Cleaver and Gloria Steinem wrapped in one woman, who takes unconventional risks, seeks to live by design and in spite of herself, chooses joy.
It's a bittersweet feeling for certain.
Our summer has been chock-full of traveling, swimming, garden tending, free library making, ice cream inhaling, Lego building, sleeping way lating, sibling fighting, mama yelling, friend laughing, beautiful, chaotic, good times.
Two weeks ago, I took my brood along with my niece and nephew on an epic 1500+mile road trip by my lonesome, and so this weekend, my better half returned the favor and took the crazies on a dad's and kids camping trip.
I was elated to have the space and coveted breathing room. I ran, cranked up the music, shaved my legs, drank too much wine and coffee, stayed in my pajamas until I felt compelled to change into yoga pants, spent time with friends and then made my way into my office.
Above my desk...I have these three mantras:
And while I was organizing Sam, Kate and Claire's school supplies into neatly arranged bags and bags within bags and labeling them with a sharpie marker and making notes to not forget socks for Claire's uniform or a ruler for Sam's pencil bag or Kate's rosary, I started to cry.
This is it.
Nine years of this full-time, stay-at-home thing is winding down.
And really, how did I get here?
My undergraduate degree is in philosophy from a liberal arts institution, my graduate degree is in conflict resolution from an even more liberal arts entity, I practically make my children wear tattoos on their arms that say, "Love is love is love is love." I was hoping against all hope that Bernie would rise with the collective and have a fighting chance to earn the nomination. I am incessantly advocating for the underdog. My heart is alive and happy when inclusion and love are present for all and I'd give nothing more than to live in a world without guns (even the Nerf ones).
And so, the idea that I left my career as a mediator nearly a decade ago to make macaroni and cheese and read "Good Night Moon" and then Junie B Jones and then Harry Potter and sent my kiddos to Catholic school and carved smiles into the peanut butter sandwiches and cried at every preschool recital and religiously asked them at the breakfast table about their dreams and if they were happy in their hearts...feels like a far cry from my mantra, "Take the Risk."
As I look back, I guess I'm more like June Cleaver than Gloria Steinem...which I can promise you, I never thought would be the case.
But as the tears were flowing down my face looking at the Crayola markers lined up and the composition notebooks in a row, this was sticking out of a stack of papers wobbling on a book shelf.
It's a haiku that my son, Sam wrote many a moon ago:
A Haiku for you
Mom you are so great
You get me through
Ups and downs
I love you so much!
And in that moment, I knew. I did take a risk. Even though I wasn't aware year over year of exactly what I was doing, I was hopeful that my 'why' mattered enough to keep trying. And after countless tears and I'm sorry's and prayers and girl chats over wine and half marathons, I realized that I was living by design and indeed, via osmosis, I was choosing joy of a different kind. It's the kind of joy that emerges slowly, steadily, ordinarily, quietly and now, nearly a decade later, I can say enduringly.
But it's still hard, there are days when I want to be entrenched in a protest that has nothing to do with battling my five-year old to brush her teeth or go the fuck to bed. There are moments, when I see movements or career paths that seem exhillarating and I think, yes, I'll get my PhD in THAT and then, I quickly realize that for now, tuition dollars belong to my children. And, that's okay.
I have a feeling that life is going to crack wide-open very soon and with it, I will too. Finally, able to breathe and process where I am, which is a strange amalgamation of June Cleaver and Gloria Steinem wrapped in one woman, who takes unconventional risks, seeks to live by design and in spite of herself, chooses joy.
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