I Didn't Imagine the Whole Thing

 

The blog, the blog, the blog. 

Once upon a time, every single day included writing for the blog, and my goal was to post once a week- I'm not sure I ever managed that high of a goal (never fear, unrealistic expectations of my abilities are one of my hallmark traits). 

So it's sort of a vicious cycle- I don't have the proper time to write, and I decide to wait until I actually have something to say, and then I do have something to say and I don't have the proper time to write. And round and round it goes. 

It's not- it's never- that I think I have profound things to say. My life is little and tiny on purpose. 

The girls and I have developed a rhythm in the past, oh, 4 years that we think makes life fairly perfect. We go about our days, me at work, them in school (or Betsy at work during the summer at both the pool and the Zane Grey museum), and then at 4 o'clock we walk. 

Our walk is the best- the absolute best- part of our day. Even when it's so hot we are dying to get back home, even when we have to take the umbrellas with us- always, everyday, it's the best. The reason for that is pretty simple. While we walk they tell me their day. Betsy goes first, and Betsy misses not a single minute of her entire day. Felicity goes second and tends to gloss over bits so we have to say, wait a minute, back up, what? Which is to say, she's funny. 

We stumbled upon this routine during COVID as something to do while socially distancing. As with everything, I didn't realize until we had been doing this for oh, probably two years, that this time was special because we are concentrating on nothing else but what each other is saying. 

Highly recommend, 10 out of 10, parenting people becoming adults can indeed be the bomb.

Stuff I'm Loving:

                                                        

We watched Party of Five and I will die on the hill that Scott Wolf should have been nominated for an Emmy for season three. Party of Five was my favorite television show of the 1990s for a very long time, and while I did not remember properly how much turmoil the Salingers endure, it was a wonderful show to revisit.

                                                

We also watched Rags to Riches, which was a short lived television show that aired on Sundays on NBC when I was in 4th grade. It is an hour long show about a man who adopts 5 orphans in the 1960s and it is a musical- it's all the things, and we all three enjoyed it more than we anticipated. (I had remembered enjoying it, but that means little as we rediscover old tv shows and movies because baby Joy was not the most discerning.)

                                                    

Brats 

The documentary about the Brat Pack is interesting- I have read Andrew McCarthy's memoir and so I knew exactly what he was going for in creating this documentary. I have a lot of feelings about the Brat Pack, which of course I wish with all of my born in the 70s, raised in the 80s heart they actually embraced. But I do indeed understand that it was not received warmly, and while Demi and Rob come across as having made peace with the moniker, that's also likely because they went on to big careers that were tainted at times by much worse than a silly nickname bestowed by a snotty journalist. 

I was sad that Judd Nelson declined to participate because Judd was the best, hands down, the best, of all of them. He deserved a bigger career, and he was particularly singled out because, after all, he was perceived as the leader. His performance in The Breakfast Club is the reason that the movie works. Judd is carrying the entire heart of the movie inside of this brash, over-the-top kid who is hurt to his core by the adults around him. It bothers me when something that I love- and I love all of the movies that are categorized as "Brat Pact" movies- has created something that the person wants to be done with. I feel somewhat complicit in keeping them trapped as teenagers. It would be my wish for them to know that even this one performance was transformative for someone. 

That said, I also marvel that Emilio allowed Andrew to interview him. Emilio carries the burden of having been the one to invite the journalist along (in true irony because he was afraid that he was coming off as stuffy and unfun in this profile of him). Emilio was destined to become the next Coppola, and he instead had to settle for Mighty Ducks (which, do not misunderstand, the girls and I love). 

Maybe it all does seem silly. But I appreciate that Andrew tried to take it apart and figure it out. 

                                             

You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried by Susannah Gora

I'm reading this because it was featured in the documentary and it is excellent. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Just now, we are watching Buffy and Family Ties and Who's the Boss? (actually, just now we are watching the Olympics, but then back to normal). One of my girl's friends recently told her that it's cool that we spend our evenings together watching old tv shows and movies, and it's pretty much my favorite compliment ever. It's always really just about who I was when I was their ages and what I enjoyed and normally they like it too. 

I'm just lucky that that.

The Way It Never Ever Was

 

I have been neglecting this space of late. 

At the end of 2022 I started quite a few blog posts, only to never quite finish them. I gave up social media for Lent. Spring of 2023 was a whirlwind of Betsy graduating and life shifting. Summer seemed to fly by.

So, I come today with shreds of thoughts and words.

Felicity is bothered by the fact that I don't believe in divorce. (I'm always saying that the blog is about the fact that I am divorced, even though I don't believe in divorce, you know.) And she told me that there are very important reasons that people get divorced, like if they are being abused or are in a toxic relationship. And like a lightbulb over my head, I understood what she was meaning when she was so angry at me for saying that I don't believe in divorce. 

What I mean, of course, is filtered through my own experience. I wasn't abused inside of my marriage. I was blindsided, yes, I was naïve and young when I made a promise to love forever. 

I think that when I say I don't believe in divorce that's likely what I mean- just standing in front of a judge and dissolving my marriage didn't magically end everything. 

I'm trying (and believe me, it is a struggle) to unlearn my tendency to filter everything through my own thoughts and emotions. 

Heavens, that used to be the point of the blog- my unwinding all of these pieces that existed in the aftermath of my divorce. It was quite self centered. It was frankly selfish. It was grief and fear and the sadness of letting go of a part of myself. 

And, you know, it's not that anymore because time heals. 

21 years ago today I promised something that is still a piece of everything I bring to the world. I'm grateful every single day that I got to have that part of my life, if for nothing else that it brought my girls into the world and being their mother is the absolute best. But also for a million other reasons. 

I'm blessed where I am. Loving those boys who don't know me, lost inside of books and movies and my own head. I don't want something new, which took a long time to just admit to myself.  And yet, all of the blog posts end that way. I'm always just talking in circles around how life turned out to be what it was meant to be. 

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

No matter where I go, no matter what I do, I'll never be 23 with anyone but you.

It's just that. All of that.

Yesterday and Years Ago

 And 2023 is upon us.

I have begun many blog posts this year, only to stop after a few paragraphs. I even wrote an explanation in one- "I haven't written on the blog in such a long time because the things that I have to say anymore seem redundant. The me that exists now is happy and contented and alone in only good and positive ways. Nick is replacing different flooring in my house, and Jenifer watches movies with me while he works, and we are who we were always meant to be."

The purpose of the blog is one of those things that I am unsure of- I know what it began as (a writing exercise for a young mom), and I know what it became (a sanctuary in a time of upheaval and change). But I just don't quite know what it means now, in the aftermath of all of that. 

My word for 2022 was joy. It was a bit of a play on words, and a bit of a hope inside of a year that I had dreaded a bit. (Dreaded is such a strong word, but I just don't know another word for it.) It was a joyous and wonderful year, filled with blessings that I am grateful for.  

And so we come to 2023. A year of sure upheaval as Betsy Anne settles on a college, and Felicity Kate turns 15 and at some point will be learning to drive. They are my whole heart. Watching them grow up is the greatest gift I've ever been given, and I continue to enjoy every last second, even the prickly teenage ones. 

My word for 2023 is listen. For the bulk of this year I have imagined that it would be change and then two weeks ago listen came along and planted itself in my heart. It may just be me bucking the idea of change, which will of course come whether or not I claim it, but I feel pulled toward the idea of listening, and not talking as much, and being aware of what's around me. Taking in more music and more thoughts and more silence. 

2023. All the best is yet to come.

In Through the Out Door

 

I've had a revelation of late.

I remembered, quite out of the blue, that when I was in high school, I thought that I was in love.

Now, in all reality, I was not in love in the least little bit. (That is perhaps a harsh statement- I loved with my whole heart, as I still do, many people that I didn't know all that well in high school. And this person was my friend, and I knew him better than this sounds. But my point here is that I wasn't in love with him.)

When I think back on my life now, I usually sort of blot this person out. Or he's there, but on the edges. Where, of course, he was always meant to be. He was a friend who meant a great deal to me. But that was all that he was, ever. 

He has a daughter who is a year older than Betsy, and so when we attend various going ons at the high school, sometimes I see her, and lean over and ask Betsy, "Now, who is that girl again?" And Betsy always rolls her eyes and tells me and I'm reminded that once upon a time this person meant the world to me. 

And this particular time he stuck in my head a little longer, as I tried to understand how I let go of that person to the point that I barely remember to conjure him up in my memories of high school. 

I think I was amazed that my heart had healed that up quite so well. It seems very unlike me. 

It's been 7 years, give or take a couple of weeks, since, you know, life imploded. (There are a number of past posts that begin this same way, just change the date.) Life is full of so many wonderful things on this side of those 7 years, and none of them have to do with falling in love again, and there was a time when the thought of that- the thought of never falling in love again- made me feel like such a loser, like a sad little girl who wasn't invited to the party. 

I can't quite say when that changed, but it did. The thought of never falling in love again doesn't seem sad or pathetic at all to me anymore. 

I honestly, hand-on-my-heart don't know if I ever want to try to fall in love again. But just now I'm content with life as it is, and as it was- I was so lucky then, and I'm so lucky now. Blessed, always. 

Stuff I'm Loving:

 Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley

Sarah is exactly 2 weeks younger than me. The first time I ever encountered her, she was my beloved Ramona, and the second time, she was Sara Stanley, of my favorite television show ever, Road to Avonlea. I am, Sarah would say (and does, repeatedly in this book), the kind of girl that she would never have been friends with. Sarah is jaded and much cooler than me and as we have grown up together, I have always known that in reality we would never get on. I am one of the people that she describes in the book as a "wholesome-looking [girl], homeschooled, virtuous or overly innocent."  Heavens, I named both of my children after Avonlea characters. I'm as much in the vein of those homeschooled, Christian girls as you can get (without actually being homeschooled). 

All of that is to say, I know that my adoration of Sarah strikes people as strange, because she is so far removed from the young girl that I encountered at 11 years old in a role that she thought was stupid even then. But adore her I do, and this book is just another reason why. 

The whole entire book is illuminating and memorable and just all the things. But in particular her chapter on Jian Ghomeshi should be required reading for all of us. Especially in light of the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial, and all of the subsequent articles about what this means for the #MeToo movement- Sarah's excruciatingly honest account of the considerations that one must make when it comes to deciding whether or not to add your (famous) name to a list of accusers is important. 

Grappling with why we decide to continue engaging with someone who has hurt us is, I think, the most important conversation that any of us could be having right now. As always, I think this is a conversation full of nuance and grace and reading Sarah's words helped me to place my own feelings into a context that has alluded me for far too long. 

She would never choose me for a friend, but I'm grateful that she has grown up alongside of me. 

Out of the Corner by Jennifer Gray

This is a 180 degree turn from Sarah, but Jennifer's memoir is a delight. It's full of stories that I didn't realize that I was longing to hear. Most especially, though, it was a fascinating look at the life of someone that I feel like a own a piece of- I have watched Dirty Dancing hundreds of times, in addition to Ferris and Red Dawn and even If The Shoe Fits... because I am a true Jennifer Gray fan. Time Hop pointed me to an old blog post the other day that I had written in 2016 in which I compared Jennifer's career to Winona Ryder's. (This was pre-Stranger Things and I was lamenting Winona's' lack of roles and I said, "It's sort of like Jennifer Gray's career only on a much larger scale.")

And then she not only grapples with exactly that as her career dries up basically the minute she gets A-list famous, but she then befriends Winona (they also were both engaged to Johnny Depp- that chapter alone is worth recommending the book). She is true life best friends with Tracy Pollan, who is one of my most favorite people ever. She's funny and relatable and not Baby Houseman at all while still being exactly who I would hope Baby Houseman to be. 

Stranger Things

Felicity and I love Stranger Things. We have to watch it separately because Betsy cannot handle any of the imagery at all, so Felicity watches it quickly and I watch it slowly (because I am old and understand savoring things that you enjoy) and then we send each other memes and argue with each other about whether or not Mike is a likeable character (he is). I love that "Running Up That Hill" is cool again. (Just as Felicity and I call "The Never-Ending Story" our song now.) I love everything about it and I will miss looking forward to it when it officially ends.

Stephen King Summer 2022

Laura Tremaine (one of the most delightful people on the internet) is once again hosting "Stephen King Summer." Last summer I read Carrie, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, and Misery. I genuinely enjoyed all three- I had only ever read one Stephen King book prior to last summer, which was The Shining. Laura has been reading Stephen King since she was young and wants everyone in the world to know what a great writer he is-she refers to herself as a "Stephen King evangelist." As someone who would likely not have read these books without prompting, I am the perfect audience for this- he is an extremely talented writer and I'm so grateful that I found this way to read his books and discuss and dive deep. The link to the website where Laura is hosting this is Stephen King Summer if you are at all interested in joining.

Other than that, I'm just reading a lot (I am keeping up with posting on Goodreads, which I used to be just terrible about), and the girls and I are watching Felicity (and I had forgotten how good the first season of it is), and we watched Dead Poets' Society at Felicity's request over the weekend, which led her down a fan fiction rabbit hole and I can't help but love how very, very much like me Felicity is becoming. Betsy is working at the pool again and working a giant puzzle while she rewatches The Brady Bunch for the millionth time. 

It's always the same summer for the three of us and that's just how we want it to be. Forever. 

The Ground That We're On Might Be Common

 

I am having such a struggle adjusting to the idea that we are busy again.

And heaven knows, the girls and I are not busy at all like normal people- but we have discovered through a couple of years of mostly just being home a lot that it's our favorite way to spend basically all of our time. 

(I have always, always been a homebody, so this was nothing new to me, but when the girls were younger we did all the things and thought nothing of it. Now, the three of us crave time alone and wonder at how we managed all those things.)

Life, though, has picked back up, and we've been busier this past month than we have been the previous 2 years, and it has been quite a lot to maneuver. 

We did finish watching Roswell, and as I remembered correctly, the third season was so atrocious that Betsy said, "I'm, like, embarrassed if anyone would watch this season and think that I liked it." I told her that she is lucky that her favorite show, Julie and the Phantoms, only lasted the one season because at least it didn't turn into something that was horrible. She didn't agree, but I am quite positive that I'm right- My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks remain in perfect bubbles because there was no time to mess them up.

With that said, though, I am glad that Roswell had a second season, despite the fact that I didn't especially love it (I did, however, like the second season better than the third). Rewatching these old episodes quite naturally led to me rereading old Roswell fan fiction and that has been a lovely way to spend a lot of my time- remembering what writing in a fandom was like, how all encompassing those stories became, how every throw away line could be mined to be turned into a story. I have binders full of my favorite stories from the Roswell fan fiction world, and I'm so glad that I had the sense to save them because of course it would be impossible to find many of them now. 

(We also spent last weekend having a 2 Coreys weekend, which was a trip- we watched License to Drive first, and Betsy said, "This is a terrible movie," and then we watched Dream a Little Dream and she said, "This makes that other movie look good." Of the two, I am of two minds- on the one hand, Haim is my favorite Corey, and he is the star of License to Drive. But Meredith Salinger is the most underrated actress of all time (except possibly for the peerless P.J. Soles) and Dream a Little Dream has that wild scene where Feldman dances like Michael Jackson. But then again, we all know that the best 2 Coreys movie of all time is The Lost Boys.)

Stuff I'm Loving:

Yellowjackets

This is my new favorite show. I rarely watch anything right when it comes out because I hate being left on a cliffhanger. But for some reason I abandoned my usual "5 years later" plan and binged this as quickly as possible and am now sad to have to wait for new seasons. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This Cash Explosion Article

My sister and I loved to watch Cash Explosion when we were little and this article is just such a trip- the stories of lives changed by these winnings are such a balm to ordinary stories of how the lottery ruined someone's life. 

AACK CAST!

My very first calendar that I bought for myself when I was probably 14 was a Cathy calendar. Cathy has come to represent a certain kind of woman, obsessed with weight loss and getting a husband, and Jamie Loftus sets the record straight with this extensive podcast discussing the origins of Cathy, how she changed and evolved over years, and the work of women in comics. It was most enlightening.

Just now, the girls and I are rewatching all of my classic Degrassi episodes (Degrassi- at least the old school 1980s version- never hit a bad note), and I'm catching up on the movies that were nominated for Oscars on my weekends alone (I have said before but it bares repeating, I don't believe at all in the idea of a "best" anything of the year, but I have found that watching all of the nominated movies usually makes for weekends full of movies that are profound in their own individual ways). 

For What It's Worth

 

It’s that time of year, when the world falls in love…

 

How is 2021 nearly over? It surely just began last week.

 

My word for 2021 was quiet, and it may have been my favorite word I’ve ever chosen. Quiet suited everything that I held dear to me in the past year- quiet was just the year that I needed.

 

I have a thing about 7^th years of life- historically speaking, for me, every seven years my life shifts. 42 was a seventh year, and life simply shifted in my embrace of who I am without all of the apologies. My writing shifted. I moved away from who I was at 35, which I didn’t even realize I was clinging to.

 

And now the page has turned to 43 and all of life seems to be right where I want it. For an anxiety prone person, that is a frightening statement. Truly, though, I couldn’t be happier or more content- I know all too well that life will shift again in one short year and my Betsy will spread her wings and find her way without me. It’s more than I can bear to think about, and so I push it far to the back of my mind and focus on the here and now.

 

Being a parent to teenagers is such an incredibly fun ride, even though it is tangled and prickly sometimes, and figuring out one girl responds to me in a completely different way than the other one does, and it’s a constant dance that the three of us are finding our way through. I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams with my girls.

 

Entering this 2022, and this year that will fly by much too quickly, as we try so hard to soak in every minute, the word that I have chosen is joy.

There were times when I forget the lows
And think the highs were all that we'd ever known

These words have become my mantra. Along, of course, with a million other words. But those in particular hit a chord. My head is full of all the highs, and it's not that I forget the lows so much as I have found a home for them to exist. Memories of who I used to be then. 

Joy is where I'm fairly certain I am, joy is where I want to remain. 

Here's to 2022. All the best is yet to come. 

Somebody That I Used To Know

 

“You’re getting along better than anyone I’ve ever seen in my office.”

 

That was what the lawyer told us when we were filing our dissolution paperwork. It remains something that I hold close to my heart, even if I do wish I would have said in that moment, “That is what the marriage counselor told us too.”

 

(That’s a true statement and not just a joke.)

 

My friendship with Nick remains the thing that I am most proud of, even if it’s hard won and sometimes awkward.

I wish you wouldn't wait for me, but you always do

Accepting this friendship as it is, as it has become, has been at once the easiest and also the hardest thing that I have ever done.

But it's important- the boundaries erected have been needed and necessary, and sometimes it has hurt putting them up, and sometimes I have wondered what it would have felt like to burn it all to the ground.

I accept whole heartedly that the path that I have taken hasn't always been the one that was the most advisable, but it was the only one that I could find that didn't end with a whole lot of anger. 

Today that is all that I have to offer this space.