Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt

 

                

                It is my privilege to speak today in memory of my sister, April Leigh. April was my very best friend as well as being my little sister, a truth that I never took for granted. And today I get to tell you what made her the very best sister anyone could ever ask for.

                My sister was a surprise, born only 14 months after me. She brought into our lives so much joy that continued for 46 years. When we were little April was a ball of energy, always charging ahead of me, always so very excited about whatever we were doing. I was the straight man to her much more fun personality.

                We always just naturally did everything together, a built in best friend at times, and of course at times mortal enemies. We joke in our family about photos of us with my cousin Amy at this tiny (I guess it was a park with some attractions?) where we always squished together into one seat while Amy leisurely sits alone. We didn’t understand that we could sit apart from one another.

                She was my constant defender. If our parents ever yelled at me, she emerged from wherever she was and defended my every motive and move.

                As we grew older, April spread her wings much larger than I ever did. She joined the band, which she loved, and she was named one of the field commanders her senior year, which was such fun for her as she was paired with one of her very dearest friends, Jennie Wisneiwski. April loved AWANA, which she participated in at Calvary Baptist Church in Byesville, and she loved going to church camp, first as a camper and later working at the camp in Scioto Hills. She worked a lot of jobs, including Wendy’s, Blockbuster, and the Muskingum Behavioral Health Center.

                She graduated from John Glenn in 1998 and began her college career at Cedarville University that fall. She started out majoring in nursing, but she quickly fell in love with psychology and changed her major the second half of her freshman year. She worked hard and graduated with highest honors in three years, in 2001. She loved Cedarville and especially her roommate Misty Smith, who had been a friend since high school. After graduation, she married Jeremy on November 24, 2001, with her friends Misty, Sara Werner, and Philina Wentworth as her bridesmaids and me as her maid of honor,  and moved to Newport News, Virginia, where Jeremy was stationed in the Navy and she began her work to obtain her PhD in psychology at Regent University.

                Mallory came along on February 2, 2005, as much of a surprise as April had been. She always told me that her song for Mallory was “God Blessed the Broken Road,” because she was so focused on school and along came this baby that shifted everything. She completed her internship for her PhD at Emerge in Akron in 2005 and 2006, which was wonderful for me because I got to keep Mallory while she drove to Akron and back from Mom and Dad’s house.

                Once she graduated in 2006 she joined the faculty at Regent and also began seeing therapy patients at Genesis. At that point they moved to Virginia Beach. On March 11, 2011 Natalie was born and completed their family. And in 2013 they moved to Kent, which was the best for us because it meant that we could get to them in 2 hours instead of the 9 that it took to get to Virginia. She continued to teach for Regent online and began counseling at Emerge, where she had done her internship. Eventually she began teaching at Stark State, which  was her favorite of all of her jobs, and once her student loans were paid off, she stopped counseling to concentrate on teaching full-time.

                My sister loved teaching and it has warmed my heart to see the messages that have been left by her students about what special teacher she was. She answered every email, every question, she poured herself into her classes and loved every minute of teaching.

                She also loved, in no particular order, Little Debbie Oatmeal Crème pies, cheese of any kind, musicals, sports of all kinds, most especially tennis (her most favorite player of all time being Rafa Nadal) and the Ohio State Buckeyes, travelling, escape rooms and games, history (her favorite historical figures being Alexander Hamilton and John Quincy Adams- she loved Hamilton long before the musical. When I heard about the musical I called her and I said, “You’ll never believe, they made a musical about Alexander Hamilton, it’s two of your favorite things!”) She was incredibly funny, and my girls and I loved her sense of humor. She was the world’s best listener; she always began every conversation with “what is going on with you?” And she ended every phone call to me with, “I love you, Joy.”

                She loved to read- we both do, and we would read a lot of things together so that we could talk about them. But she loved with all of her heart mysteries, series, and books about World War II. If we found an author that she loved, she read every single one of their books all at one time. I never understood how she kept the stories straight, reading them that way, but she wanted to gulp them all down as quickly as possible.

                She loved to plan trips and she wanted us to see everything we could squeeze in and as many unique places as she could find. We have been so many places it would take me hours to list them all out. But that was the thing that made her the happiest, planning the trips. She always told me that she truly enjoyed planning the trips almost more than going.

                She told me on one of our final phone calls that she and I only had about 30 more years of travel ahead of us and she knew everywhere that she wanted to go. I’m sure someday we will stumble upon her plans for all of that- she and I were going to be little old ladies traveling the world with Betsy to drive us.

                My sister and I talked about everything and so we had many long discussions about the importance of grief. She did a good bit of teaching in the area of the psychology of aging and longevity, and we both agreed that grief is such an important part of life, as hard as it is to grieve. I know that she is watching me and encouraging me as I go through this maddening time, pushing me to push through all of the pain of missing her to find the ultimate gift that grief can bring to your life.

                Years ago, my sister and I watched the movie Bride Wars. I watched it in the theater and told her that I enjoyed it, and so she watched it. And in that movie these two girls who have been best friends forever are planning their weddings and they start fighting with each other, and I can’t remember why but Kate Hudson’s character does get married and Anne Hathaway’s does not. But at the end Anne says in a voiceover, “Sometimes in life there really are bonds formed that can never be broken. Sometimes you really can find that one person who will stand by you no matter what. Maybe you will find it in a spouse and celebrate it with your dream wedding. But there's also the chance that the one person you can count on for a lifetime, the one person who knows you sometimes better than you know yourself is the same person who's been standing beside you all along.” And my sister, who did not cry hardly ever, said with tears in her eyes that that was us. That we were each other’s soulmates. And for as long as I live that will be the truth. I am the luckiest girl in the world that April Leigh Watson Cunion was my person.

                Also, while I have the opportunity to speak to everyone, I would like to say thank you for all of my family for the love and support we have received in the past several weeks. Everyone who has brought us food, everyone who sent a card or flowers or gifts, everyone who has kept us in their prayers- we are truly overwhelmed by the love shown to us. We thank you and ask that you would continue to hold us in your prayers.

A Time of Innocence

On Saturdays when I was a kid, I got up and watched cartoons all morning, and then my dad took me and my sister to the library to get books for the week and then to McDonald's, where we got the newest toy in our Happy Meals. It was a glorious day. 

When I was around 9, I picked out the book Last Chance, which happened to be Sweet Valley High #36.

This changed my life.

(This picture is of my absolute favorites of my Sweet Valley books)

Sweet Valley became my favorite make-believe place, and every week I picked out different books (I read them completely out of order) and immersed myself in the world of Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and their bevy of friends. I adored absolutely every last little thing about the world of Sweet Valley. 

When I was in middle school, showing promise as a reader who could devour books well beyond my grade level, every year during the parent-teacher conference my parents would be told by well-meaning English teachers that I was wasting my time reading this drivel. I was capable, they would say, of reading classics, so why on earth would I be interested in these pastel covered nonsense books?

Well, I still read my Sweet Valley books-every night before I go to bed, the last book I read (and yes, I read 3 different books before I go to bed every night)- but the final book is always one of my Sweet Valley books. I have never outgrown my love of Jessica's machinations or my desire to be Elizabeth Wakefield (is Elizabeth the reason that I worked on the student newspaper in high school?- yes, indeed).  

Francine Pascal passed away toward the end of last year, and I read many remembrances of her and my beloved Sweet Valley. None of them hit me just right because for most everyone, there is a certain bit of snark, a certain bit of Sweet Valley being the trashy cousin of more beloved series like The Baby-Sitters Club. 

So I wanted to add my own little bit- they were what made me a reader, which in turn made me an English major, which in turn made me who I am as a human being in the world. I could never thank Francine Pascal enough for a life filled with all the books. 

 

Photographs in Sepia Tones

 

"If we make it through December,

Everything's gonna be all right, I know..."

Goodbye, 2024. Honestly, for me, it feels like it only just began yesterday. But it has been a difficult year for too many people that I love, and so I am happy to see it go and hoping for a much better 2025 for everyone.

 

My word for 2024 was adapt. It was a fitting word- one that I picked knowing that I had no choice but to do my best to succeed in too many trying situations. Ever the Pollyanna, I have hopes that next year everything will fall into place. It was perhaps a word that I should have stumbled upon much earlier in my life.

Adapt was needed and necessary in a year of a lot of stress and I will certainly hold onto it as I start into a new year of change that I never crave but that comes whether I want it or not. 

(All of my words seem to fold into my life and stay with me- it's one of the reasons that I love the practice of adopting a word every year.)

 

For 2025, my word is create. What exactly that means, I guess we are going to find out.

But I know this- all the best is yet to come.

Favorite Books of 2024:

 

Dinner for Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz

Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel’s Tween Empire by Ashley Spencer

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World edited by Ada Limon

The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Allison Pataki

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation by Susannah Gora

Rebel Rising by Rebel Wilson

God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music by Leah Payne

Darling Girl by Liz Michalski

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

Room to Grow: An Appetite for Life by Tracey Gold

Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat and Tears by Michael Schulman

Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

Butts: A Backstory by Heather Radke

Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in a Divided Country by Adam Kinzinger

Being Henry: The Fonz and Beyond by Henry Winkler

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in the Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta

The New Testament in Its World by N.T. Wright

All My Knotted-Up Life by Beth Moore

 

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.

 

Walking on Sunshine

 

I am taking my word for the year, which is quiet, quite seriously on the blog. I'm feeling a little like I did when I stopped writing fan fiction and it pressed heavy on my heart and at the same time it was the right thing to do. 

Not that I intend to stop blogging entirely or anything, but life this year has indeed been somewhat quiet and also immensely happy. We are at a juncture of life that is amazingly full of so much fun- Betsy is a junior and can drive, which has changed life in so many ways, and Felicity is thirteen and full of sass and love and it's a trip but luckily for me, it's a trip I've been on before, and so I hold fast to the bits that are precious and sigh sometimes and am grateful that we are halfway through this phase. 

The girls and I are watching Roswell, which is of course the show that changed my whole life 20 years ago, introducing me to fan fiction and to the idea that people would actually read words that I would write. It's bananas, watching this show that hardly anyone watched with these two girls- it's this huge piece of my heart that is strange and hard to put to words. Those stories that I wrote once upon a time were a window into my soul, and reliving it is both such fun and also hard in ways that I didn't anticipate. 

We are also watching all the Marvel movies in order on Friday nights (I still have a hard time keeping things straight though) and this summer we watched tons of old 1980s movies that were such fun to introduce them to. Betsy worked at the pool and we took such an amazing trip with my whole family (I say this every year, but nothing is more fun that taking a trip with the people you love most in the world in a 15 passenger van- I will miss so much this phase of life when it passes).

What I'm Loving Right Now:

Stephen King

Laura Tremaine is one of my favorite people on the internet and she created a Stephen King book club for the summer. Laura loves Stephen King and her dream is to introduce him to people who would not normally pick up one of his books. I had read The Shining at my friend Joe's insistence once, and while I did like it, I didn't feel compelled to read any more. Since Laura started off with Carrie, which is a movie adaptation that I adore (Sissy Spacek is one of my most favorite actresses ever), I thought I would give it a try. We read Carrie, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, and Misery. 

I am beyond happy to say that I thoroughly enjoyed all three, with Carrie being my favorite. I'm looking forward to continuing next summer.  

The Plot Thickens and You Must Remember This

Turner Classic Movies is my favorite channel ever of all time. I was delighted when they announced that they were creating a podcast. The first season of The Plot Thickens is about Peter Bogdanovich- who I knew as the director of The Last Picture Show and from Cybill Shepard's autobiography. I instantly became entranced with his first wife, Polly Platt, and as luck would have it, Karina Longworth created a nine episode arc on You Must Remember This all about Polly. Highly recommended.

The second season of The Plot Thickens, about the making of The Bonfire of the Vanities, is also wonderful.

Three Blooms Farms

For the third time, I subscribed to Three Blooms Farms flower subscription. It is so lovely to come home to fresh flowers, and she delivers to my door. 

If you are local to New Concord, I highly recommend this subscription. 

Life is quiet and blessed.

Let Me Reintroduce Myself

 

All right, stop what you’re doing because I'm about to ruin the image and the style that you’re used to…

 

Rest in peace, Shock G.

 

I’ve just always wanted to open a blog post with that. Always. (We all know that I’m not about to ruin any image you may have of me.)

 

I’m missing Television Without Pity.

 

The other day I was scouring the internet, attempting to find someone’s - anyone’s- take on the Audrey/Pacey relationship in the sixth season of Dawson’s Creek and I just wasn’t able to land on what exactly I wanted and I realized that what I was searching for was Television Without Pity.

 

For the uninitiated, Television Without Pity began as a Dawson recap site and later branched out into all sorts of shows, including most importantly to me, my beloved Roswell. I logged onto Television Without Pity basically every few days and read the snarky takes and felt justified in my obsession with teenage soap operas (even as, of course, I was a wizened twenty-one-year-old).

 

 And it is indeed that snark that I’m missing, that obsessive detail with every line of dialogue. My most favorite recaps (which were always for Roswell but I don’t remember who wrote them) included a bit called, “The Best Thing I Watched on TV This Week,” which never had anything at all to do with Roswell and instead were nearly always Lifetime movies.

 

Anyway, I’m missing those recaps, especially as the girls and I are nearly finished watching Dawson and I desperately am in need of someone with a much better gift at a hot take than me to take on the entirety of the idea of Audrey and Pacey and the way that their relationship comes to an abrupt end as Audrey calls out Pacey for always wanting to be the good guy while hiding behind the fact that he can’t commit and never, ever should have pretended that he could. (I maybe carry a lot of my own baggage into these storylines.)

 

 (I wrote this weeks ago now, and the girls and I have finished Dawson in its entirety. The final two seasons were a bit all over the place, but in the end we cried to let these characters go.)

Things I’m Loving:

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

This was a book that I picked up because so many people had told me how well written it is but I didn't particularly want to dive into this subject matter. So, now it's my turn- I truly believe this to be the most important memoir I have ever read in my lifetime. It should be required reading for everyone, no matter who they are. To sit with Chanel and hear her story is that important. 

Decoder Ring: Jane Fonda's Workout

 

I listened to this podcast over Christmas, and keep forgetting to mention it- it's actually 2 parts, one about the Jane Fonda Workout and then one about the woman who actually created the workout, Leni Cazden. I went into this thinking that I would love listening to a breakdown of why Jane Fonda chose to use her celebrity to create a workout empire. But I found the piece about Leni a much more compelling listen, a fascinating look at a regular person caught up in a moment for which she did not receive much credit or compensation.  

The Push by Ashley Audrain

All the caveats: trigger warnings for a host of things, including importantly the loss of a child. But I found it an interesting look at motherhood and mental health and healthy boundaries and insecure attachments. A book to be discussed.

The Tribe

I convinced my girls to watch The Tribe, which is a quirky soap opera from New Zealand that I fell in love with during college. A virus has wiped out the adult population and left the kids to fend for themselves (it kept surfacing in my memories the entire past year and I found it on Amazon Prime). They surprised me and dressed up like Lex and Zandra on Friday when I got home from work because they are indeed the people that I always hoped would come along and be my friends and watch all the crazy things I love with me. 

Showbiz Kids and Kid 90

Documentaries are one of my favorite things, and these two did not disappoint. Showbiz Kids is an excellent look at the price of fame for kids, and includes interviews with one of my favorite humans, Wil Wheaton, and also one of Betsy's, Cameron Boyce. I watched it by myself, unsure if it would be something that would interest the girls, but I watched it all over again with them when they got home from their dad's because it's a fascinating glimpse at a world that seems glamorous but of course, of course, is full of pitfalls. I'm carrying the interview with Evan Rachel Wood close to my heart, where she says that she was always led to believe that if she didn't want to act it would be such a waste of her talent- I've dwelled on why exactly it is that we insist the things that you have natural talent for should be monotonized. It's a complicated question to me and I'm grateful to have been shown an answer from a different side. 

Kid90 is a compilation of home movies from Soleil Moon Frye and it's as wonderful as you would imagine. As I've said many times, I was the girl who carried around my video camera for large swaths of my time in high school, in particular my entire senior year, and so I feel a complete kinship with Soleil's desire to keep a piece of her adolescence close to her heart. (I also understand why she boxed these all up and didn't watch them for years- even though there are plenty of good memories that I have of those days, I don't enjoy reliving them in quite the way I imagined I would.) 

Our school year has ended, and it has really been a wonderful year for us. Both of my girls loved remote learning (for many reasons, remote learning worked well for us, and I know that was not the experience of most people, and I remain forever grateful to East Muskingum for allowing us this option). 

Grateful always for time with my girls, even as we are silly and crazy and time is moving much too quickly. 

 

Fetch the Bolt Cutters

 

My Betsy Anne is having something of a mid-life crisis.

 

My sister, who has a doctorate in psychology, has assured me that this is all completely and totally normal.

 

Bets is staring at the idea of college and scholarships and just the entire rest of her life and wondering what to do and mostly feeling like she wants to just stay a kid forever. And so every night we talk about this, about how I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I was 16, and how I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do with my life at 36, and somehow I became a water billing clerk. And I love my job and the people that I work with and everything about working for the Village- but of course, it’s not that my calling was in understanding water meter readings. My calling rests solely inside of these two precious girls and being their mother, and my job is just a means to an end to keep us fed and clothed.

 

Does this help? I don’t know. But we talk about how those twenty years in between were filled with books and professors who changed my life and meeting a boy and becoming a mom- all of it glorious, and none of it has led me to a “career,” and while I’m fine with that reality, I also want her to swing open wide every door that she finds interesting and never to feel like she cannot accomplish something and also to never stop being my sweet, tender hearted girl.

 

And then my Felicity Kate has discovered Twilight.

 

She loves it so much that she has created a shelf in her room for all things Twilight related. (She also packed up all of her Calico Critters at the same time. It was a bit much- I wasn’t expecting that she turn into a teenager overnight.)

 

It’s been a lot to maneuver, and it’s hitting us how little time is left before life shifts again, before we have to adjust to a new normal.

 

5 years ago life slammed a door shut with such force I could never pry it open again. It forced me to find the window. And yes, climbing in and out of a window is weird but it works for me.

 

Life on this side of the after is as close to perfect as it’s ever going to get. My life revolves around these two girls. It is the best piece of being divorced- I get to spend my nights with these girls wherein we listen to incredibly loud music, all the Tik Toks, all the 1980s/1990s shows and movies that we can, painting fingernails and arguing and laughing and existing as a family in a way so different- it’s not for everyone I’m sure. But it works so well for us, even as we navigate existential crisis and the particular end of eras.

 

When I drop my girls off every other Friday night with their dad, as I drive away, I always feel a little bit sorry for him, that I am going home to be by myself and just enjoy the quiet for a weekend (just for the two days, I promise). The girls told me that recently he said to them that he thinks that I would like to be going home to someone, that I probably miss having someone to do things with while they are gone. And it struck me as so typically us, me the introvert who craves being alone like its water in a desert, and Nick the extrovert who wants the people around him all the time.

 

We are- all four of us- we are right where we were always meant to be.

 

Stuff I’m Loving:

(there's a good bit because it's been a hot minute since I wrote on the blog):

 

This Dawson's Creek Article on Vox

This article is just what I needed as we are halfway through Dawson, and this article breaks down the Joey/Pacey/Dawson triangle to what it exactly is-namely, that by rearranging the storyline to focus on Joey rather than Dawson, and then to make Pacey the hero, the writers created a formula for teenage soap operas that has continued to this day.

 

The Bible Binge: Favored or Forsaken: Kirk Cameron

I have tons of feelings about Kirk Cameron, most of them good (Kirk lived on my wall from the time I was in the third grade), and a handful of them thorny and messy. Knox, Jamie, and Erin spend this entire episode unboxing Kirk and his place in Christian culture and where he gets things right and where he becomes problematic.

 

I also loved the recent Favored or Forsaken bonus that was a snake draft of Contemporary Christian artists but that is only available on the Patreon feed. Let me say, though, it is so excellent to find people in this world who can claim P.O.D.’s “Boom” as the best sports anthem, Jars of Clay as life changing, and Point of Grace and Amy Grant as just the OG best.

Judas and the Black Messiah 

Excellent, excellent watch. My favorite thing about this social distanced world is watching new movies in the comfort of my own home and one I have no doubt will never change. The girls and I bought new reclining movie chairs for our big Christmas gifts this past year, and we love them and now have even less reason to ever leave the house. 

HBO Max was a sort of lackluster subscription for me (and I say this having subscribed to Quibi) but with the new policy of releasing the movies there the same day as in the theater- kicked it up a notch and please let it never change. The performances in this movie are all amazing. Highly recommended.

To All The Boys: Always and Forever

To be clear, the books are better (this is true 99% of the time). But the first and third adaptations of Jenny Han's delightful books are very good (the second one wobbles, but I do love the opening of it, an homage to Adventures in Baby-sitting, which is hands down the best opening of a movie ever, so I appreciate what they were doing there). I love Lara Jean with all my heart and am so glad to have met her.

R. Eric Thomas

Someone that I follow (perhaps Erin Moon? I don't remember) introduced me to R. Eric Thomas's email and it has been bringing me joy for a month now. I cry from laughing so hard, most recently at his long thread about the new 101 Dalmatians trailer- I read a lot of very serious stuff, and this is just the most perfect distraction ever. 

These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore

Such an excellent history of the United States- this doorstop of a book was a labor of love for me to get through but I'm so glad that I persevered. I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads, which I never do. (On that note, I am trying to be better about updating my Goodreads page- I find Goodreads clunky to use but I'm trying.)

Disco Kylie Minogue

I've been binging this since it came out and it is just the shiny, poppy, happy music that my heart is aching for just now.

Life just now feels full of hope.