Are You Happy in This Modern World?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was too sweet.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Suspend Donna Martin, Suspend Us All...

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

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

Anyway...

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

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

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

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

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


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

Broken Wings...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learning to love the alone took time.

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

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

But being alone in the beginning-that was rough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.