Simple Kind of Life...

You know how I like to take a metaphor and beat it to death.

This is release. This completely full dumpster.

17 years ago, baby Joy bought this house that she had wanted for as long as anyone can remember while her husband was in Iraq. It was exciting and terrifying. I hated making huge, life altering decisions without Nick, but at the same time this was the dream. This house and babies. That was all I wanted or cared about having once I became a grownup.

This old house planted itself in my heart around age eight, and as such I love it despite a great many annoyances that come along with it- bugs love it; I have this incredibly annoying small leak in my bathroom closet that I have been trying to fix for months and every time I think I’ve got it, water gets in again; the person that owned it just prior to me raised the living room floor and lowered the ceiling at the same time, which seems like a weird combination.

Still, my babies came along inside of this house, and it grew right along with us as we finally gave up on the idea of having a dining room (that we never used) at all in favor of a game room; as we rearranged furniture to create the illusion of more space; as the babies’ rooms grew into the rooms of (much too messy) teenagers.

The house had come with a ton of stuff that the previous owner did not want, and it doesn’t seem to have occurred to me (or Nick, for that matter) to have done anything about it. As such, our basement and garage held bits and pieces of someone else’s life.

And then, 17 years of living happened, and Nick never met anything that he particularly wanted to throw away, and when he did leave, he left behind mounds of stuff.

It has taken 5 years for me to get to a place of release inside of my heart to want to claim this space as completely and totally my own. And here we are, and I feel ten times lighter just from letting go of everything that was taking up that space in my heart (and also literally inside of my house).

June normally undoes me. Try as hard as I might, June comes along every single year with her insistence on waking up this part of my heart that I’ve bandaged up and healed as best I can and reminds me that I’m a girl who was left behind. It brings fresh to the surface memories of what that sting felt like, of how helpless I felt and then anger at myself for feeling helpless at all and frustration with myself for any of it.

This year, though, that hasn’t yet happened. Oh, June came, and brought her memories with her, but somehow there wasn’t all of the emotions. There was just, oh, there you are. Welcome back.

Maybe physically releasing things is helping in ways I can’t quite articulate. Maybe it’s just been long enough that I’m used to it. Maybe it’s that I’m over it.

Whatever it is, I’m loving that I chose release.

Is It Cool That I Said All That?

The sun is shining, Michael is singing “I Want You Back” through my speakers…it’s that time of year.

And it’s finally (almost) time for me to declare five years.

You know how cancer survivors hold five years sort of out there, as a goal? Well, I have held five years out there since all of this began. There is no real secret to five years, I know. Wait long enough and time will elapse and that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But here we are.

I’ve had many, many revelations about all of this recently, and I don’t know for certain if it is a matter of how much time has elapsed, or if it’s been this season of forced downtime with my precious girls, or if it’s an emergence of a new outlook on life- or, most likely, it’s all of those things.

Life just now is really right where I want it to be. As always, I wish that I could hold that girl from 5 years ago and tell her that. It all turns out okay. Better than okay. Promise.

(I honestly don’t know if this is interesting to anyone at all besides me. I realize that most people in this world move through things quicker than I do. Heavens, I know people who have been widowed who have remarried in the time that I have been slogging along in this. Which is fabulous for them, and I truly hope for all of the world to find love, and I’m here for all of it. It’s just not my truth.)

Here’s the deal: in the beginning (I have said this before), I simply assumed that life would lay itself out like a romantic comedy that I was unaware I was living inside. If Nick wasn’t the right person, then right person would somehow appear and all of life would fall into place. Not right away, of course. I spent a nice long year inside of searing grief, and then another year emerging slowly from that. Slowly beginning to notice men noticing me, and for a moment enjoying that. I dated a bit. I promised myself that at the least I would have a new friend in the one person that I went out with for a while, and that has completely turned out to be true.

But here’s my revelation in this year that I promised myself release- I’m happy with life the way that it is. I’m here for movie nights with my girls, for meals with my parents, for texts with my sister about books. I love being the one to make all of my own decisions about my house, about my paycheck-these are things that I take for granted now, but that it took time to get used to.

This time of heightened anxiety in the world has brought to the surface some gunk that I never properly dealt with at the time of my divorce. In the beginning, life was about surviving (truly). There was so much to mitigate then, and now there is space and time and healing and so coming to revelations about what someone breaking your trust and what that has created in its wake- it’s all easier to deal with. And, for me, it’s important that I’m dealing with it on my own.

Why does any of this matter? I don’t know that it does. But it’s where I am just now. And I sort of want to shout it from the rooftops- just exactly the same way that I felt when I fell in love with Nick Johnson and I wanted the entire world to know. I want the world to know that five years after life fell all to pieces at my feet, I’m feeling independent and strong and at peace.

Life has worked out just exactly like it was supposed to. Promise.

I used to be lunatic from your precious face
I used to be woebegone and so restless nights
My aching heart would bleed for you to see
Oh! But now...
(I don't catch myself bouncing home
Whistling buttonhole tunes to make me cry)

No More "I love you's"
A language is leaving me
No more "I love you's"
A language is leaving me exiled
No more "I love you's"
Changes are shifting me outside the words
-The Lover Speaks

Walk and Not Run...

It’s Star Wars week and Cinco de Mayo and a terrible lot of goodness here at the Watson Johnson house.

We are up to The Last Jedi (which I have never seen). Betsy wanted to watch them in actual episode order rather than chronological order and while I was initially very resistant to that idea, I must admit that I have enjoyed watching them in that order. (You simply have to put aside the dialogue and the fact that by the third movie Natalie Portman seems like she is being held hostage to a contract she signed at 18.)

Being a homebody is a definite asset to this shelter in place lifestyle. The girls and I have settled into a groove of movies and walks and board games. I have gotten Betsy as addicted to Days of our Lives as I was at her age, and there is just something about sharing something with her that I shared with my Grandma West that carves out this niche in my heart that I hope remains forever.

We have watched all of the music specials (Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood and Lady Gaga and Elton John all from my house- I am HERE. FOR. IT.), the NFL draft (my amazing Buckeyes breaking all the precedents), all the Tik Toks.

As the complete and total nerd/political junkie that I am, I look forward to watching the governor every day and truly would be down for these briefings long after all of this is over. That combined with Beth dissecting all of the recent Supreme Court opinions on the Pantsuit Politics Patreon feed are settling to my anxious soul. For me, the more information that I have, the better I can process the world around me.

Life is still anxious and scary and words cannot describe how heavy my heart is for anyone who has lost their life or their job. I can never quite convey how grateful I am for my local grocery store and bank and gas station, for my girls’ teachers for working hard to exist within this strange new boundary, for my co-workers and my friends who check on me and for my family, especially my parents who make dinner for me and the girls every day. How lucky am I?

Tonight, it’s all the tacos and Aggravation and then I get to see if I can understand who exactly Rey is.

Life in the Time of Coronavirus...

Just now, the sun is shining, and ABBA is playing though my speakers and I’m feeling light.

I’m trying to hold to all the good just now. It’s amazing how grateful one can become for seemingly simple pleasures that we mostly take for granted on the good days. Just this past week, I have thought how wonderful it is that we still have trash service.

I told my therapist that this is me firing on all cylinders- I have experienced my anxiety at this level exactly 3 times now- when Nick was in Iraq, when I lived through my divorce, and just now. It’s interesting, looking back at those times- Nick being in Iraq was the scariest time in my life. I can remember fighting back tears nearly every night as I drove home from work that year, promising myself that I would not allow myself to get accustomed to the idea that he was gone. I insisted to myself that I wouldn’t think of the house as mine, that I wouldn’t experience anything without him that came even close to joy. But, of course, I adjusted to him being gone because your body won’t allow you to live in such a heightened state of panic for long stretches of time.

I hold that thought now, and remind myself that eventually this (whatever this is) will become normal.

The girls and I have established a bit of a routine the past two weeks- everyday includes games (most especially endless rounds of Clue), a walk around the loop, and a movie (we take turns picking- Betsy is on a huge Brat Pack binge just now, which seems just about right and thank goodness because Felicity picks things like Angry Birds 2). Weekends are full of books and movies and cleaning-all in my wheelhouse.

Routines are my lifeblood. Adding in taking my temperature in the morning and watching Mike DeWine at 2 in the afternoon gives me some notion that I’m checking off the boxes of what I’m now responsible for.

Living with anxiety makes you question always if you are overreacting- after all, that is what anxiety is, being unable to parse out what is an actual worrisome event, and what is not. But this time I’m trying to lean into my anxiety, realizing that there is truly nothing that I can do but follow the advice of people trained in living through an epidemic, praying over bits I can’t control, and holding tight to the notion that eventually this will end.

Four years ago, no one could have convinced me that I would ever get over Nick leaving. I couldn’t imagine a day of not missing him. I couldn’t even imagine a day of not wishing that my life would just go back to what it used to be.

I don’t wish that ever now. My life as it is now is ten times better than my life ever, ever was in all of those years that I was (quite happily) married.

Holding those two contradictions- the notion that I adored being married to Nick Johnson and yet I am a better person divorced from him- those contradictions define who I am. If I have learned nothing else in the past four and a half years it is that your emotions are messy and complicated and they don’t always line up with reality.

Life just now is scary- I’m scared for my girls, for my parents, for the economy. I have read accounts of people who are sick that frighten me to my core. I worry for the doctors and nurses and what this could look like. I stress over politicians taking measures that I fear could be too little.

I could be wrong, of course. I pray that I am. In the meantime, I will be so grateful for what I have, and hold tight to the idea that we are all in this together.

Spin Me Out Of Control...

When I chose release as my word for 2020, I didn’t realize the ramifications. 2020 has been filled to the brim with so much feeling and it’s been a long time since I allowed myself to drown inside of what sometimes seems like mountains of emotion.

(Mixing metaphors…still my thing.)

When I chose the word release, I meant it in a sort of metaphysical way- like, I'm letting go of the idea that I'm going to understand all the things, or that I'm going to release my grip on my insistence on routine. I wrote things like, "When something slips through your fingers that you held onto much too tightly it takes a long time to forgive yourself for letting it go." That was sort of the gist.

Instead, the world turned upside down, and the idea of control has slipped from my grasp, perhaps forever.

I found myself saying to the girls at the bank the other day- people do crazy things when they think they cannot control anything. This blog is proof of that, again and again.

Everyone having big feelings right now is normal- whether they are trying to prepare, whether they are creating schedules, whether they are rolling their eyes.

My personal coping mechanisms include watching old movies (the girls and I watched Far and Away yesterday, and they loved it every bit as much as I do, and on Saturday I introduced them to both Ghost and Never Been Kissed and we watched Frozen 2); listening to podcasts- mostly happy, easy listens about books and pop culture; reading (Felicity and I are working through The Westing Game, which I read one time as a kid, but I remember nearly nothing, and Felicity loves a good mystery, so it's terribly fun); and, when I'm almost to a coma with my anxiety, watching HGTV and eating potato chips.

For the two introverts in our house, this is not a terrible pain. For Felicity, this is harder- she brings her Barbies into my room just to be in the same general vicinity, even if I'm doing something boring.

As my humble offering to your own sanity, I offer my podcast spreadsheet, complete with my favorite podcasts broken out into how often I listen to each:


Podcast Spreadsheet

If you need something to cheer you up, The Popcast is the best I can point you toward. 80s All Over and SSR are also two so high on the list just now- I crave anything from the 1980s/early 1990s like oxygen when I am stressed, and both offer up a balm to my harried soul.


I found myself twice this past weekend reaching for my wedding rings, a habit I had long since broken. Stress does strange things, sends your mind to odd places. Things seem scary, but also, I'm not, and never was, in control of this.

On the other side of that release, we will realize that it was faith carrying us all along.

He's Always Leaning. Against Stuff...

The very best thing about being a mother of a teenager and an almost teenager is revisiting all of my old favorites-favorite books, favorite movies, favorite television shows. The girls and I live every day basically like it’s about 1995, and it is the complete bomb.

We just wrapped up watching My So-Called Life and it was just what my heart needed entering this 2020. It took a minute for the girls to fall in love, but Rickie was their way in (of course) and by the heart shattering ending they were both as devastated as their mother was upon her first encounter with Angela Chase leaving Brian Krakow on that bike in the road.

Betsy repeatedly asked Felicity and me, “Who would you pick-Brian or Jordan?” If you know my girls at all in real life, then you know that Felicity without hesitation always said Jordan, and Betsy picked Brian every single time, always bemoaning the idea that anyone in the world would have their head turned by Jordan.

My answer every time was, of course, I can’t choose between them. I love Brian Krakow with every beat of my heart, his awkward demeanor only making me adore him more. And then Jordan Catalano reaches for Angela’s hand in the single most romantic gesture I’ve ever encountered in 41 years of watching rom coms and I know, without a doubt, that I would have left Brian behind too. I’ve never encountered a creature as much of a kindred spirit to my own self as Angela Chase. (I watched My So-Called Life on its original run on ABC, I chose it over Friends in its first season, confounding my friends who only discovered it later on MTV.)

Anyway, much as I would love to think that if love ever finds me again, I’ll have the sense to see Brian Krakow for who he truly is, I have a feeling my heart is forever doomed for the Jordan Catalanos of the world.

Things I’m Loving:

Inside Out by Demi Moore

I adore a good memoir and this is one I will carry on about forever. It’s deep and meaningful and honest. Demi is open about each of her marriages and exactly how they came apart at the seams; she is vulnerable about what it feels like to be hurt by someone that you thought loved you more than anything. I’m forever grateful whenever I grab onto anything- a poem, a song, a self help book, whatever- that makes me feel seen, that makes my particular journey seem not so out of the realm.

Marriage Story

Speaking of out of the realm, I purposely avoided this movie for a minute because I knew that it would feel different- the experience of two people wanting out of a marriage and fighting through lawyers, that wasn’t ever my experience- but of course, good movies make you feel for people in situations different than your own. I love Adam Driver and performances like this one are why. As for Scarlett Johansson, she is not and will never be my favorite, but she is a talented actress and it is roles like this one that chip away at my resistance to her.

For now, the girls and I are watching The Torkelsons and falling in love with Riley Roberts and I’m wishing, as always, that this season of our lives would never, ever end.

The Space In Between...

Oh my goodness. All the things, right?

2020 has, thus far, been full of a lot of feelings. Now, I do tend to care about people that I have never actually met to an absurd degree (and, importantly, I never hope to meet them in real life-that episode of Growing Pains where Ben is horribly disappointed by the rock star that he has idolized convinced me long ago that I don’t really want to meet anyone famous, but I do care deeply and to my core about a lot of people that I do not actually know).

2020 feels a little like the world has cracked open to me.

Things I’m Loving Lately:

Why Megxit Matters
This episode of the Daily is a wonderful blend of the royal family’s recent drama, the British public’s reaction to it, and why any of it matters.

When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to go to Europe and the tour guide that we had for the trip was British. I always sat at the front of the tour bus (I’m a geek like that) and she would talk to those of us toward the front, and one day we asked her about the opinions of the British people toward Diana. This would have been 1996, so Diana was alive but divorced from Charles. She told us that the British people were more in favor of Charles and found Diana to be somewhat lacking in decorum. As someone who was a huge fan of Diana, I realized right then that Americans were profoundly different than the British in how we view celebrity and royalty and such.

I still think all of that is true.

For me, though, I used to pray hard for William and Harry every night. I cried when Matt Lauer talked about how lucky they were to have each other as they walked into William’s wedding. I adore Queen Elizabeth and have read far too many books about her. I have far too many feelings about Harry and Megan, but I know that my American prism of looking at this is totally different from the British outlook, and that Brexit is days away, and the world is upside down for lots of reasons.

You Must Remember This: Six Degrees of Song of the South

I have never seen Song of the South, though I do have a cassette tape and a book, one of those read-along books from when I was a kid in the 1980s, that is about a piece of the Brer Rabbit story. This is a behind the scenes look at Song of the South and it is engrossing-it walks through all of the bits from the minstrel elements of the story, the career of Hattie McDaniel, and the creation of Splash Mountain. I binged most of this on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and it was a most illuminating way to spend that holiday.

Before Sunrise: The Making of an Indie Classic

This oral history of the making of Before Sunrise is fascinating. Before Sunrise is one of my most favorite movies ever and I’ve watched it so many times I can recite a lot of the dialogue. Before Sunset and Before Midnight I’ve only seen one time each-I did not care for Before Sunset but loved Before Midnight and that was likely due to circumstances in my own life at the time, so they would need a rewatch to make a definitive statement. But I loved this look at the way that this film came into being, and how they had to film things that, of course, seem natural and brilliant and exactly what my seventeen-year-old self thought that traveling in Europe would be like.


The girls and I have spent a large part of January talking about Australia and watching My So-Called Life and learning about impeachment and the democratic process (they super love that). We have been blessed with a lot of time together and a last minute cousin weekend and all the fun things. It's been blissful (being with the girls, I mean, not the wildfires).

And yes, I'm a bit obsessed with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt and the grasping of the hand. And yes, I know that it may be publicity and that it says something about this man who rather callously left his wife and who seems to be, while a fine actor, a bit of a mess of a person. But of all the people that I looked to when I lived though my divorce, through the hardest days of not being able to function, the person that I looked to was Jennifer Aniston, as crazy as I know that sounds. Her words at the time, "I love Brad; I really love him. I will love him for the rest of my life. I don't regret any of it, and I'm not going to beat myself up about it." Those words hid themselves inside of my heart, and even though I knew that maybe she didn't even mean it anymore, she said it out loud once, and so it was okay-it was okay to be divorcing someone and still love them and feel confused and crazy.

And I have moved far away from that person that I was then, and I know that she has too. But I'm happy for her if there remains something of that love, even if it's only a moment at an awards show that the world got to glimpse.

"Isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?"
-Celine, Before Sunrise