But it was a good one -- and for that I am happy. Just want to remind myself that good days will happen -- they are happening -- and they'll continue to happen more and more.
And today's good day is ending with clean sheets, an oatmeal raisin cookie, and season 2 of Broad City. Oh and a heating pad on my back. Mmmm, says Jessica Fletcher. The street and neighboring apartment lights shine in just right and cheer up my bedroom and zzzz asleep by 9:00.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Friday, January 16, 2015
Hodge podge
a) Harper has been having some of her happiest moments the past month. As in, she's just really enjoying life -- cheerful and silly and easygoing and sleeping well and all that. I'm trying to piece together exactly why (because, hey, there have been some big changes, yo) and I think one of the biggest reasons is: no school. Ha? And I don't think it's really no school-no school, but rather...no Waldorf school. Yeah, I may have been torturing my indoor kid with a lot of outdoor time. I'll write a separate post on this.
b) She just started ballet here in Brooklyn and is loving it. For me, it's so fun to be able to walk her to her class and to peer through the window with Bea and watch a real ballerina type teach her real choreography. She's a tiny bit young for this class, but because she's pretty durn good (if I do say so myself?) I just said ENOUGH with the endless "pre-dance"/"creative movement" stuff and put her into Ballet 1. So, so much better.
c) Bea will be a year next month and I want to start weaning her soon, but I don't know how. Instead of slowly losing interest as she gets busier (and dear lord is she busy), lately she's been getting more and more into nursing? No no, dear. Harper abruptly stopped at 9.5 months and never looked back, but that ain't gon' happen. Online people talk about "slowly moving from 4 feedings to 3 to 2 to 1" and I'm all... but what if you have, say, 15 feedings? I wish I were joking.
d) I'm super sad that Rory Gilmore slept with married Dean and now is continuing stuff with him... (I like to pretend this is all happening real time instead of 10 years ago, shhhh.)
e) I want to be a runner because, well, it's f-r-e-e and because I live near a great promenade/running zone, but I guess I don't know when I'd run? And also it's very cold, so this is not a good time to start perhaps. Should I just do workout DVDs until spring? Because I'm not really in the mood. I kind of wanna put on Taylor Swift and run (shuffle) in a straight flat line. Tell me your thoughts on this.
f) There is a man in my building who I'm always in the elevator with and no matter what I do or say or smile or laugh his face is a stone statue of despair and anger and nothingness. I have so many stories in my head of why in the world? But he's probably just hungry.
b) She just started ballet here in Brooklyn and is loving it. For me, it's so fun to be able to walk her to her class and to peer through the window with Bea and watch a real ballerina type teach her real choreography. She's a tiny bit young for this class, but because she's pretty durn good (if I do say so myself?) I just said ENOUGH with the endless "pre-dance"/"creative movement" stuff and put her into Ballet 1. So, so much better.
c) Bea will be a year next month and I want to start weaning her soon, but I don't know how. Instead of slowly losing interest as she gets busier (and dear lord is she busy), lately she's been getting more and more into nursing? No no, dear. Harper abruptly stopped at 9.5 months and never looked back, but that ain't gon' happen. Online people talk about "slowly moving from 4 feedings to 3 to 2 to 1" and I'm all... but what if you have, say, 15 feedings? I wish I were joking.
d) I'm super sad that Rory Gilmore slept with married Dean and now is continuing stuff with him... (I like to pretend this is all happening real time instead of 10 years ago, shhhh.)
e) I want to be a runner because, well, it's f-r-e-e and because I live near a great promenade/running zone, but I guess I don't know when I'd run? And also it's very cold, so this is not a good time to start perhaps. Should I just do workout DVDs until spring? Because I'm not really in the mood. I kind of wanna put on Taylor Swift and run (shuffle) in a straight flat line. Tell me your thoughts on this.
f) There is a man in my building who I'm always in the elevator with and no matter what I do or say or smile or laugh his face is a stone statue of despair and anger and nothingness. I have so many stories in my head of why in the world? But he's probably just hungry.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Adventuretime
I think the strangest part of this whole new...adventure is that I forget all the time that I'm actually on an adventure. It's not that I'm expecting Clay to waltz in from work or I wake up and reach over to find the bed empty beside me (the richest of cinematic cliches). No, it's more that I'm just chug a chugging all the time and I forget to remember to look at my situation from the outside. Is that even wise to do? Like, WOAH WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME IN RELATION TO TIME AND SPACE AND SOCIAL MEDIA?
I rarely do because when I do it doesn't really achieve anything. I have a quick stab of anxiety ("holy shit, I'm alone in this city apartment with two girls and I'm single and this is so, so strange and how much pizza should I order for one?") but then I'll think something else ("there are women who are shoved from their home at gunpoint and forced to walk through the desert for a thousand miles barefoot carrying their children") and then I'm like oh shhhh self, I'm good.
I guess when it hits hardest is when I meet somebody from the building and they'll be
"I'm Erin! And this is Frank! And these are our kids Fancy Silly Name and Fancy Silly Name! Who are you guys?"
and I'm all
"I'm Amy and this is Harper and Bea! ________"
And I pause and in my head where Husband Person's name should be the pause is 7,000 hours long and filled with the weight of 10 planets. But really it's only a few seconds and soon everyone is smiling and putting on our hats and walking separate directions down the sidewalk.
I'm glad I'm so busy. I'm delighted I have my two delicious daughters. I'm lucky I want for nothing right now -- and I mean that. (Okay okay, I want more sleep. I'M TALKING TO YOU, BEA.)
Because truly, there isn't time to analyze what's happening other than when I'm alone for a bit before falling asleep and there isn't time to write a whole weird narrative or decide what other people are thinking about me or worry if I'll end up with seven cats and a scrapbook of my favorite Cathy cartoons. There's only time to get on with it all -- wash my hair and play Sorry with Harper and rub Bea's belly and walk to the grocery store for milk... and definitely some chocolate.
I rarely do because when I do it doesn't really achieve anything. I have a quick stab of anxiety ("holy shit, I'm alone in this city apartment with two girls and I'm single and this is so, so strange and how much pizza should I order for one?") but then I'll think something else ("there are women who are shoved from their home at gunpoint and forced to walk through the desert for a thousand miles barefoot carrying their children") and then I'm like oh shhhh self, I'm good.
I guess when it hits hardest is when I meet somebody from the building and they'll be
"I'm Erin! And this is Frank! And these are our kids Fancy Silly Name and Fancy Silly Name! Who are you guys?"
and I'm all
"I'm Amy and this is Harper and Bea! ________"
And I pause and in my head where Husband Person's name should be the pause is 7,000 hours long and filled with the weight of 10 planets. But really it's only a few seconds and soon everyone is smiling and putting on our hats and walking separate directions down the sidewalk.
I'm glad I'm so busy. I'm delighted I have my two delicious daughters. I'm lucky I want for nothing right now -- and I mean that. (Okay okay, I want more sleep. I'M TALKING TO YOU, BEA.)
Because truly, there isn't time to analyze what's happening other than when I'm alone for a bit before falling asleep and there isn't time to write a whole weird narrative or decide what other people are thinking about me or worry if I'll end up with seven cats and a scrapbook of my favorite Cathy cartoons. There's only time to get on with it all -- wash my hair and play Sorry with Harper and rub Bea's belly and walk to the grocery store for milk... and definitely some chocolate.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Suddenly Susan! I mean single.
Especially because I'm going to go into, oh... zero details, this is an awkward post to draft. But I wanted to send a note into the cyber zone that with this new year comes many new things.
1) Brooklyn! (I love it.)
then 2)... and oh, 2) is the big one.
2) I'm getting a divorce.
Woah.
That looks insane typed out.
Important facts: I'm okay. And so are the girls (and all of us for that matter.) Clay and I are going to co-parent in Brooklyn and make it work for those tiny nuggets. It's hard to explain without explaining, but the worst is behind me and there's only hope ahead.
I'm going to use this space to talk about single-mama-in-the-city stuff for suuuure, but not divorce stuff. I know you understand.
Weird, right? Super weird. But such is life sometimes.
I feel scared/worried/nauseated sometimes -- but I also feel buoyant. And peaceful. And me.
Here's to a wonderful year.
1) Brooklyn! (I love it.)
then 2)... and oh, 2) is the big one.
2) I'm getting a divorce.
Woah.
That looks insane typed out.
Important facts: I'm okay. And so are the girls (and all of us for that matter.) Clay and I are going to co-parent in Brooklyn and make it work for those tiny nuggets. It's hard to explain without explaining, but the worst is behind me and there's only hope ahead.
I'm going to use this space to talk about single-mama-in-the-city stuff for suuuure, but not divorce stuff. I know you understand.
Weird, right? Super weird. But such is life sometimes.
I feel scared/worried/nauseated sometimes -- but I also feel buoyant. And peaceful. And me.
Here's to a wonderful year.
Monday, December 22, 2014
Recurrent chemical pregnancies (A delightful holiday tale!)
This is a weird and hard post to begin and complete, so I'm going to take the burden off myself to make it perfect or even memorable and just throw down some words. I know I ate up anything I could find on this subject, so maybe some little thing I write might help somebody, somewhere.
It was really easy to get pregnant the first time. I wanted a baby, so we did what you do and on the second month I was knocked up. And it stuck and she came out big and healthy and that was that.
When I was ready to try again, in September of 2011, I assumed the process would be roughly the same. I was a little older and Clay had gone through chemo and I was certainly stressed, so maybe it would take a few extra months?
After probably three cycles of trying, it happened. But almost as soon as the line turned dark, it faded. It was a chemical pregnancy. It was jarring and it freaked me out. Even though chemicals are really common, I had this gut feeling that this was the beginning of a longer process. We were living in the rental house in Westport and it was Christmastime and I Googled a million different searches to read about what to expect ("AM I NOW BARREN") but not the fun kind of what to expect.
I eventually shook it off and we went back to trying. In May 2012 I got pregnant again. Ooo, perfect: Another February baby! And they'd be three years apart exactly, which was the age difference I'd wanted. This time I went to the doctor for a blood test because I was interested in my HCG levels. The day after my missed period I was only at an 18, which is really low. (It should be in the 100-1000 range...) They were all "it might stick!" but I knew it wouldn't. Just like before, three days after my missed period the line was gone and it was over.
I started to panic a little/a lot. I got hooked up with a reproductive endo who told me there was probably nothing wrong with me, that these things just happen. He ran a bunch of tests, took a bunch of blood, and checked out my uterus. And hey oh! There was a big polyp in there! So I had a surgery in September 2012 to remove it. I was so excited that there was this actual, concrete problem. It had to be the reason.
Through all this, I felt so isolated. I already had a kid so I felt like I couldn't legitimately complain. It had only been about a year of trying, so that wasn't that bad either. I didn't know anyone who'd gone through this so I didn't know who to talk to. Clay didn't seem bothered and didn't want to discuss it. So many people around me were onto their second or third babies, but I felt like I had to make up reasons why I wasn't. "I've always wanted a big spacing!" "It's so nice to have sleep finally!" "I know it'll work out!" But inside I was 100%, all-the-time freaking out.
After my surgery, I had two quick pregnancies. October and then November of 2012. Both ended exactly three days after my missed period. I'd now completely lost faith in the second line on a test and couldn't believe that some people posted the picture immediately after taking it. Or announced it right away. It seemed insane and so naive.
I felt so in limbo and so sad. I didn't want to buy cute clothes because what if I got pregnant and my body changed? I didn't want to look for a job because what if I got pregnant? I didn't really want to do anything because I couldn't think about anything else. I was obsessed (o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d), but felt like I completely had to hide my obsession. I dealt with it all very privately and worked to perfect my answers to all the inevitable "do you want another?" questions. I felt awful because I wasn't working, my whole role was full time mother, and yet I felt like I wasn't doing "enough" (whatever that means!) in terms of mothering. Because I couldn't grow another baby.
There were all sorts of women who I (admittedly insanely) felt were showing me up. Like Clay's ex-girlfriend who was working full time in a fancy job and had just had her third baby -- and I felt like a complete failure. What the hell was I doing? She wanted to have brunch with us, to bring over the new baby, and I just could not handle it. I avoided people, I stopped following pregnant people on Instagram, I told myself terrible things.
I stopped going to the reproductive endo because his next move was IVF and I just wasn't ready yet. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I wanted to try something alternative first.
So after reading a lot of positive experiences about it, I started acupuncture in January of 2013. I told myself I'd do four months of it, not worry too much about trying in the meantime and go from there. I went once a week until April and hated every minute of it (though I did love the actual acupuncturist, she was amazing), but I could feel subtle changes in my body. When I got my period, they felt like they used to pre-Harper. I won't go into graphic details, but I just felt like my old, super hormonal self.
Toward the end of treatment, I went to see a second reproductive endo, this time one I really liked. I wanted to make sure I had every blood test possible to make sure I really was starting on a clean slate after acupuncture. I got 20 vials of blood taken and a lot of extra blood sugar work because my blood sugar had come back a little strange. While I waited for the results and my next appointment in June, there was a well-timed marital encounter in late May 2013.
Just nine days later, in early June, when my friend was over with her two kids and 12 weeks pregnant with her third, I noticed how sore my chest was. That's not a symptom I get monthly -- wasn't even a symptom I had while pregnant with Harper -- so I thought hmmm? When Harper was in bed that night I drove way too far to find a Dollar Tree so I could stock up on a thousand pee strips and obsess over faint, faint lines. Except that when I hurried into my bathroom and took the test, the line was definitely not faint, definitely not a maybe. On just nine days past ovulation it came up immediately and was super, super dark. Say wha?
And that was Bea.
They think I was probably pregnant with twins to start with. They saw a weird undeveloped blob on an early sonogram and my HCG levels were through the roof from an early, early stage. (64,000 at my first appointment -- I think they were looking for 1,000-5,000.) It would explain the really dark, early test and why I got morning sickness before I even missed my period - - which coincided perfectly with a 10-day writing seminar I took at Yale. I kept dry heaving during panels of editors and weeping uncontrollably over waffles in the dining hall. Of course the whole time I kept taking those Dollar Tree tests in my dorm bathroom, expecting them to fade at any minute. But! Soon the test line was darker than the control and I just kept getting sicker and sicker, depressingly unable to enjoy the Shake Shack that was within walking distance.
And as long as that whole, lonesome journey had felt -- it was suddenly over. I was going to have the two kids I wanted. All that junk in the past was just junk in the past.
I have no idea what caused those four chemical pregnancies, or what took me almost 2 years to get pregnant. And I don't know if the four months of acupuncture helped (I really think it did -- but I'll never know how or why) or maybe the fact I got a root canal done the week before I got pregnant or that I lost 5 pounds a few months before. Was it because I started going forward with life plans -- taking a weekend away with girlfriends in New York, doing the Yale thing? Was it nothing and just time passing would have solved it all? Don't know, don't know, don't know.
I do know that what I went through (not the chemical part, exactly, I think that's kinda weird still) is not uncommon at all. So many women have a tough time getting pregnant -- either the first time or second time or third time or anytime. For all the people out there who brag "my husband just has to LOOK AT ME and I'm pregnant!" there are just as many thinking "NOT ME!"
And I know that sometimes when you're in something like infertility it can feel murky and dark for so, so long. But looking back, it wasn't really the longest or the worst and it somehow just passed. As time always seems to. I wish I hadn't been so hard on myself, I wish I'd seen how much I was doing for Harper, and how it gave me time to write more and sleep a bit more and have some great adventures. (Spain and Disney and Chicago and New Haven!)
(And now I feel like I'm writing Oprah's What I Know for Sure column...)
I know that the people who seem like they have it all together probably don't. They're feeling stressed by too many kids maybe. Or a career they're unsure of. Or their marriage is rocky or their parents aren't well or they're just plagued by typical and boring shortcomings like the rest of us. We have no idea what's going on behind others' walls and it's a waste to worry about it. Off with your head, Pinterest and Instagram!
It can be hard to hear "it'll be okay!" from someone on the other side of this, so I'll resist the urge to go there. But I do hope anyone treading these waters knows they are definitely not alone and they're definitely not crazy for feeling crazy or obsessed or worried. It's all normal and it's all life and I guess I just want to say -- I hear you and hang in there.
It was really easy to get pregnant the first time. I wanted a baby, so we did what you do and on the second month I was knocked up. And it stuck and she came out big and healthy and that was that.
When I was ready to try again, in September of 2011, I assumed the process would be roughly the same. I was a little older and Clay had gone through chemo and I was certainly stressed, so maybe it would take a few extra months?
After probably three cycles of trying, it happened. But almost as soon as the line turned dark, it faded. It was a chemical pregnancy. It was jarring and it freaked me out. Even though chemicals are really common, I had this gut feeling that this was the beginning of a longer process. We were living in the rental house in Westport and it was Christmastime and I Googled a million different searches to read about what to expect ("AM I NOW BARREN") but not the fun kind of what to expect.
I eventually shook it off and we went back to trying. In May 2012 I got pregnant again. Ooo, perfect: Another February baby! And they'd be three years apart exactly, which was the age difference I'd wanted. This time I went to the doctor for a blood test because I was interested in my HCG levels. The day after my missed period I was only at an 18, which is really low. (It should be in the 100-1000 range...) They were all "it might stick!" but I knew it wouldn't. Just like before, three days after my missed period the line was gone and it was over.
I started to panic a little/a lot. I got hooked up with a reproductive endo who told me there was probably nothing wrong with me, that these things just happen. He ran a bunch of tests, took a bunch of blood, and checked out my uterus. And hey oh! There was a big polyp in there! So I had a surgery in September 2012 to remove it. I was so excited that there was this actual, concrete problem. It had to be the reason.
Through all this, I felt so isolated. I already had a kid so I felt like I couldn't legitimately complain. It had only been about a year of trying, so that wasn't that bad either. I didn't know anyone who'd gone through this so I didn't know who to talk to. Clay didn't seem bothered and didn't want to discuss it. So many people around me were onto their second or third babies, but I felt like I had to make up reasons why I wasn't. "I've always wanted a big spacing!" "It's so nice to have sleep finally!" "I know it'll work out!" But inside I was 100%, all-the-time freaking out.
After my surgery, I had two quick pregnancies. October and then November of 2012. Both ended exactly three days after my missed period. I'd now completely lost faith in the second line on a test and couldn't believe that some people posted the picture immediately after taking it. Or announced it right away. It seemed insane and so naive.
I felt so in limbo and so sad. I didn't want to buy cute clothes because what if I got pregnant and my body changed? I didn't want to look for a job because what if I got pregnant? I didn't really want to do anything because I couldn't think about anything else. I was obsessed (o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d), but felt like I completely had to hide my obsession. I dealt with it all very privately and worked to perfect my answers to all the inevitable "do you want another?" questions. I felt awful because I wasn't working, my whole role was full time mother, and yet I felt like I wasn't doing "enough" (whatever that means!) in terms of mothering. Because I couldn't grow another baby.
There were all sorts of women who I (admittedly insanely) felt were showing me up. Like Clay's ex-girlfriend who was working full time in a fancy job and had just had her third baby -- and I felt like a complete failure. What the hell was I doing? She wanted to have brunch with us, to bring over the new baby, and I just could not handle it. I avoided people, I stopped following pregnant people on Instagram, I told myself terrible things.
I stopped going to the reproductive endo because his next move was IVF and I just wasn't ready yet. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I wanted to try something alternative first.
So after reading a lot of positive experiences about it, I started acupuncture in January of 2013. I told myself I'd do four months of it, not worry too much about trying in the meantime and go from there. I went once a week until April and hated every minute of it (though I did love the actual acupuncturist, she was amazing), but I could feel subtle changes in my body. When I got my period, they felt like they used to pre-Harper. I won't go into graphic details, but I just felt like my old, super hormonal self.
Toward the end of treatment, I went to see a second reproductive endo, this time one I really liked. I wanted to make sure I had every blood test possible to make sure I really was starting on a clean slate after acupuncture. I got 20 vials of blood taken and a lot of extra blood sugar work because my blood sugar had come back a little strange. While I waited for the results and my next appointment in June, there was a well-timed marital encounter in late May 2013.
Just nine days later, in early June, when my friend was over with her two kids and 12 weeks pregnant with her third, I noticed how sore my chest was. That's not a symptom I get monthly -- wasn't even a symptom I had while pregnant with Harper -- so I thought hmmm? When Harper was in bed that night I drove way too far to find a Dollar Tree so I could stock up on a thousand pee strips and obsess over faint, faint lines. Except that when I hurried into my bathroom and took the test, the line was definitely not faint, definitely not a maybe. On just nine days past ovulation it came up immediately and was super, super dark. Say wha?
And that was Bea.
They think I was probably pregnant with twins to start with. They saw a weird undeveloped blob on an early sonogram and my HCG levels were through the roof from an early, early stage. (64,000 at my first appointment -- I think they were looking for 1,000-5,000.) It would explain the really dark, early test and why I got morning sickness before I even missed my period - - which coincided perfectly with a 10-day writing seminar I took at Yale. I kept dry heaving during panels of editors and weeping uncontrollably over waffles in the dining hall. Of course the whole time I kept taking those Dollar Tree tests in my dorm bathroom, expecting them to fade at any minute. But! Soon the test line was darker than the control and I just kept getting sicker and sicker, depressingly unable to enjoy the Shake Shack that was within walking distance.
And as long as that whole, lonesome journey had felt -- it was suddenly over. I was going to have the two kids I wanted. All that junk in the past was just junk in the past.
I have no idea what caused those four chemical pregnancies, or what took me almost 2 years to get pregnant. And I don't know if the four months of acupuncture helped (I really think it did -- but I'll never know how or why) or maybe the fact I got a root canal done the week before I got pregnant or that I lost 5 pounds a few months before. Was it because I started going forward with life plans -- taking a weekend away with girlfriends in New York, doing the Yale thing? Was it nothing and just time passing would have solved it all? Don't know, don't know, don't know.
I do know that what I went through (not the chemical part, exactly, I think that's kinda weird still) is not uncommon at all. So many women have a tough time getting pregnant -- either the first time or second time or third time or anytime. For all the people out there who brag "my husband just has to LOOK AT ME and I'm pregnant!" there are just as many thinking "NOT ME!"
And I know that sometimes when you're in something like infertility it can feel murky and dark for so, so long. But looking back, it wasn't really the longest or the worst and it somehow just passed. As time always seems to. I wish I hadn't been so hard on myself, I wish I'd seen how much I was doing for Harper, and how it gave me time to write more and sleep a bit more and have some great adventures. (Spain and Disney and Chicago and New Haven!)
(And now I feel like I'm writing Oprah's What I Know for Sure column...)
I know that the people who seem like they have it all together probably don't. They're feeling stressed by too many kids maybe. Or a career they're unsure of. Or their marriage is rocky or their parents aren't well or they're just plagued by typical and boring shortcomings like the rest of us. We have no idea what's going on behind others' walls and it's a waste to worry about it. Off with your head, Pinterest and Instagram!
It can be hard to hear "it'll be okay!" from someone on the other side of this, so I'll resist the urge to go there. But I do hope anyone treading these waters knows they are definitely not alone and they're definitely not crazy for feeling crazy or obsessed or worried. It's all normal and it's all life and I guess I just want to say -- I hear you and hang in there.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
I spent the weekend in Brooklyn
The girls and I won't move into our apartment until a few days after Christmas, but we spent the weekend there to get Harper excited about her new room/bed/bedspread and to help me see what's missing from the apartment (all of our things that aren't furniture).
Some observations:
1) I have been living in strange and suspended animation out here in the boons. I went walking with Bea in the carrier a few different times around the neighborhood -- to get coffee or groceries or just look at stuff -- and I would suddenly catch myself acting a total fool. Smiling at, like, rooftops? Or chuckling, shoulders shaking, at something a crazy person selling flasks said. I was almost on a manic high from the combo of real! live! people!/lights/tiny-dogs-in-sweaters/constant coffee access/men in crazy fur hats and couldn't believe I'd waited so long to live in a city again. *hitch kick and a Mary Poppins song*
2) I dragged us to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and decorated windows. At 6:00 PM. On a Saturday night. With two overtired tiny people. It was madness and there were so many Santas ("Um, mom? I just saw four girl Santas? I mean Mrs. Clauses, I guess...") but it still thrilled me that that's a (relatively easy) thing I can just go do.
3) Both girls had their first NY Subway ride. Mixed results. And I remembered, from my many years in Boston, how much I haaaaate being bundled in winter gear and smushed inside a train. The sweat trickling down and the static hair and just so, so hot and no room to take any of it off. PANIC.
This reminds me that senior year of college at BU, I had a few Psych classes with this one girl. She was Japanese and so pretty and pulled together and chic. She had a certain backpack and certain jeans and these black lace-up shoes from Diesel (do they still even exist?) and I would stare at this outfit and know true happiness would reveal itself to me if I had it. So I went out and bought every single part of it and straight up wore it, too. THAT IS SO WEIRD. And also really unlike me. I still have the backpack and still love it. And okay, true happiness didn't splash upon me, but I did look pretty cool. For 2003 at least.
4) A 5th floor walkup with an elevator is cool/fine/sure/nice view until the elevator breaks. *hospital emoji*
Monday, December 1, 2014
Grace in small things
I used to do these posts -- waaaay back in the day -- where I'd list 5ish things from the day that I felt grateful for. It was a reminder to focus on the little-but-good things that are sometimes too easy to forget. Especially important during times like oh, uh moving when change/transition/chaos feel like the norm.
1) My INSANE (but truly beautiful IRL!) white, flocked, artificial Christmas tree. Never thought a fakey could bring me more joy than real, but oh ho ho yes. I love it so hard. Harper and I keep hugging it, overcome by tree love.
2) The way Bea scoot/crawls around. Kind of like a crab. Kind of like a weird spider. Also a turtle.
3) My new long-sleeve tees from J. Crew. That were on major discount. Soft and lush, but also sturdy. I bought three and am having a hard time putting on anything else.
4) Looking at Bea's vaccines all typed out on a sheet. It's like my mothering body of work.
5) Frozen cheeseburgers made unfrozen in a skillet, squished between rye toast. Just yeah.
6) Harper yelling "I just love you 159!"
1) My INSANE (but truly beautiful IRL!) white, flocked, artificial Christmas tree. Never thought a fakey could bring me more joy than real, but oh ho ho yes. I love it so hard. Harper and I keep hugging it, overcome by tree love.
2) The way Bea scoot/crawls around. Kind of like a crab. Kind of like a weird spider. Also a turtle.
3) My new long-sleeve tees from J. Crew. That were on major discount. Soft and lush, but also sturdy. I bought three and am having a hard time putting on anything else.
4) Looking at Bea's vaccines all typed out on a sheet. It's like my mothering body of work.
5) Frozen cheeseburgers made unfrozen in a skillet, squished between rye toast. Just yeah.
6) Harper yelling "I just love you 159!"
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