The fleecy innards of my footy pajamas cling to my freshly powdered legs and feet. My fingers argue with the stubborn, unworked pop-and-lock beads which refuse to come undone. With intention, I stay after them while the television mumbles.
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There is something unique about the bonds we have with people from our childhood. They are the ones who watched us take a header over the handlebars, gracelessly break someone’s heart in 7th grade or accidentally squish a toad to death by loving it too hard. They were there. From the beginning. And therefore know all of ‘us’.
Our particular neighborhood was filled with Hirsch homes and Dutch Colonials. It was also filled with children between the ages of 9 and 0. Oodles of us running around in packs who would descend upon someone’s yard together for a game of Wiffle Ball or Kick the Can. I later came to learn that the stay-at- home mom’s had a secret pact that the woman who lived where they landed would be responsible for the entire bunch until they moved on. This is when the other women sat for a minute with Reader’s Digest or took a bubble bath.
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“Other people’s opinions are driven by their needs and emotions – not by magical insights about my worth.”
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What must your life be?
It appears to those of us watching you pretend not to struggle that the only important thing for you is to manipulate lighting and angle to reduce the size of your hips. Up. And to the left.
You feign quirky and hallow your cheekbones with a tilt of your chin or some weird pursed lips. There. Got it.
It took you 27 tries and you missed so much joy on the street that day – a first kiss, late morning light through the stained glass, the laugh of a newborn happening all around you at that very minute; but you will never even know this. That moment is gone for good. Several heartbeats less.
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I captured the best image I have ever captured tonight, but you will never see it.
At the end of another brutally long work day, I grabbed my camera and headed out the door for a few minutes of fresh air before the sun went down. The truth is, I don’t have the energy left after life ravages me each day to create anything. But because I refuse to stop fighting I went searching for something beautiful anyway. Anything beautiful in a life that is otherwise. And I found it.
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While folding laundry today I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror across the room. From that distance, I’m not half bad. My curly short hair is different than other women my age and frames my face with a wild softness in keeping with my energy. I have curves now; a 38DD which I find uncomfortable in every way but which balances my hips which were always big even when I was not. My features are different than the average woman, gentle but striking, and from this many paces I am a curious creature worthy of notice. So, I put down the towels I was folding to investigate.
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“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who can come alive.”
There were certain days when I didn’t want to wake you. I just wanted coffee for a few minutes longer. You were hard to put to sleep in the first place and would begrudgingly greet the sandman only if I patted your diapered bottom in groups of seven with a pause in between and backed out of the nursery with steadfast caution to avoid the squeaky spots in the floor boards. You always were particular ~ no tags in your clothing, resting your stuffed bat upside down in your shoe at nap time because “that is how they sleep,” nothing mushy on your plate, and always with a makeshift hat whether it be your sister’s leggings, a butterfly net, my breast pads for nursing or a baseball cap “inside outed”.
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This was one of the worst weeks of my entire life.
Don’t get me wrong. There were some significant high points that I will not forget. Like a teambuilding evening at BCN Kitchen in Barcelona with my team of 12 men and me cooking tapas together with wine, laughter and, for the briefest of moments, trust and friendship. I will hang onto that with both hands for a long time. Or the look on my friend Michael’s face when he ate fungi at a Catalan restaurant in Sant Cugat that elicited a laugh from the very middle of me that was so loud and so sudden that it brought a conversation of more than a dozen people to a halt followed by a quiet question from my boss, “are you okay?”
But, the truth is, I’m not okay.
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“Writing personally and authentically – and then sharing it – feels a bit like birthing a square-headed baby once a day.”
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