September, 2022
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8sept22
I love the rain. But today it’s sunny and I have been able to drive the Miata. And let me tell you – there’s nothing quite like driving a manual convertible sports car. We’ve had Gigi (what I’ve named her much to John’s chagrin) for a full week, and I feel positively child-like driving her. Plus, she’s beautiful. Shiny rich cherry red with lux sand-colored leather interior and black accents. I’m heady about her.
Anyway. So far, today is less messy than the past few days. Both hubs and I work best when we have a rhythm – a routine – and that has been painfully missing since Lucy went to sleep. Today felt almost -dare I say it? – normal compared to the hectic pace of the past few months. I have a dentist appointment in a little bit, but otherwise, we have both worked out and done our ‘chores’ and will get to cook dinner together and curl up on the couch to unwind at the end of this beautiful September day. The windows are open and the air is wafting through, the sounds of nature riding on her gentle breeze. I just sent hubs out to drive Gigi solo because he hasn’t done that yet, and there is something indescribable about whipping around the windy roads of Chester County all alone. I told our neighbor it feels almost inappropriate about how fun it is.
Anyway. I feel as though I come to this blog with a lot of heavy shite and even though there are just heaps and heaps of hard things happening today (as is the case with all days, I have to admit) the best part about today has definitely been driving with the roof down and my music blasting.
Pure joy.
xox, g
7sept22
Today was another doozy. For completely different reasons and I *did* make it to yoga (thankfully). But yowza. My left shoulder is screaming, my whole body feels heavy and my legs are a mess. Thanks, MS.
Family is a weird, tricky thing. You realize, when you’re forty-something (in my case forty-two) that everyone is always winging it all the time, even if they proclaim authority on a matter. Everything is an opinion, a perspective, and you’re just kind of bobbing around trying to make sense of it.
But family is family. They are the people who are still around after all the shit has hit the fan. They are the ones who want to be miserable with you on holidays because that’s what is done. It’s exhausting and irritating and also, strangely comforting.
People love you but show it in strange, incomprehensible ways. They assume you understand but you absolutely do not. At all.
I’ve cried too much today. And I’m woefully behind on my to-do list (like f*cking always). I’m tired and hungry but I wonder if I’ll sleep tonight.
Oof. I miss Lucy.
xox, g
6sept22
I read something recently that equated Labor Day Weekend with New Year. A time when we all collectively re-start. I like that. Today was a shite re-start for me, but I’ll take it. My Dad once said that I stumble and fall often, but I always get back up. I hope that remains true for the remainder of my days. I didn’t want to go to yoga this morning – it was satisfyingly gray and rainy. Bed was wonderfully comfortable. But I dragged myself up, did the requisite getting ready and morning chores (which includes washing all the towels in the house for Towel Tuesday) and managed to get into Husby’s truck just in time to make it to class.
Which I did not do.
I messaged the instructor, I hydro-planed (not related to the message), nearly rear-ended a sedan, got to the studio, grabbed all required accessories (still damp from getting into the truck) and trudged through the rain. It was three minutes past start time, and even though I knocked and waved and tried valiantly to get someone’s attention, I was left outside.
Huge bummer. Because I certainly needed some yoga after a hellish drive.
Got home. Successfully backed the truck into the driveway (not something I either do frequently or enjoy) and got even more soaked as I shlepped my yoga gear back inside with the groceries I’d picked up and two hot drinks from Starbucks.
I was pretty sure I could use the day before me to get things done, but I am an expert at wasting time and getting side-tracked (perhaps my best skill is procrastination haha!). I forced myself onto the bike, lifted (who am I?!?) and went for a walk. And here I am, about an hour from when I want to start making dinner, having accomplished all of NONE of the things I need to get done. I can’t even get a photo to upload properly to this blog. Which is driving me batty.
When I was younger I had a very interesting interaction/communication exchange with my mother’s oldest sister. Thoughts were exchanged. I was shamed. For existing, I believe. If I can recall. I don’t remember all the details (I’m sure she still has the emails so if I truly wanted to know, I guess I could ask … but why I would do that, I certainly don’t know). Anyway. One of the things I do remember was a bit about how I hadn’t earned anything in my life and didn’t understand hard work. I’m not sure how she knew because I’d grown up across an ocean in a country she’d never lived in, but hey ho, at eighteen I didn’t think that rationally. What I heard, and remembered, was that my suffering was not nearly worth giving any time to or recognition of. My suffering was dismissed because of apparent privilege (being American I guess?). Anyway. I never forgot that, that there was a scale of hardship and my life and struggles didn’t rank on it. I bring this up because I am sensitive about ever complaining about how hard things are because in the grand scheme of life, my troubles are not nearly comparable to many, many people in this country and around the world. So being snarky about not understanding website formatting shouldn’t even be mentioned.
On the flip side, does that mean that anything and everything that is hard for me, within the parameters of my life, should be discounted as difficult? I’m not sure. I am certain that my problems are first world, white upper middle class problems — which aren’t usually life-threatening. But sometimes my problems are very real, and very difficult because within the framework of my existence, I am struggling.
MS taught me that.
But this isn’t about MS (despite essentially my entire life being about MS in one way or another). Today was a challenge for me even though that might not actually equate to being hard. And I find myself frustrated, exhausted and overwhelmed with sadness as the minutes slowly click by on this random first Tuesday of September.
I also have to remember that I’m that girl – you know the one. The one in her early forties without kids, in a happy marriage with three cars, two houses and a travel problem. The girl who spends her weekends going on coffeeshop dates in a zippy red sports car convertible and doing home renovations (because she can). It doesn’t really matter that I worked hard to get here; I learned some hard life lessons along the way as well as the painful struggle of an incurable autoimmune disease. The point, I guess, is that even though today was a tough one (for me, which -I think we’ve established- is relative) I still have a husband who loves me, food in the fridge, clothes in the closet, a roof over my head, air-conditioning, heat and health insurance that covers my catheters and my infusions and my migraine meds and my plethora of doctor appts. Sure, I lost my mother and my grandmother (the women who most specifically made me me) and my baby girl earlier this year. But I can still walk. I can buy shoes and jeans and skincare and get my hair done.
I don’t know. I think comparison IS the thief of joy. But how do we stop comparing? How does the cycle end?
A question for another day.
xox, g
3sept22
I should have been in Ireland today, celebrating twenty-five years of my cousin’s marriage. But life didn’t work out that way and we had to cancel flights and rearrange our schedule … and then rearrange it again … and again. And now, I’m spending today alone, sitting on my back deck, reading yoga texts and contemplating taking a shower soon (because I dragged myself to yoga this morning – worth it, always!- and I’m gross and stinky and really need to clean up).
When I left Zavino all those years ago – more than five, whew! – I had no idea what I was going to do. I knew I wanted out of that job and that company, I knew I wanted out of the commute and the stress of restaurants, but I had no idea what else I was qualified to do. That debate quickly took a back seat to spending time with my mother as she battled cancer and eventually succumbed followed by two years of surviving the ever-changing landscape of a global pandemic that metamorphosed into a country massively divided.
But I’m young and I can’t ‘do nothing’ forever. In fact, my body and my brain massively object to doing nothing indefinitely. So earlier this year I endeavored to finish my yoga teacher training. And I’m hoping to be able to teach plus incorporate my life practicing yoga into my new endeavor with Danielle. My brain feels happy – challenged and overwhelmed and blissfully content. It’s funny what direction and purpose can do for a person.
I had this strange moment yesterday while John and I enjoyed a coffee date on our back patio. I thought about how we’re all racing to accomplish something – become someone – make our mark … but to what end? I thought about all the joys of my life, the hard work J+I have put in to crafting this little slice of happiness together, and I thought to myself – I’m ready to just sit back and enjoy it for a bit. Enjoy our homes and our decks and our patios and our cars. Enjoy where we live – Longwood and Marsh Creek and West Chester and State College and Beaver Stadium – and all the trappings that come with this life built in rural pockets of Pennsylvania. I want to just … be. And not feel like I’m racing or completing or rushing or reaching. Because here – where I am – is more than enough.
My younger brother lives in the French Alps. He travels nearly constantly – he summits mountains and ice-climbs and skiis and surfs and white-water rafts and reads loads of books and writes screen-plays and has a million friends who love him. He visits the sets of Scorsese films and hosts epic Halloween parties. He lives life extremely well. And I have moments (more than I’d like to admit but – I believe – understandably so) when I wonder how he lives such a rockstar life, and I sip chai teas in Chester County and shlep into Philadelphia routinely for medicine infusions. How is my life so … boring … compared to his?
It always takes me a beat to remember that my life is actually exactly what I want. Just as his life is exactly what he wants. I don’t want to sleep on a mattress in a van – no matter how cool & adventurous it sounds! – because I like sleeping in my nice bed (or any bed for that matter) and being able to shuffle to the bathroom without getting dressed and putting shoes on. It’s really hard to remember that when the romanticism of his existence tugs so constantly on my soul. I have to begrudgingly remind myself that I am a creature of habit, that I enjoy seeing my baristas at my Starbucks and my yoga friends and teachers and my dad on a regular basis. I like having roots and routine. Those things feed me.
But I was raised by parents who travelled everywhere, and to whom travel and adventure defined success. I know – am more sure than anything – that my Dad loves me, but is he as proud of me and my life as he is of my brother? Maybe. I don’t know. My American father married my British mother. My American brother married his French wife. I married an American man whose young life kept him in a small town in north central Pennsylvania. He didn’t have a passport until after we met (and not because of me – because his job sent him to Costa Rica for long stretches). I think about these things more than I want to because I think being human means being afflicted with some kind of insecurity. Mine is not living up to potential. Not taking advantage of opportunities. Not having purpose.
Heavy. I know.
Anyway! The breeze changed directions and I got a whiff of my stinky self so I am off to shower and do wildly exciting things like balance our check book and rearrange our cleaning supplies and the laundry room. I bet my brother is doing something epic – like watching a famous race or attending a crazy celebration. That’s okay. It’s better than okay. That’s life. And I am grateful for every day.
Xoxo, g
01sept22
It always feels like a relief when September arrives. Even though it’s still blazingly hot and humid. Even though nothing has changed much from August (if you aren’t a parent, which I am not). But it’s the hint of change, the promise of cooler days. The dream.
Yesterday J+I drove up to Mortgage #2 (an affectionate nickname) to receive a refrigerator for the garage. Every part of that sentence is bougie and I know it. I’m pretty bougie (daily yoga at the studio and chai teas and online shopping habits and designer blankets etc etc). But having a second house and now a fourth refrigerator? I’m externally (& internally) rolling my eyes. My biggest frustration today has been trying to scale my photography so this damn blog will upload the files … and yes, I hear myself.
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about change. Partially because it’s kind of inevitable as the seasons begin to shift. But also because I have been working on this blog and whew – I have changed a lot since I wrote some of my early stuff. I just updated my ‘Curiosity About Me’ page because when I read it, I didn’t even recognize it as myself. Which made my brain begin to whir and spin, contemplating how we all change and evolve (or not!) over time and it isn’t just our hair or our waistline. It’s our values and our day-to-day existence. I changed out the picture of John and I because we look completely different. But I also changed all but one ‘fun fact’ on my list, because I’m not the same person who started this blog in 2011. And I never will be again.
***
Fun fact — all the cells in our body change over every seven years. So every seven years, we are – theoretically but also biologically – completely different people. It’s crazy and wild that we stay in relationships and friendships and jobs and lifestyles for so long – as though longevity and loyalty trump all. Shouldn’t we always be evolving and adjusting our lives to reflect who we are in a given moment? I think so. I mean, I still adore my husband but he’s changed remarkably since we met all those years ago. We’ve just changed and evolved together – as a partnership. We haven’t stayed the same, and neither has our relationship. Which is both the best parts of us and sometimes, some of the worst parts.
I always vow to never become as close-minded or grumpy about new-ness as older generations are and have been toward my generation and the ones that have followed. But perhaps it’s inevitable that there will come a point when I look around and don’t recognize or understand the society ebbing and flowing around me. (Let’s hope not, but I can’t guarantee anything).
About a month ago, one of my closest friends (dare I say best? … I dare) approached me about an idea she’s been working on developing. I’ve shied away from working with her in the past because I don’t want our relationship to become about work and nothing else. I don’t know why but I was skittish that it could irrevocably (& negatively) change our friendship. But then I started thinking about all the people in my life who I love ridiculously and who I met through work. It’s a lot of people. Stretched out over a lot of years. So why wouldn’t I give this fledgling idea a chance – because it’s a really, really good one.
Anyway. That brings me to today – tapping away at this blog and trying to refresh it as best I can in anticipation of what Danielle is cooking up. We’ll see what happens. But I plan on enjoying the ride.
xox, g
D5 Creation