Where We Grew Up

They were the only ones to live there.  Single owner home, the Vaughans moved in when my dad was in elementary school.  

Home is not a place, I always told myself, having moved over a dozen times before I was in my mid-twenties.  Home can't be a place, because places change.  People move.  In, out.  We take home with us, wherever we go. 

So when it came time to move the Vaughans out of Severn Way, the pain was surprising.  

The word pain seems dramatic.  But it's the word I have.

In this home I learned how to make pasta, play Mario Kart, knead bread.  We performed countless plays to Elton John's Lion King soundtrack.  Dozens of holidays were spent with the kitchen steaming from boiling potatoes and beans you weren't allowed to stir.  I sat in bed with rollers in my hair.  We ate 3 Musketeer bars from the cabinet.  Were slipped $20 bills.  Sat on the back porch swing while she told us about herself - a bravery I wouldn't even recognize until I was an adult.  

Dad and I wrecked our bikes right outside the front doors in the cul-de-sac.  Marty took me down the street to drive for the first time in the Pathfinder.  We had movie nights in the basement with our friends.  I learned about dieting. I used a computer for the first time.

I used to dream I lived there all the time.  In the basement bedroom, which used to be my dad's.  What would it be like to live in Lexington, with that bedroom all to myself?  

Those same dozens of holidays, music was played.  On the piano, on the dulcimer.  Someone would start, probably dad, but it was not uncommon for a brother to join.  No one read sheet music there.  No one wrapped Christmas presents, the grandkids just received giant gift bags.  We had turkey on Thanksgiving, but steak at Christmas.  And regardless of the weather outside, dad and at least one of his brothers grilled for us.  The back sliding door fogging up from the heat inside and the cold outside.  We played botched versions of croquet in the back yard and grew those green beans and threw balls on to the roof.

When I was around 20, things started changing.  To this day, if someone were to ask me when I first started feeling like an adult, I would recount this phone call.  She had fallen.  They were headed to the hospital.  Could I go clean up the kitchen where she fell.  

I remember feeling trusted.  And getting to Severn Way, realizing Marty had beat me to the bulk of the clean up.  But still feeling as if suddenly I'd been folded in to the inner circle.  I could handle the not-so-perfect side of our family now.  I was sure.

We've spent the last fifteen years in a strange, imperfect space.  Less dinners together.  A divorce.  Infection. A rainy day, which caused my own mom to fall.  More babies.  A global pandemic.  The effects and impact of trauma and illness have taken what we once were and we are now close to unrecognizable.  

So this year when it became evident another move needed to take place, what came next felt inevitable and equally devastating.  He was supposed to be ok.  He would have been ok, I thought, if we hadn't created so much space.  My favorite person would still be my favorite person, if he hadn't put someone else first.  If I hadn't been afraid.  

But in the way he always had, he showed little to no attachment to his things.  And he waited patiently at the window for my other favorite person to take him to his new home.  Despite fifty years in one place.  Despite an entire lifetime in one house.  He's now settled in to simplicity.  Eating cinnamon rolls we bring him.  Having learned my lesson far sooner than I learned it.  

Still I tried to make it my own.  The home we all grew up in.  This felt like the right choice, the way to save the story.  Somehow, maybe, I could redeem it all. For my dad, especially.  And for myself.  

We cleared out literal tons from our home.  With every box, every load, every garbage bag, every prescription bottle, every Champion sweatshirt, every bread pan, I found myself easing closer to the lesson.  

~

Where we grew up will always hold some of my favorite and most formative memories.  

The gift of Severn Way will always be the reminder that where we are, the things we have are less important.  

The gift is I come from strong people.  From people who have tried their hardest, regardless of whether it has been enough.  People who are creative and intelligent and loving, in whatever way they can be.  

Later, the house on Severn would sell at a yard sale.  

Later, it was clear the lesson here was not the house, but the healing.  

Later, I'd walk into an empty house.  Leave a key on the counter.  And lock the door behind me.  

swimming lessons

This summer we've been learning how to swim.  Silas and Damir have taken a few lessons each , and every time we go to the local pool I have been working with them.  They call it "practicing without my floatie".  

Their progress is incredible.  My priority was Silas, and if you've ever met Silas you don't need me to really explain why.  Somehow, by proxy, Damir has also learned how.  Neither of them are quite ready to be too far from me in the pool.  But I feel so much safer than summers before.  We've learned to blow bubbles, scoop ice cream, swim like little froggies under the water.  Silas has even practiced swimming to retrieve toys from the bottom of the pool.  And above everything else, just get to the wall.  

Speaking of summers, ours is almost over already.  Ten more days and I head back to work.  Two weeks after that, five of the six of our kids will be headed back to school.  I am immensely grateful for the time I get to spend at home.  But these last two weeks of the break always prove to be harder than I'd like.  I have been sleep training, we have had medical emergencies, we have been pursuing career goals, navigating behavior changes, our oldest has had a job all summer, and the oldest three have all had sports.  

Today, while I was trying to self evaluate and solve a problem, I thought about Silas swimming.

Sometimes Silas will be in the water and his little arms and legs will thrash around trying to keep his head above water.  He will lift his eyes and chin up high and breathe rapidly, splash frantically.  His eyes get a wild look and he is rarely using his energy efficiently.  When he does this, I do one or two things.  First, I remind him to breathe.  He's over here swallowing water and wasting his energy.  Take a deep breath, Silas.  Get to the wall.  Then, if we are at the end of the pool where we usually are, I might also say, "Silas.  It's not over your head right here.  Put your feet down."  

He will stretch his little toes down to the pool floor and immediately relax, breathe.  

Not only is Silas a better swimmer this summer than he has ever been, he also is often not as far in over his head as he believes.  

Today I thought about Silas swimming, because I was feeling frantic.  Despite how we feel about Brent Brown, I often think about her content discussing the importance of the words we use.  Her story about "being in the weeds" at work and the gravity of the word "overwhelmed".  How we should only use the word "overwhelmed" in a scenario where we can shut down anything auxiliary and reset.  I was feeling frantic, but could not reset.  

It might be true that I am often not as in over my head as I might believe.  It gets loud, it gets hot, they're all hungry, I am lonely, stretched thin, overworked, exhausted, insecure, embarrassed.  And I am thrashing my arms and legs, swallowing water, and life feels a bit like it's trying to drown me.  Like I am unsafe and not going to make it. When in reality, I could probably take a deep breath and have the skill to get myself to the wall.  Or, more often than not, take a deep breath and easily reach for the bottom of the pool with room to spare.  

I am a solid enneagram 6 and an INFJ.  I am always, always seeking affirmation.  I am always prioritizing safety and security.  I am often focused on the importance of words, or the absence of them.  I often hope , in all the thrashing and treading water and gasping for air, someone will come along with a strong arm.  I hope for rescue or aid, when I'm feeling the most frenetic.  Someone, please, just throw me a life jacket. Someone please pick me up. Where is my floatie? 

As this summer starts to wind down and I do my evaluating, as I always do, I am realizing in those chaotic, fearful moments, someone is not usually coming.  Rarely is someone else the answer to the problem I am having.  Whether that's because it is so rare for someone to know what to say and when to say it, or because things are not frantic because I am bad.  They're frantic because life is really hard and I just need to breathe.  But things didn't go badly because I failed or because someone else could do it better.  And there are likely no words anyone could say, which would calm the frenzy anyway.

Usually, I just need to take a breath.  And either get to the wall, or put my feet down.  

progressive overload

It's the end of another school year and here I am, trying to collect all my thoughts.  It feels, at the moment, a bit like herding chickens or cats or whatever the common phrase is.  Regardless of the uncooperative animal, I don't fully have this situation under control.  And that is not a comfortable feeling for me.  

So much has changed, so much is going to continue to change over the next few months.  Our kids are starting jobs, starting sports teams, starting kindergarten, starting middle school, starting to swim.  I just finished my first full year as a LCSW.  We are hoping for a few other major changes in our family in the next few months.  Hoping for good news.  

My kids are not little anymore.  Even Damir, the baby, is big and brilliant and beautiful.  

They're all changing and growing and adventuring.  But it sort of feels like I am not.  

Donald Miller wrote about this.  About how this is when we give up on our stories.  When all the "big" milestones are in the rearview mirror and the coast on either side is out of sight.  You're just rowing.  And rowing.  This is when we give up.  

But I don't want to give up.  I have my family and my husband and my career and my degrees and my home.  I don't need to, or want to, change any of those things.  The distinct sense I have though is that in the last 12 years, despite making monumental personal progress in my career and growing my family, I have lost myself.  

I think there are folks who say we can't lose ourselves.  I'd imagine they're optimistically positioned, claiming we are not a "thing" to be misplaced.  So perhaps lost is not the word.  

Yesterday I watched a teaser trailer with Judah for Moana 2.  The trailer begins with a crab in a shell that is seemingly too small.  And little crab turns and finds a bigger shell just to her left, but then comes Maui.  Who replaces the bigger shell with an even bigger, more beautiful shell.  

Maybe I haven't lost myself.  Or done anything wrong.  Except outgrown my own shell a bit.  

I'm not sure I love this metaphor either because there are so many parts of my life I have absolutely not outgrown.  I have not outgrown being a wife or a mother or a therapist.  But those three pieces of my identity have been all there is for years.  And years.  

Could this imagery, this metaphor, of a new shell mean I am these things ... And also other things?  Am I allowed to be interesting and complex?  Am I allowed to be new? 

My imagery for transformation used to be the butterfly.  But this doesn't ring true for me anymore because there's only one major transformative period for a butterfly.  The caterpillar does not transform more than once.  

And I just keep changing.  Not necessarily in obvious ways. Or ways I'm proud of.  Not always on purpose.

But part of the issue, when you lose your sense of self or your identity, is knowing what to do next.  

How do you pick a new shell?  Or re-build yourself?  

How do you even know how to find new things to love?  What do I even enjoy anymore?

This dilemma has penetrated every single aspect of my life.  From my career to my appearance to my health to my hobbies.  This is why sometimes it feels more like "lost" than anything else because I feel pretty empty handed.  I'm over here contemplating bangs.  

It's not rubble.  I'm not staring at anything destroyed.  The life I have built is beautiful.  But is it enough? 

So is it renovation?  Is it restoration?  

What's the fucking metaphor here!  

I've been desperately struggling with my weight since I started working at an elementary school.

I have no excuse.  I know how to eat healthy.  I have a gym in my garage.

This year I made new friends at work who share my values of physical movement and health and I am so grateful.

Something clicked yesterday though.  And to be honest I feel like an idiot.  I know better.

I have not been progressing.

Because I hadn't been trying to progress.

So last night I went down to the garage.  And I turned up the music.  And I found my 1 rep max on each of my big lifts.  I ended up working out for an hour and breaking an ungodly sweat because, guess what I hadn't been doing for probably over a year?  Working that hard.  

I had been expecting progress where I wasn't putting in the work.  

But I don't want to just be a mother, wife, therapist and.... Exerciser?  Even though I am slowly coming to terms with how much work it is going to take to make sure I am not sitting solely on my ass at 50.  Maintenance is a bitch.  But what else?  

Do I write again?  Do I pick my camera back up?  Do I cook?  I don't even know what my options are.  Half of the time, my brain is so scrambled I cannot even read.  I've tried.  But it's a true ebb and flow pattern over here.  

Do I cover myself in tattoos and buy new clothes?  Do I learn how to plant flowers?  

Is my brain capable of learning how to play the piano like my sister?  

Do I need to crochet?  Paint by number?  Become a yoga instructor?

Like what the actual fuck do I do now.  

Is "doing" even the answer?  

I've done a lot of healing and learning over the years.  I know I am not who I was.  But is growth always the only goal?  What about enjoyment?  Is it true there's is nothing lost or broken or bad about me and that, maybe, life can just be lived right now?  In addition to all of this, I struggle with imposter syndrome, so especially in areas like my career... I might even stunt myself because despite how much experience I have and how much I do know, I doubt my ability and don't share it.  This shows up in my "try hard" because what if I am terrible at anything I try.  I have not ever allowed myself that freedom.

I told a few friends not too long ago that I am just thinking about being in a body of water and just floating.  On a paddleboard.  On a float in the pool.  I don't even know beyond that what would bring me more joy.  Feasibly anyway.  Because please teleport me to New England to eat lobster or the Pacific Northwest to see the whales.  

It would be unfair not to mention that I have tried very few of the aforementioned hobbies (see: imposter syndrome).  And so, it may also be true in this area of my life that I am expecting progress or answers, where I am not putting in effort.  

If you see me with bangs or practicing headstands in the park, just let me live, ok?  

habit

 I’ve been thinking about habit.   

Admittedly, I have not read the viral Atomic Habits book yet.  I'd imagine my thoughts aren’t so revolutionary.   

But when I stop to think about all the changes I need to make in my daily life, I can get incredibly overwhelmed.  Unless.  Unless I remember everything I do is a choice. 

Well.  Most of everything I do is a choice.  

I choose when I lay down and get up.  I might not "choose" when I am awake and asleep, but the actions of laying down and getting up can help ensure sleep comes sooner or later.

I choose my meals daily.  Maybe I chose earlier based on what I bought (or didn't buy) at the grocery store.   

There are parts of my life I don't choose.  Like what comes up in the day or how other people act.  In both those scenarios, the choice is my response.  

The basic habits I am trying to transform are actually just... choices.  

It is not always easy to make the healthier choice.  Depending on the day or the circumstance or the budget.  But it is often an available choice. 

It sounds so simple.  To pick up a book instead of Instagram.  To pick up water instead of coffee.  To spend an hour on Sundays prepping meals so you have the choice to eat healthy food during the week instead of spending $15 on take out.  To wake up at 4:45 instead of 5am.  To add some protein to those carbs.  To meditate instead of ... again... scrolling.  To move your body rather than ... scrolling.  To take a deep breath, count to ten, to give yourself space to see someone else's perspective.  

There are other habits that are not as related to physical health.  Like friendship.  Community.  connection.  These get trickier because, well, everything gets trickier when you involve other people.  But do I make the choice to reach out to my friends?  Do I make the choice to intentionally carve out space?  To offer my home even when it isn't spotless or "ready"?  

These choices, which turn into habits, are about showing up as the woman I want to be, before I just intuitively am her.  Or, perhaps, it is about knowing who I am and honoring her.  

Either way.  One step at a time.