Fall Into This Circumstance...

How excited am I for 2020 to finally get here? I feel like I haven’t been this excited for a new year since 1999, just because I liked saying that we were going to party like it’s 1999.

Twenty years on, life seems to have taken all of these turns and shifts and bends in the road to deposit me precisely back at who I was at 21. Insatiably curious, desperate to do all the things, and feeling like all of life had finally turned out like I wanted it to. College was a long, hard road of lonely for me-in all of my years at Muskingum, I had exactly one good friend, and mostly got along much better with my professors than my classmates-but by 1999, I didn’t care. I was “becoming who I was to be” (a quote that I stole from my favorite teacher of all time, Mr. Frank) and all I did was read and write and watch a lot of movies.

The past four years have circled me back to that same girl.

4 years ago, staring down the very last few weeks of my marriage before my divorce was final, I had a definite idea of what I wanted to happen- I wanted to let go of the past, to move forward in some healthy way, and to eventually meet the actual , true love of my life that surely God intended me to meet. To my mind, the only way that any of the pain of my marriage ending would be worth it in the end would be for me to realize that Nick had somehow been all wrong for me all along. The truth, I told myself, would feel so much more amazing for having lived so long with what turned out to be a lie.

Of course, that hasn’t been how any of this has worked out.

The only person that I’ve gotten to know better in the past 4 years is that girl that I left behind at 21. When Nick came along, I (quite naturally, I think) sort of shoved that girl aside. My life became about creating this family that I had always, always wanted. My life from 21 to 36 was consumed by Nick and the girls and being the mother and wife that I felt that they needed. When people talk about music or movies or anything from 2000 until 2015, I have little recollection of it. My life was made up of tummy time and Sesame Street, breastfeeding and precious little sleep.

I’m grateful every single day that I met Nick Johnson and I mean that with every beat of my heart.

But I’m also grateful every single day that I have found that girl that I let go of at 21. I’m grateful to have all of this time to read and write and watch all of the movies. To be my own best company. To just be alone, and have it be enough.

My word for 2020 is release.

We’ll see how it goes.


"It's gotta be a strange twist of fate
Telling me that heaven can wait
Oh, I'm gonna get it right this time
Life doesn't mean a thing
Without the love you bring
Love is what we've found
The second time around."
-Olivia Newton-John

Top of the World...

"Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can't tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start."
-Aloe Blacc


I’m working on a better answer for people when they ask if I’m dating.

When a completely well-meaning person asks me that, my instinct is to worry that they are about to suggest a date. Or a dating app. Or what have you.

Then, of course, I usually stumble all over the actual answer, which is a simple no, and say things like, it’s not like I haven’t dated at all in the past four years (lest they think there is something wrong with me), and then stumble into how I’m really not looking to date right now.

All of that is true. But I say it all slanted and weird, and usually the person ends up assuring me that someday I will meet someone.

I then smile politely and often say something equally awkward and eventually, praise hands to God, the conversation ends.

The truth about me and dating and love and all the things is just a bit more complicated that I can go into in a simple conversation.

I’m not sure that the true answer is incredibly complicated, but my answer to this question never seems to be what people are searching for.

The hand-on-my-heart, true answer to this question is that I enjoy spending my free time with my girls. My life when the girls are home is filled with old television shows and books and Barbie dolls. It’s my preferred way to spend an evening.

The second truth to why I’m not all that interested in dating is a bit more complicated. I truly believe with all of my heart that I am going to meet this person who I will magically know is the perfect person for me. (I really do have a physical checklist for this purpose.)

Then, of course, you have to take a step back from that and say, in all seriousness, “but, Joy, you already thought that.” And you are correct. In my lifetime, I have loved one boy ever, and he checked all of those boxes, and all of life was exactly what I wanted for fifteen years, and then it was all a lie.

It’s a hard, hard reality to live with- the notion that I believe to the depth of my soul in true love and soulmates and Nora Ephron movies, and then to juxtapose my divorce and my complete and total belief that it was necessary and correct and the best thing for both of us.

The most truthful answer to this question is simply, I am waiting for the guy that checks all of the boxes for me and the girls, the guy who meets all of my romantic comedy wish list needs, and who understands that I have scars that are still healing.

I quite likely set the bar too high for anyone to reach for a reason. I’m well aware of that. But, for now and likely the near future, that is my truth. Even if it takes too many awkward words for me to say.

"So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost"
-Aloe Blacc

Contradictions and Complexities...

Late fall is full of contradictions-the weather can’t quite make up its mind, the threat of icy roads is dangled as a possibility more than I would like, the trees are barren branches but it is still quite warm on my walks at night, the dark confuses all of my sense of time and I mostly want to curl up in bed with a book by 6 o’clock every night.

Late fall still brings to the surface mostly lovely memories-memories of falling in love for the first time, and memories of becoming a mother (which for me was the culmination of a million dreams come true), memories always of the lead up to Christmas, which is of course also my birthday, so it is indeed my most favorite day of the entire year.

Four years on, those memories are all mostly just truly lovely. That’s one of those truths that I wish I had understood in the beginning. That eventually you are able to remember mostly the good, mostly the magic, mostly the fun parts. It’s not that I have forgotten the painful parts. But four years ago, remembering the good just brought to the surface so much that I didn’t want to deal with-was it always a lie? Was I remembering everything wrong? When did it shift?

I don’t have the answers to those questions, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I likely never will. But I have learned, in my slow as a snail way, that it doesn’t truly matter.

Things I Have Loved Lately:

The Lazy Genius Podcast Episode 131: The Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey

I. CANNOT. RECOMMEND. THIS. HIGHLY. ENOUGH.

Nick’s leaving created all sorts of holes in our lives. One of those was that Nick always made the turkey for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was always a joint effort on our part, Nick and I together made most of the food that my family then shared at our Thanksgiving meal. (My mom makes the pumpkin pie, my Grandma makes Betsy’s most favorite Cherry Jello, and my sister, bless her heart, makes the crescent rolls.)

I had absolutely no idea how to make the turkey. And then I found this recipe. Kendra (aka The Lazy Genius) is indeed a genius about the things that matter, and lazy about the things that don’t. This recipe makes a delicious turkey with an absolute minimum of fuss. IT. IS. THE. BOMB.


Dolly Parton’s America

The girls and I adore Dolly so much. This podcast is a bit different, and it took me a minute to grasp the point, but ultimately I’m really enjoying it. I will admit that when the girls and I went to Dollywood a couple of years ago, the irony was not lost on me that I was spending over $200 for the three of us to enjoy a theme park that is built on the idea that Dolly grew up with a coat of rags and nearly starved to death one winter. But at the same time, I see what she has done for the area that she grew up in, how she has lifted them up- it is, of course, the dream that I hope that everyone would have, the ability to provide a life for those around them. To encourage literacy and development and all the things. I will always love Miss Dolly.


Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

This was an interesting read for a bit of a Little Women superfan, which indeed I am. This book explores not only the well known biographical trope of Louisa’s use of her own family as the model of the four girls, but also explores adaptations of Little Women and its place in the literary cannon. I could quibble with a few of her own personal opinions, but mostly it all holds together nicely. She picks apart different characterizations, spends a good deal of time on the idea that it is Katharine Hepburn’s Jo who we all remember, as opposed to some of Jo’s actual character-after all, she does ultimately marry. And so what does it say that that was the ultimate goal, even for headstrong Jo?

(My own personal favorite of the Little Women is Beth, who is contented and happy at home with her sisters.)

The girls and I are anxiously awaiting the new movie, along with a million other movies that seem to be about to drop. Betsy is in complete love with the new Disney+ streaming service. We have been watching Christmas movies and reading all the books (we have well over 100 Christmas books). Enjoying so much our evenings in.

“If it’s dark, put it in park.” That’s our motto for this late fall. So far, it’s been fairly glorious.

The Road to Xanadu...

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge


On Wednesday, Felicity came home from school sick. Thus, I became that stay-at-home mom that I used to be for a day (which I do miss from time to time, back when my babies were babies and my life was just wholly centered on them- life has moved so far from that now, and it’s as it should be, but it is nice to go back sometimes).


Felicity slept and played with Barbies, while I did laundry and read my book. And then she declared that we needed to watch something. Which was a tricky proposition, because Betsy hates to be left out, and so we had to chose something that she wouldn’t care that we watched without her.

And so we landed on my most beloved Xanadu.

Here is the thing about Xanadu: I am super well aware that it is a mucked up mess of a movie. The actual storyline is terrible and mostly boring. When we start watching I always start to question why exactly I love this movie, because it starts slow and Michael Beck is woefully miscast as the lead.

But by the end I’m always so charmed that I want to start watching it all over again (I did make poor Debbie listen to the soundtrack 3 times the next day).

There’s just something magical about what is basically a 1940s musical updated to a late 1970s roller skating, glittery disco. Gene Kelly is in roller skates! Olivia Newton-John is at her most fabulous, singing songs that would go on to become some of her biggest hits. There is a Don Bluth animated short in the middle of the movie!

It all makes up for the complete and total lack of a coherent script, and the lack of any kind of chemistry between Michael Beck and Olivia. If only John Travolta were opposite the love story would at least seem believable. I read that Olivia had tried to get Mel Gibson for the role, which would have been just amazing, but alas, this is what we have.


I'm not one hundred percent sure why Felicity always loves the movies that truly tend to make the least sense that I love (she adores Return to Oz, which is genuinely one of my most bizarre favorite films). But I'm so grateful that she enjoyed spending her afternoon with her mother watching a movie that was dated and old even when I watched it for the first time.

I'll take all of the sick day, magical disco roller skating moments that are still left with my girls.

The One With the Spreadsheet...

This weekend for me is going to be about cleaning and reading and watching the scary movies that the girls refuse to watch. (I can't convince them that Scream is a treasure and that they are missing out.)

BUT...

Someone, somewhere, decided to start the Christmas movies tonight. Even I, most avowed lover of Christmas ever, think it's a bit early.

In any case, however, I did indeed create my spreadsheet of all the Christmas movies from tonight until New Year's. And so, dear blog reader, I share because honestly spreadsheets are my love language and I would love for someone else to enjoy them as well.

(You will also notice that the Christmas Very Brady Renovation is there too. Again, we are geeks.)


Christmas Movie Spreadsheet


My own personal Christmas movies will begin on Halloween, when the girls and I indulge in all the candy and watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's a most beloved tradition.


Happy Halloween and Merry Christmas and all the things from this most nerdy, Type A girl :)

Through a Glass, Darkly...

Sometimes words fail me.

Nothing frightens me more.

Words, after all, are the only thing that I had to cling to for such a while.

But recently I have had a season of silence.

A season of starting to write and having the words come out all slanted and wrong. A season of struggling to find the tone, the shift, the texture of what this space is holding just now.

Life has changed this year, this year that I dubbed the year of trust, this year in which nothing of consequence has happened at all. My life is still divided into all of its corners, I’m still that girl who believes so much in what must be magic-nothing at all is different, and yet I feel so very changed.

Grief, they tell us, is not linear. Grief does not end. Grief simply morphs and changes until we don’t recognize the weight of it anymore. (If we are lucky, of course.)

Every night that I am able, I walk. Outside. Around corners that I could navigate blindfolded. When you live in the same place for 40 years, you carry the bends in the road in your step, in your soul. And so, every night I reach the top of the same hill, the hill that is what I will always consider “my hill,” the hill that I climbed at the age of 10 and declared to God that I would never, ever leave. And every night I think about that little girl, and about all of those dreams that she held tight.

All of the important dreams came true, I tell her.

There has been too much sadness lately. Too many people that I care about have lost loved ones, have realized a bend in the road that they weren’t expecting. It’s tripped them up. I want so much to tell everyone-this is how I did it. This is how you survive grief. But, of course, I cannot.

Grief is not survived. It is lived. I am still-still-four years later living the grief of a broken heart, of what it means for someone’s words to be a lie. It’s crazy and maddening.


I made a lot of room for grief. I wrapped myself up in it like a blanket and held tight to it.

This year of trust has felt truly like I’m not doing much of anything-just living and holding onto my girls as tight as I can and reading and writing and all the things. After four years of trying to become a stronger person, a person more sure of herself and her worth, right now I’m just holding steady. Enjoying this moment in time, where I am the mother of two girls who still enjoy spending their free time with me, where I am the daughter of parents that I get to see every single day, where I’m defined just as Joy.

Trust seems to have been about figuring out that all of that is just enough.

Pretend It's Stars Hollow...

Council Mondays are not my favorite.

When I first started working at the Village, all of my co-workers bemoaned Council Mondays and how crazy they seemed. I must admit, after three and a half years of working here, their theory bears out-anything weird that can happen does on Council Mondays.

But, that being said, I had a weekend full of things that are my favorite (with the exception of the girls being with their dad-never a favorite-but I have learned through four years of this being alone every other weekend thing to plan a lot of stuff-keeping busy, especially with things that I enjoy spending time doing, is the key (quite literally) to sanity).

Peanut Butter Falcon

This quiet movie is one of my favorites for the year. The screenplay was specifically written for star Zack Gottsagen, who has Down Syndrome, and it is quite pitch perfect. I’m not a huge Shia LaBeouf fan but this movie might have made me one.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who finds herself needing therapy after an extremely painful breakup. (Most anything that is a true story about an extremely painful breakup is on my radar to read, always hoping to glean some kind of best practice for how to move on from a broken heart.) This is a non-fiction book, so to say that it was eye opening is an understatement. As an advocate for therapy, I feel that for nearly anyone in therapy or considering therapy, this should be required reading. She pulls back the curtain on both her own therapy and some of her clients that she has been given permission to share. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey

I’ll preface by saying I liked the idea behind this book better than the actual writing, although by the end I was charmed by the story. The writing could use some tightening. But I freely admit that I love rom coms, especially ones written by Nora Ephron, and Winfrey is trying her best to spin a romance around that specific love-it’s harder to do than it looks, and some of the writing is clunky as a result. But the story is set in German Village (The Book Loft is one particular setting) and as a total romantic at heart, I enjoyed this story.

1619

This podcast is blowing me away- it is profound and amazing and all the words to mean I am forever grateful to be learning so much. Episode 3, which dropped this past weekend, “The Birth of American Music,” is fantastic- I wrote an essay in college about cultural appropriation of R&B in the 1950s and rap music in the late 1980s and early 1990s that was one of my favorite essays ever to write (mostly because I love music and this was an excuse to listen to a lot of it). This podcast is in the same vein, and filled with music (I do adore yacht rock). It’s the bomb.

I also got out all the pumpkins and watched the Buckeyes win and the Browns lose and the most amazing Rafa Nadal win his 19th grand slam title and watched Serena just lose her grasp on her 24th. All in all, a weekend with slightly more good than bad (though my Browns did manage to crush my heart-I have a feeling that I will always and forever love the most the people who hurt me the most in the end).

Drift Away....

Hello routine.

We have had exactly one week of a school routine, and I’m blissfully back to my usual routine in the best way possible. There are many days that I am unsure if I am doing life correctly-I mean, learning to let go was like the most important thing I learned from my divorce, surely? (Actually, not surely, because I learned so, so many things, but that was a big one.)

Like it or not, though, routine is my friend and I’m delighted to have it back.

Routine has meant the return of my podcast routine. Podcasts are my favorite (after books, of course) because you can listen while you do something else-this actually keeps me so much more focused. I listen to my podcasts in the morning while I do the workout, in the afternoon when I walk, while I clean, and most luxuriously, in the bathtub with a glass of wine.

My podcast routine is one of those things that I’m super proud of in my most nerdy way. So, I thought I would share.

Mornings are for news. New podcasts almost always drop at 6 AM, and I get up at 5 (that hour is for morning devotions, mediation, and coffee). I start my workout at 6 (after waking the girls up) and so my morning podcasts are Up First and The Daily.

(Side note-so far mornings have been fabulous now that we all three are back on the same schedule. The girls get up and fix their breakfasts and get ready for school with minimal fuss. I didn’t realize at all how much of a difference all of us being awake and asleep at the same times would make.)

My week breaks out like this:

Sunday- The Bible Binge
Monday- The Lazy Genius
Tuesday- Pantsuit Politics
Ten Things to Tell You
Wednesday- The Popcast
Thursday- NPR Politics
Friday- Pantsuit Politics
Saturday- On Being
The One You Feed

Somewhere in the middle of the week I usually find time for Pop Culture Happy Hour and The Diane Rehm Show. Every night I listen to The Skimm.

Weekends are for the book podcasts. My current favorites are What Should I Read Next?, SSR, and From the Front Porch. And I usually find time for Every Little Thing, Oprah’s Super Soul Conversations, The Next Right Thing, and Throughline- and I’m currently binging when I can the series on Mitch McConnell on Embedded.

I’m still making my way though 80s All Over, which is the two guys talking about all the '80s movies. Unfortunately, they had to cry uncle and give up in mid-1985, but I’m still on November 1980, so I’m good for a while. (I love listening to this because they talk about extremely obscure movies and as a movie geek nothing really thrills me more than movies that most people overlook.)

My music playlists make up my entire day at work (at last count, I have 150 playlists). I try as hard as I can to mix it up so that my co-workers don’t have to listen to the same songs over and over. (I do listen to the same morning playlist every day though, so they do have to listen to "September," which is my most favorite song of all time, every single day.)

It’s amazing to me how much my head has quieted since school started and we have a normal rhythm again. Once when I had a reading with Heather, she said that she had a vision of my brain as a bunch of spiders running in all directions and I was desperately trying to corral them. I wish my brain wasn’t spiders, but I totally understood what she was saying-I’m constantly trying to get everything into its place, like if I just can situate everything perfectly life will make sense. I’m well aware that can’t actually happen, but my routine just gives me such space to breathe and loosen up a bit. The girls and I are enjoying this season of not being so busy, of going to games and watching our friends play, of having evenings free to take walks together and to watch ‘80s and ‘90s television shows and just be.

A season of quiet is the reset that we needed.

525,600 Minutes...

It’s planner season. Which is just my favorite time of year.

Fall is coming, with its glorious pumpkins and cooler weather and football.

I keep reminding myself of that as we round this last corner of summer. The girls have their school schedules, so the past few days have been full of texting friends to find out who we know in each class (and worry when there is no one in a certain class that we seem to know). We walked through the high school to each of Betsy’s classes (I dream about being in the high school a lot and walking all over those hallways was a bit surreal to me). School supplies are ready to go, planners are brand new and full of promise.

This year we are taking a break from participating in any fall sports, which we have never done before. Felicity will still dance, but we are purposely taking a break from any structured sport. This came about after much soul searching on my part, and also on the girls’. We sat down and talked about what we really love about playing sports (being with friends and being a part of a team) and what we don’t like about playing sports (nerves about playing in front of people).

Betsy is an anxious soul, just like her mother. The amount of anxiety that she feels about being in front of people is easily overwhelming to her. I completely and totally understand because I am the same way. I have no idea if we are choosing the correct path here, because after all, she will only be young once, but I also know that, as much as she loves being a part of the team, the relief at the idea of just being a spectator was palpable when presented as an option.

It’s taken me four years now to fully grasp how life has changed-in the beginning I was constantly concerned that life not change for the girls, that they understand that they could still do all the things and I would just somehow make it work. After all, I have help-my parents always step in if for any reason I can’t be somewhere, and I am blessed with a flexible job with great hours.

Slowly, however, I have realized that it’s not just about ferrying the girls to all the things. It’s about being clear about the things that take our time away from each other. The girls are gone every other weekend during the school year, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it has meant that all of the things that they want to do at home need to be done in that time frame.

I have friends who count down summers, who count down Saturdays-and when you share your parenting with someone, those summers and Saturdays are even more precious. So, for us, this fall is going to be about watching our friends and cheering them on and resting in a state of calm.

I would be lying if I didn’t say that I’m worried-I am worried that Betsy will feel left out of the fun of being on a team, that I’m teaching her to let her anxiety get the best of her. I honestly don’t know. As I tell the girls just about every single day, I don’t have all the answers. I’m making this up as we go.

I do know that the girls and I love nothing more than nights when I say we don’t have anything to do tonight. It’s our favorite. So I’m just going to hope that having more nights like that is exactly what we need.

What Remains Behind...

I’m struggling to decide if I’m a fan of summer 2019.

On the one hand, I had a wonderful vacation, the girls have enjoyed several cousins’ weekends, I truly do enjoy slowing down our pace and letting the girls stay up late and sleep in and all the things.

On the other hand, summer always undoes me a bit. Grateful as I am that Nick chose to leave, the fact is the world crashed in summer 2015 and even four years later I cart around a certain melancholy in the summer.

I do better with a schedule, but summer lends itself to upheaval-the girls are gone for a week at a time, so life careens from absolute stillness to absolute crazy. I love having my girls at home, but I have recognized this year that I have a period of readjustment when they come home from their dad’s-I have known for such a while that the girls had to readjust to being at home, to get back into our rhythm- but it was eye opening for me to realize that I have to adapt to their being home as well.

When the girls are gone there is such stillness I almost cannot convey it. There are nights that seem somewhat never ending, when I have finished my book and listened to all of the podcasts. My depression, which is always lying there, reared up just a bit this summer, not enough to undo me completely, but enough to exhaust my resources.

(I hate talking about my depression. With all that is in me, I hate it, because I am endlessly blessed and I always feel like it makes me seem unaware of how lucky I am to be living this life. But I also know that my depression is just a part of my health, just like any other health issue that someone would have to deal with. It’s a tricky balance for me.)

I have spent far too many nights this summer mindlessly scrolling through my phone because I can’t find the energy to do anything else.

Anyway, anyway…I have loved a few things in the past month that I need to tell you about.

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

Oh my goodness. I loved this. I almost want to say it’s my favorite Tarantino movie ever, but I do love Pulp Fiction and it holds a really special place in my heart, so it has to go just under that. In any case, though, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is so good, and I can’t say more than that because it would spoil it. I have so many feelings about this though, and all of them good.

The River by Peter Heller

Again, I can’t exactly say a lot about why I liked this book because that would spoil things. But it was an interesting, fast paced read that left me feeling all the things.

Come From Away

This musical was just what I needed to see in the midst of this summer of angst. A story of a small community coming together to help the passengers who were stranded on planes after September 11, it is all the reasons that I adore Canada-quirky, nice, and lovely. Such a life-affirming piece of theatre.

As we round this next bend into fall, which is my favorite time of year, I am a bit anxiously looking toward pumpkins and football and the soothing routine of the school year. Eventually summer 2019 will turn into a fond memory, as every summer eventually does, as the echo of summers past have become for me. What remains is always the good.

"Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower, we will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.” – William Wordsworth

Vacation All I Ever Wanted...

Goodness. It’s been a couple of weeks because vacation, and then recovering from vacation. But it’s Friday, and I’m listening to my Friday playlist which makes me nothing but happy, and I’m anticipating my girls coming home tomorrow, and so all is just about right with the world.

On this vacation we ziplined through the Smoky Mountains, white water rafted, and indoor sky dived. We learned about Civil War history and Martin Luther King Jr. and my dear Margaret Mitchell. All of it the most fun. Sharing all of these with my girls is just such a blast. I am forever grateful to my parents and my sister and her family for allowing us to tag along.


I love being brave on vacation. I love that April seeks out such cool adventures and I love testing my limits.

Betsy and Mallory were my babies once upon a time. There were days I wanted to cry as my arms ached from holding one on each arm. I am so grateful that I was allowed that time with them, even as tired as I remember it made me, keeping two babies every day who were close enough in age to be twins. The reward is their close friendship with each other, of course, and also their close relationship with me. So, so blessed.

I’m sure that to many people the idea of driving around in a 15 passenger van with your entire family does not exactly sound like a relaxing vacation, but to me, I love us all being together. I love not being the only adult-something I completely took for granted in my prior life. I love that I just go where April tells me and Jeremy drives me and I love to a really ridiculous degree that we are all cramped together. They are my people and they know me at my absolute worst and they love me anyway.

On Dating...

So…dating. Or not dating, which is more accurate.

This past week and a half the girls’ have been with their dad, enjoying the lake. And I have been all on my own, as completely usual. Which is fine. I promise.

And my therapist suggested that I take some time to consider this-when exactly am I going to want to date?

It is not completely accurate to say that I haven’t dated at all in the past 4 years. In fact, I had a really lovely relationship with someone, but the timing was not right. At all. And so it goes.

For all intents and purposes, though, I really haven’t dated in a serious, this-is-a-relationship way-in the way that I would choose to date someone, should they appear. I’m not now and I have never been a casual kind of person-I’m loquacious and intense and just a lot.

I try as hard as I can to just accept this as my reality-I don’t want to casually date someone, and that is how relationships begin, and if I can’t begin a relationship then here we are. There’s really not much more to it than that.

There is, of course. There is so much here to dig through I can’t begin to start sorting it all out, and so I am left with my strict, Type A routine and pretending that it doesn’t exist. But the point of the blog is to be honest about this process-to write down all the bits and pieces to who I am becoming and how I got to this point and where I’m going from here.

So, here’s the thing: being left behind hurts. It sucks. It messes with your head and your heart and your self-esteem. You think, am I a terrible judge of character? Can my heart be trusted to even remotely try this again? Why does this seem so easy for most people?

I have no real experience in these areas. I have nothing to go on other than how it went with Nick, and what I read. And just to give you an example, last week I read an article in the New York Times specifically stating how millennials are dating less and waiting longer to get married, thinking that this would be full of helpful insight (even if, with my 1978 birthday, I don’t exactly qualify as a millennial-it seemed close enough.) This is what I got- “Dr. Fisher found that among a representative sample, 34 percent of singles had sex with someone before the first date. She calls it ‘the sex interview.’” I’m sorry, what?


Importantly, I am not pining away, I am really, truly very contented and happy with my life as it is. And I am an eternal optimist-I truly believe that someday this person will come along. Somewhere there is a person out there who I am not too much for, who would find all of my quirks and idiosyncrasies endearing- I just haven’t the foggiest idea how to meet him, or when I’ll be ready, or any of the things. But I will get there. Someday.


"The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers do not finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along."
-Rumi

How to Not Be Perfect (but Still Be Unendingly Happy)...

When I was younger, I wanted to have 4 girls. I talked about them all the time-I even had all of their names put on my birthday cake when I turned 14. (I was completely normal like that.) Their names were Bradleigh Elizabeth, Anastasia Rebecca, Jessica Kate, and Tyme Aryn.

My girls and my nieces consider themselves those four girls.

As they should, of course.

These four girls are every single thing that I hoped for as a 14-year-old. They love to sing and put on plays and play games-they never tell me that something is too dorky, they are absolutely the friends that I would have wanted when I was their age.

We spent this entire past weekend at my sister’s house in Kent, doing nothing in particular, but everything. We played miniature golf (I won) and bowled (my sister won). We played at the park. We went to the library for a Star Wars day (Kent has fabulous libraries, I am most jealous). We ate Swenson’s and Chick-fil-a (the girls and I had never had Chick-fil-a and we very much enjoyed it). We went to Chuck E. Cheese, even though it is not my sister’s favorite. We went to the drive-in movie theater.

When I was growing up, I adored all of my cousins. They were all older than me and my sister, and two of them lived in Indiana, and I thought they hung the moon. I’m quite envious of my girls very close relationship with my nieces.

When we got ready to leave, April said for everyone to say what their favorite part of the weekend was. Betsy said Star Wars. Felicity and Mallory said miniature golf. And Natalie just pointed, and we had no idea what she meant, and finally she whispered, “The girls.” Meaning that her favorite part was just my girls being there. It was terribly sweet.

Things I’m loving this week:

Toy Story 4

First off, I do love to go to the drive-in movie theater. We saw Toy Story 4 and we watched Aladdin again, and I love being in my own vehicle, able to turn the volume up, leave my phone on, and talk to Mallory and Betsy basically the entire time. Drive-ins are the bomb.

I love Disney and Pixar and all the bits and pieces that go into Toy Story movies, so it is not shocking at all that I enjoyed this. I did think that it was a different story than the others-the two main storylines dealt with the existential question of what it means to be alive, and when your care for others crosses the line into narcissism. Heavy stuff for a kid’s movie. Some of it I completely agreed with, and some of it I have a lot of feelings about.

Dear Evan Hansen

I have been anxiously awaiting this musical, but also a bit fearful of it hitting a bit too close to home, and it did, but not for the reasons I anticipated. The buzz on this is huge, and rightly so, because it’s an amazing piece of theater. I have decided that we are having a moment right now, a moment in which we are beginning to think it’s okay to own our idiosyncrasies, no matter how overwhelming they may seem, or how insignificant they might feel in the grand scheme of things. The story here is profound, and it hit triggers for me that I did not expect.

There is a storyline here involving Evan Hansen’s mom, about her guilt over being a divorced parent and over how that has perhaps contributed to Evan’s anxieties. As the mother of a precious, beautiful, amazing daughter who struggles a good deal with anxiety, this hit me harder than I’m sure it was meant to.

I still feel so much guilt over being divorced. I don’t for one moment want to believe that I have caused or created any kind of anxiety in my daughter. It’s all complicated and sometimes I can’t believe that it’s four years later and I’m still dealing with my own insecurities over what it means to be someone’s ex-wife. What I have learned lately is to take these moments that hit on all of my triggers and give it some space to just sit and be with that feeling, to just let myself feel sad or scared or whatever it is. And then to give myself some grace-to remember that I am not perfect, and that just as I did not have a perfect marriage, I do not have a perfect life after marriage. And that’s okay and no one is expecting me to have all of the answers.

I remind myself that these 4 girls that I dreamed of having came to me in a way other than me being mother to all four of them. And yet they are all four my dear girls, all with such different personalities and attitudes and I cherish each of them. Life comes differently than you imagined sometimes, and it turns out even better than you had hoped. That might sound like a Hallmark card, but it’s true.

This crazy life I lead is not the perfect life I imagined that I once had. But it’s ten times better.

Echo Chamber...

Back in the day, so long ago it feels like a different lifetime, I wrote short stories- some that were truly just all my own creation, but the vast majority of which were Roswell fan fiction. Which is sort of embarrassing to admit-I mean, fan fiction alone has a bad reputation, but add Roswell in there and it’s sort of like admitting that you’re a complete geek. (I am a complete geek.)

Roswell was a show on the WB, back in the day when the WB had Dawson’s Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its rotation; heck, back when the WB was the WB and not the CW. I was in college when those shows came on the scene, so too old to just swallow the characters whole as potential role models (that role had been filled by 90210 and Saved by the Bell). But young enough to watch them all in a non-ironic way. I fell in love with most of those late 90s dramas-Felicity, Dawson, Buffy being my favorites, Popular and 7th Heaven being the filler.

But Roswell came along at just the right time-I was a sophomore in college, right in the middle of this time in my life when I was reading so many books, learning so many new things, and, most importantly, writing like my life depended on it. Stories came pouring out of me and I had no where to put them. Somehow I stumbled upon a Roswell fan site, looking for spoilers if I remember correctly, and came upon this notion of fan fiction. I had no idea what that was, and it just so happens that I read a couple of really wonderful stories on whatever site that was-fan fiction is a tricky thing, and some of it is retched awful, truly. But in that first blush with it, I found Persephone’s Footfalls, which, in the world of Roswell fan fiction, is like stumbling upon Great Expectations-it is widely acknowledged as the best fan fiction that this tiny show ever offered up to the world.

(Written by Elizabeth, who remains one of my favorite authors of all time despite the fact that I know nothing about her except her name, she wrote the very best of Roswell fan fiction. This particular story was a retelling of the myth of Persephone and Hades using the human character of Maria and the alien character of Michael, and while that could have turned out awful, in her hands it became an exploration of falling in love with the enemy, of what it means to be “other,” and of what it means to be a family. It is one of the best stories I have ever read.)

It didn’t take too terribly long for my writing to find a home in the Roswell world. I loved writing these stories, because the characters were already established, and so I could play with the constructs as much as I wanted to, I could write POV pieces that explored ideas that I needed to play out in my own head-it was an early form of therapy for me. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and was rewarded for these efforts by something of a following in this Roswell world. I loved that-I write so much better than I speak, and this was a way to meet new people and not trip all over my tongue.

And then the bottom fell out. Roswell, you see, had been a tiny show. It was developed by Jason Katims, who had been a writer on My So-Called Life. Initially the show had been promoted as a My So-Called Life with aliens-all of the alien stuff was just sort of a large metaphor for being an outsider. That story telling is what drew me to the show. But because it was a science fiction show, there was a hunger for more special effects and “alien” storylines among a lot of its fans. When it just barely survived cancellation that first season, the writers began to amp up all of the more “out of this world” aspects to the storylines, to the point that the show became almost unrecognizable. With that shift in tone, the fan base for Roswell stories, and particularly the large, angsty teen drama that I liked to write-the fan base just collapsed for that.

It was just at the same time that my stories completely stopped generating any traction that I got engaged. My life shifted away into planning my new, adult life, and writing along with it. Until the blog came along, I didn’t write at all for about nine years.

Sometimes the blog feels the same to me-like sometimes I’m just sending these words out into the void and they don’t really have any life beyond that. But writing is my happy place, my passion, my joy inside of every single day. Words don’t come in the form of stories anymore, and for a long while I beat my head against that and tried to force them, but I have finally made my peace with the fact that they aren’t going to come out in that way any longer.

Words come to me in snippets, in long essays that exist, I know, as still just a form of therapy that sometimes I hope that other people can relate to. That’s all any of this is. But I do cherish having a place to keep my words, a home of my making to hold them and remind me years later of all the changes inside of me in the past eight years that I have been blogging.

So, I’m going to keep right on blogging like it’s 2011, and sending these words out into the void, if only to hear the echo of my own voice.

Halfway There...

In the summer, my girls are gone often through the week, which is backwards and inside out from normal. When the girls are home, we are so busy with all the things-spending time with friends and at the pool and of course watching all the movies-and when they are gone, it’s like a slo-motion camera, as I spend my nights reading and trying to not panic that when the girls are grown this is how my life will always be.

I’ve been watching old episodes of Designing Women, which is one of my favorite shows ever of all time. I have said many times there are 4 women that I grew up aspiring to be-Anne Shirley, Sally Albright, Corky Sherwood, and Charlene Fraiser Stillfield. Charlene always spoke to me-she would be such a different character if the show had been made even a few years later. Charlene starts out the never married one, the one who trusts so easily with all of her heart-naïve, really. That’s a word that many people have used to describe me. I’m good with that, mostly-maybe if I weren’t quite so trusting, life wouldn’t have shattered quite so hard, but at the end of the day I’d rather be too trusting than to be suspicious of the people around me. It takes a lot for me to cut ties with someone completely.

My word for this year is indeed trust. God keeps reminding me of it too. I can’t count how many times recently I have listened to a podcast that I don’t normally listen to and the theme has turned out to be trust the universe, trust your voice, trust your body. How many of my devotionals lately have spun around this idea of trust- it’s quite possible to walk right past your burning bush for years without noticing. And that’s okay, because when you are ready, you will see it. Or, at least, that’s been the message to me of late. Turning 40 is this amazing thing-I’m old enough to feel settled, I’m happy with my life and where it is, I’m thrilled, truly, to wake up every morning in this house that I wanted from the time I was a little girl, surrounded by my family and friends-my life is a small life, small but happy.

I still want to explore this world, I want to go out and see things and do things and have all sorts of experiences. I still feel young enough to want so many things. But old enough, I guess, to truly appreciate what I have. Broken heart and all.

Summertime...(in Will Smith's voice)...

It’s been a busy few weeks in our world-Betsy graduated from 8th grade, and Felicity from 5th, and there were meetings for work and dinner with friends and all the things.

(Betsy’s class was to say what they want their occupation to be as they got their certificate-Betsy wants to be a pediatrician, which has been her dream since she could talk. My mom asked me what I would have said at age 14 and the answer to that is that I wanted to be a wedding coordinator. Such dreams.)

The start of summer is mostly just the best time-the weather is fairly lovely, not yet scorching hot, and the girls are so happy to have days of staying in their pajamas, eating a million popsicles, going to the pool, staying up to watch *all the movies*-it’s such bliss.

I miss my old life most of all in summer, as I leave in the morning and miss all the fun all day long. But I do love my job and we have grown accustomed to food and shelter, so off I go.

This year is the year of Betsy and the Bug’s Brady Bunch Binge-a-thon. (I seem to have taught them that thinking up a cool name for your most geeky endeavor makes it even more cool-I firmly believe this. I’m still All 80s All the Time Summer, myself.)

Anyway, there are a lot of things that I’m loving just now:

Rocketman

All the hearts. The music is fabulous (of course), the story is so compelling-and I say this as someone who mostly knew the whole thing going in. Taron Egerton is pitch perfect and Jamie Bell is also wonderful.

I had a song that I played for each of the girls when I was pregnant, a song that is “their” song to me, and Betsy’s is “Tiny Dancer.” So of course I cried all over her when they sang it in the film. “Tiny Dancer,” to me, is about carrying this person in your heart, this person that no one else can see but that you know to your bones is there. When I was young, I talked so much about my children, and of course people acted like that was weird because it was, but to me, I knew that they were there, just waiting to meet me someday. When they laid Betsy in my arms and I looked at her big blue eyes, I cried so hard because it felt like, “Oh, it’s you. Finally.”

(Felicity’s song, if you are wondering, is “Sweet Child of Mine.” And Isaiah, who of course came into my life at the age of one, does indeed have a song, “Swept Away,” by Christopher Cross.)

I Think You’re Wrong but I’m Listening by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers

I know, I talk about Pantsuit Politics all the time, and I do so wish that everyone would listen to every episode because I love how Beth and Sarah disagree without any anger, how they parse out what their position is, how shaded all of their positions are-as a person who does not see black and white in any issue, I so appreciate the nuance that they bring to their conversations. This book lays out exactly what the parameters are for those conversations, lays out how to extend grace when you just feel like the other person is flat out wrong.

Aladdin

I really enjoyed the new Aladdin-I don’t compare the live action versions to the animated movies, I go in with no real expectations, so perhaps that changes things. What I loved the most to be honest was that Will Smith seemed to be having an excellent time-I am old enough to remember those summers when Will Smith was in the blockbuster movie of the summer, and the thing that I loved about those movies was that he always seemed to be having such a good time. (I think that, at least at the beginning of his career, Will Smith just thought he was so lucky to be invited to the party, and it showed in his enthusiasm for his projects.)

Booksmart

My gut reaction to this was, it’s a bit much. I went into it expecting something a bit different than it was-parts of it I thought were hilarious, and parts just uncomfortable. Sort of similar to how I feel about Bridesmaids. But in the time since watching it, I listened to a podcast full of people who loved this movie and they did illuminate me to bits that I just glazed over without much thought. So perhaps I need to think about it some more.

So far, summer is delightful. Betsy is working a 5000 piece puzzle, so my family room is sort of a disaster, and the girls are inhaling The Brady Buch and we are watching The Wonder Years (they make fun of me because I cry at the end of every single episode) and we are catching lightning bugs and jumping on the trampoline and getting ice cream from the Dairy Duchess and going to the playground (it is hilarious to me when they talk about “when they were little” at the elementary school). It’s a summer that mirrors all the summers in my life, which is what happens when you live in the same place for 40 years.

But I promise, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Both Sides Now...

Somehow it is the middle of May. Betsy is off to Washington D.C. next week. I swear that it seems like just a couple of years ago that I was in Washington D.C. with my friends.

(I was just getting over a cold when we were in D.C. and so the last stages of a cough always take me back to those three days with my friends in which I felt like such a teenager, an actual teenager with a social life.)

Watching Betsy be fourteen is a delight. She is so very much like me anymore. It’s all a bit strange because for all the years that we were the family of four, Betsy was such a tomboy and such a daddy’s girl. For all that I have changed so much during the past almost 4 years, Betsy has changed too-it all took its toll on her as well, but she and I have come to this new place where, as she says just about every day, “we are so much happier.” Which is very true.

In the beginning all of this change was overwhelming-the experience of Nick leaving for me and the girls was very jarring. Everything happened suddenly, and our world flipped upside down, and there were new people and an entirely new routine and there was just so much to mitigate. Betsy’s personality is to be pleasing and so she tried as hard as she could to act like none of this change bothered her, but the reality is that change bothers Betsy more than any of us.

The other day she and I were talking and she said, “I remember that I always wanted to be with Daddy. But then it’s like that doesn’t make sense.” Listening to her try to make sense of all of this change helps me to understand why it’s so difficult for me to find the right words sometimes-the words to describe what living through such a profound change does to you. Because you come out the other side and you feel like your old life was forever ago and also just yesterday.

It feels like a fraud to forget-to not acknowledge the good parts of the old life, the parts of life that we remember still with joy. Because that’s the bit about all of this that is so profoundly difficult, and I think is particular to divorce-there are all of these memories that exist that contain really wonderful, happy memories, but it’s all wrapped up in memories of the way that Nick left. It slants everything, and I’m sure that there are people for whom getting divorced was not a terrible trauma to live through who think that we seem overly dramatic.

It’s all a dance, and watching Betsy helps me to realize that I’m not the only one who remembers the good while struggling with what to do with the damage of the bad, and that coming to these realizations is difficult.

I am so very lucky to have these girls to go through this journey by my side. Because frankly, there are bits of this life that we live that only make sense to us. I don’t know that I am even able to write it down in terms that explain-the best way to put it would be, we remember, quite happily, bits of life that existed prior to Nick leaving, but we always come to this realization that life now is better. And I can’t explain how that can possibly be true, but it is.

The thing of it is, we had all of these wonderful years that we were a family. And I don’t want to deny that part of my life. But I also want people, particularly the people who have reached out to me about being in a similar situation, to know that life on this side of being divorced is actually really wonderful. I would have given anything, about 4 years ago, to have someone say to me, “It will be okay. It will be glorious. Life will twist and shift until you can remember that it was happy before, but that you know that it’s happier now.”

Change is still not my favorite, and never will be. But I’m not scared of change like I was 4 years ago.

These precious girls that I get to raise, they just keep teaching me all the things. I don’t know how I was so lucky to get to be their mom. But I’m grateful for every single second of it.

In the Songs of Yesterday...

Oh, gracious. So many words.

I went to a concert.

It sounds trite and simple.

For me, it’s a big deal.

I have a thing about crowds. I hate them. I tend to panic. I’ve taught my girls, when we walk into a large room-like the movie theater-to immediately find the exits. I don’t know why that’s my own particular quirk, but crowds send my heart racing and my blood pressure rising. I leaned on Nick a lot to help me with this particular issue-he knew to squeeze my hand harder, to help push me through a crowd of people-and of course, now it’s only me. Even worse, it’s often me with the girls, which means I am the adult and then expected to know how to navigate the circumstances I get us into.

Last year, in the year of being brave, I tried out many things and conquered many fears. This particular fear is one that I’m not certain can exactly be conquered-mitigated is likely a better word. I’m always going to feel slightly panicked in a large group of people, I’m always going to figure out two ways out of a room, I’m always going to do my best to avoid masses of people if I can help it.

But I proved to myself this past weekend that I can navigate an entire concert experience, including being surrounded by drunk people, one of whom vomited on the girl in front of us right as the concert was beginning; I can lead my girls through the streets of Cleveland in search of my sister, who did the driving so that we didn’t need to park the car; and generally, I can be an adult in yet one more situation that is something I really enjoy-listening to music live-but am rather terrified to deal with.

The concert itself was most fun. My girls love the New Kids. Debbie Gibson has been my most favorite singer since I was 11 years old. (I have every one of her CDs and Debbie was my very first concert ever-Michelle and Tanya and I went and saw her in Wheeling when Tanya turned 12. Tanya and Michelle were neither one even necessarily Debbie Gibson fans, but they endured my complete fangirl love with perhaps an ironic gleam in their eye, which sums up nearly everything they ever did because I asked them to.)

Tiffany, Salt-n-Pepa, and Naughty by Nature were the other acts, and the girls and I had a blast singing so many songs that we love. Betsy said that she loved it and wished it would never end, while Felicity leaned over at 10 and asked me how much longer it would last. Which encapsulates their personalities perfectly-Betsy always wanting me to know how much she loves me, and Felicity feeling comfortable enough to tell me that she’s ready for this whole thing to be over. I’m grateful for both, the yin and the yang of their personalities, and of the fact that we are all three us-we do everything together, the three of us, and it’s been the best side effect of life falling apart and not exactly fixing itself.

Many people, having been alone for coming on four years in a couple of months, would have moved on to at least one serious relationship. But that’s not how it’s working for me, and even though there are definite disadvantages to that, one of the best side effects is that the girls and I are a unit, we do everything together. Sometimes I think that’s my biggest stumbling block-I have this rich, full life 90% of the time, and then on the weekends that the girls are gone I wish to the depths of my soul that I had someone to hang out with-as my dear Felicity has pointed out, I need a friend. Which is not at all to say that I don’t have friends, because I do and I love them so much, but all of my closest friends have young children and are not just available for me on a rather boring Saturday night.

Anyway…I have gotten extremely off topic.

The entire weekend was lovely, if jam packed full. The girls and I watched my niece Mallory in her high school’s production of My Fair Lady on Friday night. The cast was absolutely amazing, and all the more so because they were working with a shoestring budget. The school district that my nieces attend cannot pass a funding levy, and so their arts programs have been cut to the bone. It was quite a visual to me, having watched John Glenn’s production of The Music Man in an auditorium just a few weeks ago and watching this production of My Fair Lady on folding chairs in the gymnasium. I don’t have all the answers to the school funding question, but I definitely think that what we do as a state is not sustainable. As a person who loved the arts programs provided by my school, I definitely think that they are not extra or unnecessary programs-they are, for some kids, a reason to participate in their class.

April and I also saw A Bronx Tale at Playhouse Square-it was so good, April and I neither one knew anything about it going in, and it was a lovely and moving piece of theater- and I took the girls to see Ugly Dolls, which was cute and had a good message about loving someone who isn’t perfect. And I got to have a galley boy from Swenson’s, which is my all-time favorite sandwich. So overall, excellent weekend.

Yesterday I took the day off just to sleep and watch soap operas and it was lovely. So much of the time, I get so caught up in my checklist of life, it was nice to just have a day all to myself to do whatever I wanted. (Always having to give myself permission to do that, you know.)

And today, the sun is shining, “Here I Go Again” is blaring through my speakers, which seems most appropriate, and all is lovely and shiny and new.

"Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.
Cause I know what it means,
To walk along that lonely street of dreams.”

Are You Happy in This Modern World?

Easter weekend is all wrapped up, and it could not have been more lovely-my mom goes out of her way to make holidays fun for the kids (and the big kids, too)-we play games and hunt eggs and eat too much candy. It’s delightful.

I also took an extra day off just to spend with my girls, and it could not have been a lovelier day. Each of them got to pick a movie to watch- Betsy is going through a Dirty Dancing phase just now (Betsy in many, many ways is her mother made over) and Felicity picked Return to Oz. I loved Return to Oz as a kid. It’s a bit of a trip to watch as an adult because it truly has many frightening moments for a kid’s movie, but it is also just so much more true to the nature of the books.

(We watched The Wizard of Oz on Saturday because I always associate it with Easter because when I was a kid, that’s when it was on tv. The version that I had taped as a kid-on a Beta tape, mind you-had a commercial for McDonald’s that I loved so much, and I looked it up on YouTube and showed it to the girls-it’s called “My Little Sister” and it’s about this brother and sister growing up and sharing McDonald’s together and I swear to you, it’s the reason that I always wanted to have a big brother.)

We also, of course, are continuing with our 90210s, and we have reached the college years (Betsy has rightly assessed that they are not as good as the high school years). It’s interesting, watching these storylines that meant so much to me when I was a young teenager and seeing them through my wizened, 40-year-old eyes. Paul Johansson portrays John Sears, who is the newest wrinkle in the Dylan/Kelly saga-I love, love, love Paul Johansson because he is Bart Jeffris in the tv movie, The Laker Girls, which is honest to goodness one of my sister’s favorite movies of all time and I love that character.

Anyway, in 90210, Paul is the guy trying to lure Kelly away from Dylan, and since I have never been a fan of Kelly and Dylan, the first time that I watched this, back in 1993, I wanted John to succeed-even though he of course turns out to be a total louse. This time around, though, he just seems like a creep-he’s one of those guys who only really wants Kelly because he can’t have her, and it’s obvious that he would dump her if she did break up with Dylan for him.

(It is the opposite of Dean Cain’s character, Rick, who truly fell in love with Brenda, and who she dumps because she wants to be with Dylan-the girls and I both agree that even though we love Dylan McKay with all of our hearts, we would have chosen Dean Cain over him-and they have never even seen him as Superman.)

It's a bit fascinating to me, how differently I feel even toward fictional characters on television shows- I want to scream at Kelly, I want her to realize that a guy who will cross any line to get her to cheat on her boyfriend is not worth it. I want to insist that she and Dylan realize that they tend to coast on obvious physical attraction rather than truly discuss hard topics.

Does it make me wiser this time, that I know these things? Or does it make me unable to push past my hangups to reach that bliss that is falling in love? I don't know the answer, and I promise I know that it's more complicated than Kelly and Dylan's endless breaking up and getting back together.

But just now, as spring has given way to these beautiful 70 degree days, and my girls still want to watch all the movies and 90s tv shows, and Jesus has risen and all is right with the world, I'm grateful for all of these hard as heck lessons in humility and grace that the past 3 1/2 years have seen fit to send my way. We'll figure it out as we go.

Til The Sound of My Voice Will Haunt You...

This past weekend was not my weekend to have the girls, and so one of my tasks was to create new index cards for our movie collection (the old ones were color-coded, and my aesthetic tastes have changed and I want them all to be black ink on white cards now). When I showed the girls the new system, Felicity hugged me and said so sincerely, “I love you, Mommy, but you have too much time alone. You need a friend.”

It was too sweet.

I perhaps do have too much time alone, but it’s all good.

(I listened to a new-to-me podcast while I was redoing all of the index cards called 80s All Over in which the hosts dissect every single movie that came out in a certain month of a certain 1980s year-I listened to January 1980 and February 1980 and both were completely fascinating.)


Of course, I also read, and the book that I’m reading is too wonderful not to gush over, even though I still have about a third of the way to go until it’s over. Daisy Jones and the Six came so highly recommended by many people whose opinion on books I trust and it has not disappointed.

It’s fiction, but written as an oral history of a band’s creation and ultimate demise. I’m sure that it helps that I love oral histories (my all time favorite being Live from New York, which such a dense look at my most beloved Saturday Night Live). It’s an interesting approach that I appreciate as a reader and a writer and a complete and total lover of dialogue.

The band at the center of the book, not by accident I am sure, is reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac. I grew up loving Stevie Nicks, as girls of my age do. But Fleetwood Mac, like all the things about the last few years of my life, became a lifeline to me when I couldn’t find words to describe what I was grieving at the end of my marriage.

(I sort of always want to tell the people who reach out to me to ask how I managed to handle the grief, “You will have your Rumours period.” I don’t, because of course not everyone is me, but I always think it.)

My Rumours period began with just listening over and over to the album, and to “Silver Springs,” which of course was Stevie’s contribution to the break up album that got shunted aside. I dived into these peoples lives, Stevie and Lindsey most especially, and I would sink every night into the sadness of their relationships ending and marvel at how they had the ultimate karma of making each other sing these songs about their infidelity.

I still have days where I just want to sink into their grief, find solace in the fact that I’m not all alone in trying to make sense of what to do with the bits and pieces of a relationship that has no home anymore. Living in the aftermath of a person that you loved turning into someone that you do not recognize-that is what most of those songs are to me.

I also had the absolute joy to see our high school production of The Music Man and it was absolutely wonderful. I say again and again that my girls and I are so blessed to be a part of a public school system that values the arts as well as sports, and I truly mean that with all of my heart-I wish that all kids could have the kind of well rounded education that East Muskingum Schools provided to me as a student and that they are providing my kids.


And Tiger Woods won the Masters, and Saturday Night Live was new, and I had a glorious weekend, mostly alone.

This Holy Week is full of all the things-track meets, piano lessons, Passover dinner with friends. So it was grand to have a weekend to myself to be quiet and get my book geek on. Even if, as my girls so gently try to point out, I maybe need to get a life.

Suspend Donna Martin, Suspend Us All...

Listening to Olivia and my Johnny croon “Summer Nights” makes for a pretty fabulous lunch hour.

Last night, the girls and I finally reached what is likely my most favorite episode of 90210 ever, in which the entire Class of 1993 walks out of their final exams in the most 90s protest of all time, “Donna Martin graduates!”

Anyway...

This past weekend I managed to watch two movies in the theater, which is a lot even for me. But I was desperate to see Us.

I don’t mind at all seeing movies by myself, but I have found myself wishing that I had managed to find someone to go with me to see this one because it is a movie that requires much dissection and thought processing after it’s over. I’m still piecing through much of it in my head. I am most fortunate to live in 2019, though, and listened to three separate podcasts about it- 1A, Pop Culture Happy Hour, and (the best one) Still Processing, which compared the storyline to Toni Morrison’s Beloved and was a bit mind blowing to me.

The last time that I can remember feeling this much soul stirring over a movie was District 9 and I completely took for granted having a husband to talk it over with, days and even months after we watched it. It’s these tiny little pieces of life that hit you hard and make you feel ridiculously alone.

The girls came home early from their dad’s house on Sunday and so we also managed to see Dumbo, which I thought was very good. It’s quite different from the animated Dumbo, but in ways that make sense for this telling. Tim Burton can be one of my favorite directors (see Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands), and he can also be one of the most exasperating (see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and character choices that I may never forgive him and Johnny Depp for). Dumbo is going to be among my more favorite Tim Burton movies, with its message of the magic of a mother’s love of course going straight to my heart.

In the meantime, track is in full swing, and my girl is doing amazingly well. I have promised the girls that I will watch all of the Marvel movies in order to be properly prepared for The Avengers: Endgame. (I did really enjoy Captain Marvel, which I do recognize was marketed to women about my age, and it has given me hope that with Betsy’s help I will be able to understand the other movies that spring from these comic books-I have a hard time following comic book movies sometimes.)


Spring is here, Olivia is now singing "Strange Twist of Fate" from one of the most underrated movies of all time, Two of a Kind, (I know, maybe I just love Olivia and John too much), and life, for today, seems most charmed.

Broken Wings...

“Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul…”

Perfect song for a dreary Friday. Although, I promise, I’m not complaining because at least spring has finally arrived, even if it’s a rainy one.

Things have been a little topsy turvy in our world this week. My nieces were here for the beginning of the week, which of course my girls loved, but we still had school and track meets and piano practice. They all four watched several vintage episodes of The Baby-sitter’s Club with me (from my old VHS tapes) and, of course, decided which babysitter they were and now sing the theme song really loudly. (I sing right along because few things make me as happy as loudly belting out, “Say hello to your friends!”)

Of course, they all picked different babysitters to be-Mallory picked Stacey, Felicity picked Claudia, Natalie picked Kristy, and Betsy, as always, picked more than one-Jessi, though, was her most favorite.

(I, of course, am Mary Anne. But my favorite babysitter is Kristy.)

And now it’s not my weekend with the girls.

It becomes a part of your life-knowing that you have downtime, or knowing that you are the one in charge of all the things. Life in the world of co-parenting lends itself to time of extreme busy and time of extreme alone.

Learning to love the alone took time.

And let me assure you, I love to be alone.

I’m an introvert to my core, and I need time to myself to regroup. I have always been this way, always the girl up in her room with her nose in a book. I hate crowds more than anything in this whole world and so I purposely try to avoid going anywhere with lots of people. And when it can’t be helped, I’m not pleasant to be around (the poor girls have to endure my complaining every single time we go to Walmart, which I try my best to only do one time a month).

But being alone in the beginning-that was rough.

I still remember very clearly Nick, as he was packing his things, saying to me, “You’ll be fine because you like to be alone. You can read more.”

And even though I know he didn’t really mean anything by that, it had the effect of making me feel like my needing alone time was the root of all of this. As if this was just the natural progression of our life together, the part where Nick goes off to have a new life and I get to stay at home with my books.

So, for rather a long time, being home was difficult. I missed the girls with all that was in me, physically ached for them. I couldn’t read because I couldn’t concentrate on the plot. I would finish a book and have no real idea what it had even been about.

There were weekends where it was all I could do to get to Sunday, and I would feel such relief that I had managed to live through it. For me, sorting it all out took a long time, and it felt impossible for me to believe that eventually I would grow used to the fact that this is what life looks like now.

I say all of this because I’m always writing this for that girl that I was then-I want her to know that weekends now are actually something I look forward to. I still, probably always and forever, will like the weekends better that the girls are home. It’s just more fun for me to spend my time with them. But I don’t dread weekends alone at all. I use them to clean and read all the books and watch all the movies. It’s fun, truly.

Betsy’s new favorite song is “Miss Me More,” by Kelsea Ballerini. Every time we hear it, she says, “Mommy, it’s your song.” And nothing makes me prouder than perhaps the notion that I have shown these girls that living a life alone is pretty fantastic.

“I forgot I had dreams, I forgot I had wings
Forgot who I was before I ever kissed you
Yeah, I thought I'd miss you
But I miss me more"