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"

Do You Believe In Life After Love?

Oh, I am wishing for the sunshine of last week.

I’m trying my best-I’ve got my 1994 playlist on, which does begin with one of the very best songs of all human time, “The Sign” by Ace of Base, and it’s Friday, so I’m rocking my Village hoodie that I do love so much (and likely wear too often), and reminding myself that there is a glorious weekend coming tomorrow.

It’s been a bit of a week- my car is in the shop because of a deer I hit in December, and while I am endlessly grateful that my dad is allowing me to use the van, I miss my car. My furnace has been having issues of late, culminating in the girls and I spending an entire day without heat, but it has been seen to and I am most hopeful that we now have a plan to fix it that won’t cost me quite as much as I originally feared.

But tons of good things happened this week too- I have gotten to have dinner out with different groups of friends three times in the past week and a half and that is just good for my soul. Betsy has found her groove with track this year. And in addition to all of the 90210 and Avonlea and Baby-Sitters Club episodes that we are currently binging on, we also squeezed in Darby O’Gill and the Little People because St. Patrick’s Day.

(I am not entirely sure how I’ve got them on such an early 90s binge just now, but they have additionally discovered Paula Abdul and every night sing and perform a dance to "Opposites Attract.")

I finished a book this week that was definitely in my niche roundhouse- The Incurable Romantic and Other Unsettling Revelations by Frank Tallis. I just happened upon it at the library- it’s a psychoanalyst’s accounts of some of his more interesting patients, all of whom have some sort of issue surrounding love in an unhealthy manner- I found it engrossing. (Except if I were to recommend it, I would tell most people to skip the next to last chapter, just because it’s disturbing while the other stories are more just interesting but not harboring on abusive.)

I am endlessly fascinated by other people and their lives and what led them to where they are (I realize that comes off shallow, as someone who has a blog to basically talk all about herself, but I promise I am telling the truth). This book is a glimpse into the lives of people who have been undone by love, some obsessed, some unable to knock down walls that they have erected to protect themselves from hurt-the most interesting to me being a man who cannot stop himself having not just affairs, but full fledged romances with thousands of women outside of his marriage because his particular obsession is having women fall in love with him.

My idea of romantic love has flipped all sideways and backwards since my divorce-it’s hard for me to imagine the idea that someone could fall in love with me and stay in love with me forever now-but at the same time I want with all of my heart to fall in love and get married again someday. These tales of love gone mad may make me feel a little less alone but also ultimately make me slightly panicky that love may well just be a delusion that we use to make us feel good.

The thing is, when I fell in love for the first time, it checked all the boxes. All the fireworks coupled with a person who was my very best friend for fifteen years- there are days that I remind myself that I didn’t see any of this coming precisely because this is what love is presented as in every single movie, book, song, what have you, that exists in the world.

As I have repeatedly said, I don’t want that to happen again. It’s why my dating life is not much to speak of-and I do drive people crazy, particularly my sister, who is so unbelievably patient with me to go over and over and over this again and again- I say again and again, I want to get married, I just don’t want to date. The experience of going out with someone, facing rejection, potentially wasting time that could be better spent just eating ramen noodles and watching movies (which is my preferred way to spend a Saturday night)- I despise everything about the initial bits of trying to date someone, and so I just don’t do it.

I realize that this is never going to lead me down a road of finding a partner again, which just pushes me more into my anxiety. It’s lovely.

This would normally be where I would write, someday this will make sense. But more and more I find myself thinking that there is no guarantee that it ever will, that I place far too much emphasis on this ending up somewhere instead of it just being the path that I’m on. Which is all well and good in the abstract, but at the same time, there are days that despite all of my best efforts I feel lonely and miss having another human being on the planet who has promised to love me forever.

So, no, Joy Elizabeth, it doesn’t all make sense, and you are allowed to hold contradictions in your hands and want them both at the same time. You can hold tight to your list of characteristics of the ideal partner (which is a fairly long physical list that I do indeed have) and enjoy the being alone most of the time and still feel lonely sometimes. It doesn’t make you weak. It doesn’t make you some sappy romantic fool. It makes you human, with emotions that are messy despite all of your best intentions to keep everything as neat and ordered as possible.


where'd you wanna go?
How much you wanna risk?
I'm not looking for somebody
With some superhuman gifts
Some superhero
Some fairytale bliss
Just something I can turn to
Somebody I can kiss
I want something just like this
-Coldplay with the Chainsmokers

Shattered Souls...

Such a beautiful, sunny day outside of my window, with Debbie Gibson belting out “Lost in Your Eyes” through my speaker and it’s all I can do not to sing along.

It’s been a long week.

Even though I truly do love when we spring forward, because I love feeling like the night isn’t ending just as I’m getting home from work, somehow losing that hour takes a toll on me that I can’t explain very well. We all three diligently napped last Sunday, tired anyway from a weekend spent at my sister’s house, where we jumped on trampolines to celebrate Natalie’s 8th birthday.

(I took all four girls to McDonald’s for breakfast on Saturday morning and then to see The Lego Movie 2 and Natalie declared it the best birthday weekend ever.)


But tired we all three are. It doesn’t much help that the school chose this week to have extended days to make up snow days and I gave up pop for Lent. It’s all wound into the three of us more tired and cranky than normal.


But I did finish a book last week that is most deserving of its own blog post. It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way is written by one of my own personal favorite people ever, Lysa TerKeurst. I know that I have said again and again how much I love First Five, which is the devotional app that I use, but it’s my blog, so I get to say it again. Lysa’s ministry, Proverbs 31, publishes First Five and that is how I came to know Lysa.


It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way was written in the wake of Lysa’s discovery of her husband’s affair, and is pretty much exactly what I wanted to have in my hands three and a half years ago. I wanted a how to guide-how to find any grace in such a situation, how to live with my completely shattered self-esteem.


It’s difficult for me to find the words to explain how I felt just as Nick left. Because I did not feel mad-at God or Nick or anyone (this sincerely bothered many people who love me)-but I felt something deep in my soul that scared me. I felt bereft and abandoned and alone. I felt like an idiot, most of all, because there were so many signs.


Mostly, it felt like being the punch line in someone’s joke, the ultimate practical joke.


This person that I am today is so full of scars.


Lysa takes her journey and holds it up to the light and it meets you where you are.


Where I am now, of course, is not the me of three and a half years ago. I’ve worked through reams of this, with therapy and books and God and my family and my friends. And all of this writing. What Lysa reminded me of is that these scars are a part of this journey-there are bits of this that are never going to make sense to me, no matter how much I write, no matter how much I manage to heal up this heart of mine.

Nothing stings your soul quite like the disappointment born of realizing that you love someone who has broken your trust. Lysa illustrates this again and again by saying that she felt like dust. Like you have shattered until nothing remains of who you were.

Of course, from my personal experience, as hard as it was to shatter like that, as painful and sad as that time was, I can only look at who I am now and be nothing but grateful. Betsy says it best. She says, “I’m sad that Daddy left. But I like my life now so much better.”

So do I, Betsy Anne. So do I.

Magic, Madness (How Sweet Valley High Saves My Soul...)

Most people who read the blog know that I love to read. It’s my happy place, my safe haven, my calm in the chaos. When I finish a book, I immediately begin another, and I never, never feel like I’ve had enough time at the end of the day to read all of the things that I want to read.

(Truthfully, my biggest fear is to lose my eyesight, simply because I could not read. Second would of course be my hearing, because, music. I suppose I would like for this body of mine to hold out until it decides to give up.)

A funny thing happened, though, on my way through this lovely venture of anxiety that I’ve been on-I found that I can only read certain things at certain times of day.

I have said this before-going through my divorce and the aftermath, my anxiety and depression were on steroids. I know of no other way to describe it. I’ve always struggled with both, my depression the one that, truthfully, I am more comfortable with because mostly it’s like a low hum, a friend of sorts that I can’t imagine my life without. Sometimes, yes, it rears up and rips through me, but mostly not.

My anxiety, though, is a different beast. My anxiety feeds my crazy, in ways that I always hope seem sort of cute, like, oh, she has to do everything in a certain order, and she’s so organized and dedicated. I hope.

The only way that I know to explain my anxiety since the divorce is this-it’s like something snapped inside of my head. Like, if I allow myself to cry, I might cry for days. If I allow myself to feel all of the worry, I won’t be able to function in the world.

For a long while, my way of coping with this was to live life on the surface. To not feel anything at all for fear that I would fall into all of these thoughts that I didn’t have the strength to deal with. But I have lived out this process in real, slow-as-Moses time-it’s not realistic to put all of my feelings to one side, to divorce myself from the world and its problems and pretend I don’t feel anything.

I am a complete news and political junkie, and have been since college. The old me read 3 newspapers every day, listened to NPR all day long, watched CSPAN, all the things. I would read books about the Middle East and the peace process in Israel and Palestine, about the history of our country and of others, all of *the important books* and keep it all straight and orderly inside of my head.

I still feel pulled toward all of these things. But I have learned, somewhat the hard way, that I cannot handle thinking about any of these things beyond 8 o’clock at night. I cannot watch politicians in the political arena the way that I used to-I can read speeches and the State of the Union and what have you, but I cannot handle the theater of politics like I once did. I have to make space for my brain to calm down and concentrate on completely silly things before I go to sleep, or I simply feel that I’m going mad.

For me, that means only fiction at night. 80s fiction from my childhood-Sweet Valley, Baby-sitters Club, Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. All of it makes me nothing but gleefully happy.

Why am I writing all of this? Well, I have to constantly give myself permission to become this new person, to accept the silly along with the important, to give myself a rest from all of the worry. Silly pastel paperback books are my comfort at the end of a long day, along with a long, hot bath and a glass of wine. So, this is my permission to myself, to remember that at the end of all of this, no one is going to care if I know all of the answers (in fact, they would probably rather that I didn’t) and, even if it seems the silliest waste of time, if rereading old books from my WaldenBooks days makes my head spin a little less at the end of the night, then so be it.

Glory Days...

Lately, these girls and I have been living like it’s 1993. It’s pretty glorious.

We have hit the pinnacle of the Brenda/Dylan/Kelly triangle. For context, the Joy of the early 90s loved Dylan and Brenda, and pretty much hated this triangle for ruining what seemed a perfect, if intense, high school romance. (There is an early Brenda/Dylan scene that I adored where Dylan smashes a huge flower urn, causing Brenda to flee, and he chases after her and apologizes-this scene encapsulated to me exactly what I wanted in a boyfriend, someone with tons of spit and cuss but who directed only love at me. This explains so much. But I’ll leave it at that.)

The girls, on the other hand, really love Kelly, and have basically since we started watching. So I was anxious to see their reaction. This has been Betsy’s, “I like Kelly better with Dylan. But Dylan should break up with Brenda instead of going between the two.”

Goodness. On one hand, I am so ridiculously proud of her for realizing that it is Dylan who is basically the louse in this situation. On the other, I am like, why did I never see that it wasn’t necessary for these best friends to get into a catfight over this boy, when he could have just been honest with both of them?

My girls are forever teaching me all the things.

Things I’m loving right now:

The Oscars always make me happy. I love watching the pretty clothes, I love the celebration of movies because I am a complete movie geek, even if I haven’t seen most of the movies that they are talking about. I don’t believe at all in the actual awards themselves-the best movie is just the movie that you liked the best. For me last year that was Mary Poppins Returns. But I absolutely loved Olivia Coleman’s acceptance speech, because it seemed so genuinely off the cuff. I loved Spike Lee because I think Do The Right Thing is a work of art and I’m glad that he worked in a reference to it. And I love Lady Gaga because, as I told the girls, I don’t want to live in a world where there isn’t a Lady Gaga.

Bob Costas, Unplugged

This read is incredible and important. I have had a crush on Bob Costas for most of my life, and this article confirms all of my impressions-he is a thoughtful, intelligent person sportscaster who isn’t afraid to ask hard questions.

"I am not a Howard Cosell at the end of his career deciding he doesn't like boxing," Costas says. "I decided long ago that I had misgivings about football, and I tried to use the forum they gave me to make those points. They gave me bits and pieces, but eventually they took those bits and pieces away from me."

1993, by the way, was a fabulous year in my life. I was 14 years old, with a world full of dreams still to live and boys still to love (I will forever love Tommy Werner with all of the love of a girl convinced that love is slow dancing to Everything I Do, I Do It For You at a middle school dance).

Of Flowers and Dreams and True, True Love...

I’m glad it’s February 15th.

I know plenty of people who hate Valentine’s Day, people who are happily married or in a relationship, and who just don’t want to celebrate because of an arbitrary date on the calendar. I know plenty of people who do enjoy Valentine’s Day, and love getting flowers and candy and jewelry and what have you. And I know loads of people for whom Valentine’s Day is mostly about making a Valentine box with their kids.

But mostly what Valentine’s Day has been to me since I was about 13 years old is this girl who is sitting in her ninth period class (the end of the day) and watching as what seems like every single girl in the room received flowers and balloons and stuffed animals. And even though I knew that none of the office aides was going to bring me a bouquet of roses, my heart leapt every single time that maybe, just maybe, I had a secret admirer and this flower arrangement was meant for me.

When I was in college, I had several professors who very kindly took an interest in my writing and who encouraged me to submit and look beyond life in Rix Mills, and while I still treasure that they liked my writing, I knew that wasn’t the life that I was looking for. The life that I wanted seemed a million miles away-I had no idea at all how to flirt, how to date, how to be anything but awkward. So, when I was 21 years old, and I met this boy who seemingly looked beyond all the backward, shy but loud, strange girl I was and asked me to marry him, it was-I have said this before-it felt like winning the lottery to me. I had a best friend who bought me flowers for no reason at all- I often told people, "Nick may not be perfect, but he is perfect for me."

I relished being a wife and a stay at home mom. As I tend to do, I tried to be the ultimate-I did *all the things* and I made sure that everyone was eating healthy and slathered in sunscreen and never, never watched too much television. I read all the books. I tried my best.

Being a single mom has taken a lot of practice. I’m not who I used to be at all. It’s disconcerting, becoming someone new. There are lots of bits of me that are much better in this new version-I’m more patient, I say yes much more often than no, I listen a lot more than I talk. The girls and I watch old 80s television shows at night and more often than not eat junk food that would never have been allowed from the Old Joy. The girls have seen me fall apart, and so I really saw no reason to act like I know all of the answers. I’m grown up enough to know that life is about more than just doing all the right things, that love is about more than flowers and gifts, and that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

So, I’m all of these people on the inside-I’m that girl hoping for a boy to give her flowers, and I’m that woman who knows that no matter how many flowers someone gives you over the course of a lifetime, if they don’t respect you, then ultimately it doesn’t matter.

I hold these two contradictions tight and pray and try my absolute best to believe that somehow I’m not too damaged to win that lottery all over again.

An ending...

The rabbit died.

Anakin Midnight Kimchi Watson Johnson, who was tremendously loved by his owner and her sister, brought much joy into our house when he came home on Valentine’s Day in 2016. He asked for little, and brought us so much.

In February of 2016, my divorce became final. As we all know, I was consumed inside of a grief that truly threatened to eat me alive. Into this life came this bunny. Honestly, Anakin came to us because I just couldn’t deny Betsy anything at that point-I didn’t have any strength to tell the girls no. (They enjoyed this version of me.)

I had no idea how to care for a rabbit. But the three of us learned. Anakin represented a new chapter in our lives, the one that involved only the three of us. We built his outdoor cage all by ourselves, we played with him and learned to protect our feet around him because he did like to chew on our toes.

Anakin was meant to be for Betsy and Felicity. He was meant to be their pet, he was meant to make up for the fact that their dad had left and their mom had fallen apart and the world that they knew didn’t exist anymore.

He did all of that.

In addition, though, he gave me a reason to get up when the girls were gone. I have come to realize that the most wonderful thing about pets is that they simply do not know that you are barely holding it together, they don’t know that you feel about 2 inches tall and full of such anxiety about the future that you are merely existing minute to minute.

Anakin brought joy into our lives at a time that joy felt long ago and far away.

He will be much missed.