Another Decade
We were beautiful, but we didn’t fully know it or appreciate it back then. We were brilliant but not always sure of what exactly to do with our brilliance. We were lost most of the time, undecided of what to do and unsure of what was to come. Our twenties contained multiple milestones, always followed by what seemed like setbacks. It’s looking back now and realizing how those setbacks were much needed lessons. And realizing how good we had it back then. How pure and simple those friendships were. How those “twenty-something-year-old stresses” were really nothing to stress about. Not knowing how much harder life would get. How resilient you were and how that resilience would be needed for years to come-- after you got that diploma, earned that degree, and ventured out of that small college town. Not knowing what your future held. Not knowing where to go or what to do next. Interviewing for jobs you had no business applying to, with little- to no experience or qualifications. Being offered jobs you weren’t prepared to take. Taking jobs that you weren’t ready for. The world was eager to knock you down every chance it got—making you weep like a baby into your upper twenties. Making you really miss your childhood days. Making you realize how fragile you in fact are and how invincible you are not.
It was that nagging voice in the back of your mind that popped up any time you had a single second to yourself—while driving your car, walking your dog, vacuuming your apartment—it was the voice that begged the questions: Who am I really? Why am I here? What is my purpose? You did your best to tie it all to your profession, in a perfect bow—not knowing that’s only part of the puzzle, but it isn’t all of it.
You blink and your thirty.
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The Things We Hold Onto
Just last week, my sons had one of their friends over for a playdate. I watched from the kitchen sink window as they ran outside to play in our backyard. Within seconds I spotted their friend lowering our ten foot basketball hoop. I stepped outside and asked her what she was doing. Although she is older, taller and very athletic, she was convinced that she wouldn’t be able to shoot on anything higher than seven feet.
“But I’ve never shot on a ten foot hoop before,” she pleaded.
My sons didn’t argue this, as she was our guest, but I did. In this moment I saw my younger self in her: the girl who rejected all sports because I knew I wouldn’t be the best at any of them (and where’s the fun in that?). The girl who didn’t own a Nintendo set so refused to play Super Mario Kart at sleepovers because I didn’t want to lose. The girl who often knew the answer in class but was too nervous to raise her hand, fearing getting it wrong and being embarrassed. I was always the first one to shut myself down, to give up and to tell myself “you can’t”.
I washed the dishes and watched as the kids played a game of knockout—with the hoop set to ten feet. I was proud of my sons for encouraging their friend whenever she missed a shot and for also cheering her on when she made it. Twenty minutes later, they came back inside, drenched in sweat and ready for popsicles. The girl entered with the biggest smile on her face, proudly announcing to me that she won. I told her I wasn’t surprised, that I knew she could do it. She just had to try.
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All you Need is {Self} Love
We teach our children early on how to play and get along with others. To share. To include everyone, always. To apologize, even if they didn’t do anything wrong. To accept others apologies, even if they are given begrudgingly. To go with the flow. To be agreeable. To not tattletale. To shake it off. To hug it out. To keep the peace. Here’s the thing—when do we admit to our children that they actually don’t need to be everyone’s friend? At what age do children no longer need to include those whom they don’t wish to be with? When will they figure out that they don’t have to accept insincere apologies from repeat offenders? That some ‘friends’ aren’t really friends at all. That the most important relationship they will ever have in life is actually the one they have with themselves.
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Catching Dreams
When I was a little girl I had big dreams, as most kids do. I wanted to be many things--a teacher, a singer, a dancer—I even think at some point I wanted to travel around the world working for Greenpeace rescuing sea animals. I remember being in the first grade and making a video with my class where each child had to answer the question: what do you want to be when you grow up? Most kids gave the typical answers you’d expect: I want to be a teacher. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a police officer. Then one girl on the video said she wanted to be a horse. Watching the video on the morning announcements later that week you could hear the whole school burst into laughter—Jennifer wants to be a horse. How funny. Doesn’t she know you can’t grow up and become a horse?!
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Bittersweet November
It’s fall. You can’t see the changing of seasons much in Miami, where I live, but you can feel them. Even if the weather didn’t get ever so slightly cooler and the breeze ever so slightly stronger this time of year, I would still be able to pinpoint the start of autumn because of how it affects my mood. At the start of fall, at the end of September, I am in the best mood. I can literally smell the changes in the air and taste it in my pumpkin flavored lattes. I take delight in switching from lemonade to apple cider and pool floats to fit pits. Then, like clockwork, the fun comes to a screeching halt the minute the month of November hits. I find myself feeling more fragile. More emotional. More sentimental. My heart literally aches each year at this time. I always attributed this underlying heartache tied to November with the fact that my mom passed away in the month of November, and in more recent years we had to put our precious dog, Albert, down in the month of November. But it’s more than that this year. There is this nagging extra layer to the heaviness inside me as sweet memories flood in of my two children when they were younger. Nostalgia that used to overwhelm me with flashbacks from my childhood has now switched to nostalgia of my own children’s earlier years. Remembering what once was and is no longer.
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You Don't Ask, You Don't Get
Sharkie watched as I was promoted to a Senior Rep— faster than she ever was. She watched as I took vacations that she never dreamed of taking. She watched as I used up every single PTO day that I had accrued each year. She saw me giving up my on-call weeks to other reps so that I could enjoy more time with my family. She began to resent me for being “given” certain luxuries that she never had, like being allowed to work remotely a few days a week or taking extended lunch hours to pick-up my kids from school. The truth was we both brought the same value to the company and we could have/should have had the same benefits, perks and payment plans but what I came to learn was that Shakie was only a shark on the phone. It’s quite easy to be brave and bold when you’re hiding behind a screen. The confidence I thought I saw in her diminished when face-to-face with management.
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The Giving Tree That Keeps Giving
Today is my mom’s seventy first birthday in heaven. This is the 29th birthday I’ve celebrated with her “in spirit”. This day is met with a sadness that stings a bit more year after year, because the older I get (I celebrated my 39th just last week) and the older my boys get and the more life I live and get to enjoy—the more sadness I feel for her life being cut so short. There are countless missed moments and missed memories we could have/should have had together. I was cheated of that time with her. She was cheated of that time with me and my sister. I could cry all day long with thoughts of what could have been—instead, in @getting.to.get.to fashion, I choose to focus on the the positive, on what I can control and on the now. The same way she focused on living in the now as my mom— even when she knew her days on this earth were running short. She didn’t dwell on the negative and she never gave up hope (which she easily could have), instead she fought to live and enjoy each day and she made every day count. She had grace and she had gratitude. To know her was to love her. Many will say that her cup wasn’t half full—that it was overflowing and it’s true. She was genuine and kind and humble and generous with her love.
I didn’t realize it then but I realize it now--for me, she was/is The Giving Tree. She gave us (my sister and me) her all—her every leaf, every fruit and every branch. She gave it all happily because of her immense love for us. She gave so much that in the end all that was left was a stump—in the end there was nothing left to do, or to give, or to say…. just “I love you and I will always love you”. Those were her words to me when we said goodbye and they still ring true. While a part of me will always wish that I could have been that child from the book who got to enjoy her (The Giving Tree) through all the ages and stages of his life, well into his elderly years--I find myself grateful that I am the girl who lost her mom too soon but enjoyed her to the fullest while she was here. And unlike the boy who would just take and take never once gave back or even uttered the words “thank you”—I am the girl who will spend every day of the rest of her life showing my gratitude to my mom.
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Learned Happiness
Almost nine years ago when I became a parent, I remember having the typical wishes most parents have for their child—all of them boiled down to two key things—wishing them healthy and happy lives. In that first year as a new mom, I remember doing all the necessary steps to make my baby feel safe and secure and loved…and yes, happy. I remember reading the book “The Happiest Baby on the Block” by Dr. Harvey Karp around the time of Conner’s birth and I was dedicated to the 5 S’s he describes: Swaddle, Side position, Shush, Swing, and Sucking on a pacifier. All of these were proven ways for parents to soothe their baby before they were capable of successfully soothing themselves. Now that my days of sleepless nights and nursing and all those S’s are long gone, I started to think of how I can still “help” my children be their “healthiest and happiest”.
As a parent we do a lot to maintain our children’s health—I mean that is our primary job—to keep our child alive and well. We take them to their annual exams, we take care of them when they get sick, we encourage physical activity, we push them academically, we instill healthy eating habits, etc. But what about their happiness? Is there a way for us to promote happiness when our children are way too old to be swaddled? I think there is!
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Growing Old-er-ish
As a young child I remember viewing anyone over the age of forty as being “up there” or “over the hill”…they weren’t old but they weren’t young anymore either. When my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer at thirty-eight and took her last breath at forty-two years of age, suddenly, at ten years of age, my perspective on life and on aging shifted drastically. As my girl Oprah would say it was my first real “aha moment”. Forty-two all of a sudden became VERY young to me. The older I got and continue to get, the more I realize just how young my mom was when she died and just how much life she missed out on. The concept of getting older and aging was no longer a thing to fight or begrudge, but rather a gift that not all people are fortunate enough to be given.
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Getting Through It
If everyone had their pick, I’d bet that most parents would prefer that their child’s first experience of loss be the death of their goldfish rather than the death of a close family member or friend. For me, I did lose Larry, my goldfish, around maybe 9 years of age, followed by my mom’s death a year later, followed by my grandmother’s death about three years after that and my grandfather’s two years after that. Losing three extremely close family members within a 6-year time period weighed heavily on me. I remember thinking at the time, “who will be next?”. It felt like my little world was caving in as this pattern of loss and grief was overwhelming. I started to think about things differently…instead of having thoughts of “oh that could never happen to me” I would think “why shouldn’t it happen to me; I am no more precious than any other person. I don’t have the right to live more than anyone else does.” Heavy thoughts for a child of any age. And that’s around when I traded in my childhood fearlessness for caution, knowing that each day isn’t promised to us. It was a tough lesson to learn early on but it actually led to an abundance of gratitude for my life and a deeper appreciation for everyone in it.
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Pink, Blue or Green?
Maybe if we stop focusing so much on gender and stereotyping and labeling, our children can really be seen for who they are, celebrated for who they are and loved for who they are. Maybe if we shift our focus onto the uniqueness of each individual child maybe we can raise stronger, more confident, better equipped adults. Maybe by raising our children in a more similar gender-neutral way they will feel less like opposites and more like equals. Last I checked an opposite was something with a completely different meaning—big/small, fast/slow, good/bad…. these are opposites, males and females are not.
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On Learning
We are all still learning, no matter our age. We are all still in the process of becoming, until our last breath. There is no fast forward button to achievement (as much as our children might think there is). We all learn at our own speed, in our own way, in our own time. I want my children to understand and accept that achievement can only be experienced if we try for it, just as our every success can only be felt if it is earned. I remember my grandfather Pop telling me repeatedly whenever I would get frustrated or discouraged, “it doesn’t matter if you come in first or if you come in last—what matters is that you gave it your all”. I now say this to both of my children all the time. There is no rush—learning isn’t a race, take your time with it and try your best. I can never get upset with you if you are honestly trying.
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Growing into the New Year
2020 taught me that having boundaries is key to being our best selves. Boundaries allow us to love correctly. Boundaries allow us to live with purpose. Boundaries allow us to experience immense gratitude. And boundaries are the guardrails that help us achieve alignment so that we can keep our priorities in check and at the forefront of our every day. This is my 2021 focus—thank you Instagram!
Forget the cluttered book shelves of crap--when your life no longer resembles you, and you feel an aching from within—a longing—a whisper that tells you “get out, this isn’t where you should be. You were made to do more than this and be more than this”— that is when you need to dive in and set some boundaries for yourself. The people who love you will respect these new boundaries. And more importantly you will learn to love you more because of these boundaries.
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Light
He walked away and I drove away. On my drive home I couldn’t shake the feeling that both of our spirits were lifted from our 3-minute interaction with each other. I felt grateful for being able to help him and glad that I hadn’t dismissed him. And in my mind, I imagine he felt grateful for our interaction too. Grateful for being seen. For being shown appreciation and for being treated with respect—in addition to the bag of food.
How many times do we walk the other way? Intentionally ignore someone? Not look someone in the eyes? Not ask the important question? Choose the safer path to avoid conflict or discomfort? How often do we block another person’s light from coming in? And how often do we hold back our own light and retract from helping others? Why are we all so closed off from one another when we are all made up of the same star dust and light?
This encounter got me thinking about our busy lives. We spend far too much time with our heads down looking at our phones and with our minds in the clouds, cluttered with nonsense. Too much time running errands. Too many to-do lists that seem to be never-ending (especially during the holidays). These habits, along with many new ones brought on by COVID that force us to disconnect and stay apart from one another, don’t define who we are and why we are here. Like my homegirl Oprah says, “We are all spiritual beings, having a human experience” and I say, we shouldn’t spread ourselves so thin that we deny ourselves and others of our radiant light.
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Grief and Thanksgiving in 2020
Its been 28 years and I while I know grief is an ongoing process and that as longer as I am alive, you will be deeply missed…I also know that I have moved into the final stage of acceptance. Acceptance doesn’t mean I have “moved on’ (as some say and I roll my eyes at) or that I am “over it” or that I am okay and happy all the time. What it means is that all of those stages of grief are now covered by a blanket of gratitude. I am no longer in a dark place, rather the opposite. I am emerged in a sea of colors so bright and so vivid. I feel your love and presence daily within my interactions with my husband, my children, my family, my friends and even at times with the kindness of strangers—many of which are woman who are around the age you would have been now. With all of it I feel you here with me. With every dream I have of you. With every orange butterfly that hovers over the boy’s heads as they walk the halls of Palmetto, quite literally walking in their grandma Linda’s footsteps. With every red cardinal that we spy in the tree that overlooks our boys swing set where they spend countless hours laughing and playing together. With every accident, I avoided over the years by listening to my gut and no doubt being protected by my guardian angel. It’s you. Your love for me never left. Never ended. Never died. I am so grateful that you are my mom and that our love is forever.
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Good Losers
When playing sports and when watching sports as a family I always point out two things to Conner and Hudson—the celebrating of the team who won—and (whenever possible) I also praise the team who lost for holding their heads up high and saying “good game” to the winning team. Likewise, when the losing team doesn’t act in a sportsman-like manner my husband and I both point out to our boys how disappointing and unacceptable that behavior is. As much as I want my boys to win and delight in that winning feeling—I also want them to feel loss and that sting of defeat. And not just to feel it but to accept it as part of the process. The process of becoming their best selves, both on and off the court/field. To know that every single winner got to that winning moment by losing over and over again and by never giving up. I want to raise them to be good winners AND good losers. There is a magic in both.
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On Forgiveness
Every day since this past March has been unlike any other day we have ever had in our lives. This “new normal” as we call it comes with more complexities than I could have ever imagined and with more opportunities to hurt others in unique ways. On the flip side, it also lends itself to new openings for forgiveness, self-reflection and spiritual growth. We are all struggling to come to terms with this pandemic and how we wish to live with it as it continues to change and evolve. I never knew how much I depend on physically being around others. I never knew how much I feed off of others energy. I never knew how much of my well-being is based on being outside the four corners of my house. I never knew how much harm we can cause others—even from a distance and often times without even knowing it.
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Happy 70th to my Mom In Heaven
It’s August 18, 2020. I wake up. It’s 7AM on your 70th birthday and you’re not here. I haven’t seen you in almost 28 years. Back to reality I go- knowing I can only see you in my dreams and that my boys will only see you in photographs.
Except this year is different. Turns out we do get to see you and hear your sweet voice— just last night I found an old video of you. It is from a family summer vacation in Rockport, MA in 1991. I was 8 and Lori was 10 years old. My boys for the first time ever got to hear your voice. They got to see not just the face of their grandma Linda, but they got to see you in motion. Alive. Talking poolside with cousin Karen. Laughing. Blushing whenever the camera would zoom in on you. And closely watching Lori and me in the pool- making sure we were safe and not diving on top of one another. There is a part of the video where you join us in the pool and I reach my arms up in the air and call out for you- asking you to come over and hold me in the water... and you do.... happily. My heart breaks seeing this because it’s me and it’s you, and it’s me and it’s Conner, and it’s me and it’s Hudson... it’s all the same. That love. That connection. That wanting for your mom to come over and hold you. That safe familiar place. I’ll never be too old for that mom. I am 38 years old now and what would I give to have you hold me in your arms.
Today we will celebrate you. We will find special moments in the day to think of you, talk about you, and honor you. We will dance like no one is watching. We will be silly. We will reminisce and share stories about you. We will raise our glasses (and juice boxes) for a birthday toast to you. We will have a cake and your grandsons will help blow out your candles. The only thing missing will be your laughter, but I am sure I will hear it through Conner and Hudson’s.
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