Who Would You Be

The tree is up.

The Christmas cards have shipped...at least that's what the email claims.

The Santa Wish Lists have been made.

The first ice and semi-snow has fallen.

Black Friday specials are hitting us from every direction.

And as is traditional with me, when the cold weather hits, I try to stay active but outside of the every- other-day run, I find myself hunkered down in our bungalow with lots of books and a favorite television series. 

I know I'm late to the party, but my new ridiculous obsession is the HBO series "Newsroom," created by the off-the-charts fabulous Aaron Sorkin.

If you don't know it, here's a trailer from the season one premiere...

The show is now knee-deep in it's third season and if I weren't a mother, I swear to God, I would binge watch episode after episode, hour after hour, day after day, until it was done.  As it stands, I've been staying up until midnight for the past few nights savoring every word that the brilliant Aaron Sorkin has written.

And this is the question...if you weren't putting up the tree with all of the ornaments labeled with "Kate 2013" and sweet little hands and angels....if you weren't signing the names and ages of your children to the dutiful holiday card...if you weren't responsible for getting them to and from ballet, piano, football and the like, what would you be doing?

I would be Maggie on the"Newsroom."  Bright, neurotic, incredibly hard working, willing to do whatever it takes to get the story right and in constant dilemma over making her love life work.  And then, I'd be Mackenzie in phenomenal heels running on espresso while she guides the hearts and minds of her senior reporters and producers to make the news, not an entertainment show.

And these are the silly things I think about...what would I/will I be doing when the center of my universe isn't motherhood?  And if I were doing it...would I be happy?

Do you ever play that game with yourself?  Where you re-trace your steps and think?  Hmm...if I'd only have gone to graduate school for that thing or stayed in that city or took that job...would I be in a newsroom?

My husband just laughs at me.  He knows that I can barely stay up past 10pm which means that I can rarely watch the news let alone produce it.  He also knows that I can't stand the idea of hurting someone's feelings let alone ripping into them to ensure that I get the facts precisely and accurately right while being the first outlet to announce it.  He also knows that the idea of being wedded to my job has never really worked for my soul.

But somewhere deep inside, there's a part of me that yearns to know that woman and to see who she'd be if she'd been born in a different age, at a different time, under different circumstances.  Would she live in a major market, catching the scoop with a team of people just as under paid as she convinced that the American people deserve to know the truth?

Maybe...

But most likely, she'd be living in Omaha, Nebraska stringing popcorn and cranberries along the tree figuring out how to keep Santa alive for her children.

Sometimes, though, it's fun to think about life in an alternate time and place.

Stories We Tell Ourselves

Stories are powerful.

We know that.

Particularly, when they hit us in the gut and make us feel something real, something memorable.

Which is why the narratives that we spin in our heads about the world and more importantly, our place in it are that much more indelible and life transforming.

It's the constant reel that goes through our mind as we're going about our day doing our thing.

"I can't do it.  I've never been able to do it."

"Oh my God, why is she always such a bitch?"

"Why can I never get it together?"

"I don't deserve it anyway."

You name it.  We make judgements all day long and determine who's good, bad, worthy, doing it right, funny, lame, incompetent, Messiah like.  And 99.9% of the time, all of the assumptions, the labels, the stories never leave our heads.  They're never fact checked.  They're never shared with the source.  They're just residing there, waiting to be pulled off the shelf when we want validation that that's how the world works.

And so it was over margaritas last night, that the girls and I were solving the problems of the universe.  First up on the list, why as little girls do we believe what others tell us about ourselves?  Why do we make their story our story?  If someone in high school calls you a fat ass, a bitch, or a slut, why does it carry any validity?  Why does it matter?  And why, God forbid, 20 + years later are you still believing it?  How did their story become your reality?

Likewise, when we're trying on "change" in our lives wanting to do something that we've never done before...why do we automatically believe the age-old story that we can't, we shouldn't or we never will?

Is it possible to believe that you're a winner before you've won?  Is it worth the effort to start crafting who you are and who you want to be instead of accepting the world's labels for yourself?

In one of my favorite books, "Love in the Time of Cholera" written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, he encapsulates it with, “He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”


And if you want to begin reinventing or solidifying parts of you, it must begin with the story you tell yourself about who you are and what you are to the world....the action emanates from the beliefs.

38 Birthday Candles

Today, I turned thirty-eight years old.  In human years, not in dog lineage.

It feels like a big mouth full.  Technically, it's considered middle-aged.  Approaching the over-the-hill marker.  A place that felt far away not too terribly many years ago.

It's also a place that for me, has snuck up...which is descriptive of most of  my life, but has served as a semi-wake-up-call when I realize that my third decade of life is coming to a close.

As I look back, my twenties were really a time of self-discovery.  I felt lost.  Unsure.  Wavering.  Wondering.  Trying on new identities.  Thinking, probably foolishly so, that if I were married that life would have meaning.  Thank God, that wish didn't come true, until I tied the knot with the right one two weeks before my thirtieth birthday.

My thirties have been a time of care giving, sacrifice, endurance and everything that is wrapped up in the beauty and exhaustion that is motherhood.  I first became a mother when I was 30 and then again at 32 and then again at 35.

And every moment has shaped and molded who I am today.  I am less self absorbed.  I am less judgmental.  I don't have time or energy to be the kind of control freak that made me a good employee, but frustrated the shit out of my family and friends.  After watching illnesses, deaths and miracles transpire, I am keenly aware of what matters and what doesn't.  And the reality is that most of the heart ache we encounter is born of our own doing and really doesn't add up to a hill of beans.

At the age of 38, my days look like this....scramble out of bed at 4:30am for a coveted run where I imagine that I'm a Nike girl dressed in Lululemon with crazy speed and an amazing ass (wishing is free, right?).  I come home shortly before the sun comes up with the hope that my three littles and my better half are still sawing logs so that I can scarf down one large cup of coffee and stretch my bones because unfortunately, they creak a lot these days.  Moments later, I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and very carefully, pick out the perfect strawberries for my 8-year olds' lunch.  He wont eat the soft ones.

And then, it's off to the races.  Hurry up.  Eat your cereal.  Throw on your uniform. Brush those teeth. Stop annoying your sister.  Jump in the car.

Where I navigate the circle drop off and try not to be "that" mom in the janky car who can't get her shit together.

And for 30 seconds, I close my eyes and make the sign of the cross over my 8-year old and my 5-year old while saying:

May God bless your mind, so you can learn.

Your ears to be a good listener.

Your mouth to speak kind words.

And your heart to feel love.

Kisses and a squealing from the drive as I feverishly listen to NPR for as long as I can before it's back home to kiss my husband goodbye and grab my insane, biting, fearless 2-year old toddler.

Bed making, grocery shopping, laundry doing, ballet, soccer, piano, after school pick up, nap times, jewelry show preparation, school/church volunteering, homework supervision, dinner making, bath and bed carrying out and by 9pm, when it's all said and done, I look at my husband and say thank you for doing this with me.

This is what it feels like to be 38.  I'm not young.  But I'm not old.  I'm somewhere in the middle.  I suppose one more time reinventing me.  The me that runs, jumps, climbs, hopes, dreams, falls, fails, hurts, forgives, needs, believes and prays in gratitude for it all.

Happy Birthday to a 38-year old me...it's a blessed life, for certain.

What I Know About Me...

It's funny. 

The older I get, the more aware and probably honest I am, about what I am and what I am not.

I know a few things.

I'm a high maintenance girl who tries to pretend that she's not.  I like things a certain way and often the only reason that they're not is because I can't afford it or I don't have enough energy in this season of my life to make it so.

I hate researching anything.  I am impulsive and intuitive.  Nine times out of ten, I make the right decision, but sometimes, I'm painfully aware that I could have had better, had I just taken my time and explored the options.

I am deeply infatuated with smart, non-pretentious, capable people.  There is nothing I love more than getting drunk and commiserating with folks who challenge my thinking and freely share their ideas...it's orgasmic, really.

I love being a girl.  I love long hair. Skirts. Tanned legs. Talks over coffee/champagne with my girlfriends. And making my husband's head turn.

I was called to be a mother.  For all of the shit that comes with parenting and there is more literal and metaphorical feces than I ever thought possible...I would lay down my life and my sanity day in and day out for my three munchkins.

Unkind, self righteous people send me over the edge.  There is nothing more deflating than being privy to the judgmental rantings of a lunatic on his soap box.  It makes me want to commit acts of violence.

All people who cannot merge correctly onto the interstate should immediately implode.

I fear that I will always question my confidence and my ability to perform...which is probably why my writings will remain in the form of a blog and I will ultimately, be that quiet mom encouraging my three to conquer the world.

If I love you or have loved you...I will love you forever.  It's just how I was made.

It's refreshing to assess who you are and to own who you are not...knowing that you're perfect, idiosyncrasies and all.