Tag Archives: thoughts

Leave It Un-Done

Today was a day. Today I had many thoughts that need to be written down. About how waiting for sex until I was married wasn’t what fucked up my brain, but the purity culture that fueled it. About how romcom love isn’t actually love and living life together while still enjoying each other while you have young kids and fuck tons of pressure on every side is the best thing ever. Literally. It is freedom. It is joy. It is looking at your person and knowing that there is nothing life can throw at you that you won’t make it through together. Because it’s not about what the journey looks like. It’s not even where it’s going (that vision will change many, many times). It’s about doing it together, and discovering yourself along the way. About how I once read about a “pious” woman who worried, constantly, about getting grilled about her time on earth once she was in heaven. And how it’s taken me years to begin deconstruction on this bullshit but today, while watching IG reels and laughing my ass off, I thought that if anyone on the other side of death had the *audacity* to ask me if I thought today was well spent I would respond with “Well fuck yes it was. Actually. Thanks. Had a great time. 9/10. Would recommend.” About how people in the middle of doing the work don’t get enough fucking credit for how difficult it is in the middle of it.

But it’s the end of the day. My babies need cuddles. My brain needs a break. My shoulders need to come down from my chin. And I just do not have the capacity to give any of those topics the attention they deserve.

So, instead, I’m going to do this. I’m going to talk to myself (and you). Just a quick little message. Here we go.

Everyone deserves rest. Even writers. Even moms. Even people who haven’t gotten out of bed because it was just too much today. Here is your permission to leave it un-done. To try again tomorrow. To celebrate how far you made it today, against all the odds. Play the game on your phone. Binge the show you have watched a million times. Let your brain shut off, take a deep breath, eat the donut, and love yourself.

Saturday Thoughts

Potato Salad is a gift to mankind that I have recently realized I can happily eat every day. Fight me.

After many years of struggling with horrifically negative body self talk, restrictive dieting, borderline eating disorders, and insecurity – I have finally begun to make progress in learning to honor, even love, my body. I have rolls and cellulite. I’m 20lbs heavier than I have ever been in my entire life. And when you’re 5’4″ (and have been the skinny bitch of every friend group since you were 10) it’s noticeable. I have confronted the fears. My partners are not going to leave me because I went up a size. And if they did – those are not the kind of partners I want. My kids praise my squishiness literally all the time. To them, I am a soft place to land. It’s been a year of me just breathing through. I want to be stronger, but I have given up being thinner. It’s not worth it. My body has done too much, given me too much, for me to ever wonder if I have earned my dinner ever, ever again.

Baked chips are not chips. They are the love child of chips and crackers and I am not mad about it.

Today, while trying to keep myself out of a panic attack, I became suddenly aware of a sound that I currently and will always cherish (and someday, miss with an awful ache) the slap of kid feet running in and out of the house and shouting “MOM!” to show me something. These few years will go so fast.

Get the gap insurance. Just do it. You never, ever know when life is just going to… drop a fucking global pandemic on your ass.

We don’t play in the rain enough. Today, my daughter and I played in the rain. Well, we moved bricks in the rain but it felt like playing. It was a light rain, no storm, nice and warm. We got soaked. There was no dry clothing by the time we got in. Every layer was drenched. But it was perfect. And it felt amazing. And I’m done with letting anything other than ‘perfect’ weather dictate my outdoor time.

Dive in. Do the thing you don’t know how to do. Make mistakes. Look ridiculous. It’s so much better than never trying. And it’s so good for my kids to see me doing it. Today my daughter watched me fail in my first 11 attempts to fold dumplings. Yesterday my son watched me lose a fight with a can of spray paint. Next weekend they are going to watch me figure out how to use a tiller. But importantly, they watch me want to do something. They watch me not have any idea how to do it. They watch me research (a little). They watch me try. They watch me fail. They watch me keep trying until I succeed. I can now fold a dumpling confidently. I know how to use upside down spray paint cans. And soon I’ll be able to use a tiller. And every time it gets a little easier to fail and feels a little better to succeed. Understanding that one naturally follows the other, rather than it being an either/or situation.

What is one thing about people that you have a preference about that everyone else thinks is weird? I’ll go first. I love my partner’s feet. My male partner has wide feet and his toes all end at the same length like a rectangle. It is ridiculously attractive to me.

Aaaaaand there is your daily peek inside my mind. You’re welcome.