Sittin' Here, Hurtin' My Own Damn Feelings

This is the face of a Jeep that has hurt its own feelings.

Well, Friends, guess what one of my superpowers is.  I mean one of the ones I'm really, really good at.  

If you guessed leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, you're wrong, unless I've stepped with my bare feet on a snake sunning itself on my sidewalk, but that's a story for another day, probably.

Nope.  One of my greatest superpowers is that I am just aces at hurting my own damn feelings.  Do you know what that's all about?

So when you hurt your own damn feelings, you take something that was said to you or a look that was flung at you, or you reflect upon some exchange you were part of, or maybe you get ruminating on something that honestly had nothing to do with you at all (upon further dissection and discovery at a later date), and you build this narrative around it where you talk yourself into thinking that the other person or people are mad at you or somehow hate you.  You replay a conversation through the lens of your own blooper reel and outtakes (which were talked about yesterday, in the Compare-n-Despair Arena) and you talk yourself into thinking that you were the ass, and that everybody else thinks you were the ass, too.  Or you convince yourself that someone hasn't called, texted, messaged, or turned up because they're just so damn sick of you that they're just going to ghost out of your life right now and fade to black.  And you get all worked up over that.  All mad at yourself.

I don't heckin' know.  There are a lot of ways to hurt your own feelings.  I think we're all kind of aces at it, to be honest.  Otherwise, there wouldn't be half the interpersonal drama that there is.  I do this myself.  I get myself all spooled up over something, ruminating over it in my own head until my heart is just aching, only to find out... from the person themselves, that whatever it was that triggered me hurtin' my own damn feelings was inconsequential, or not directed at me, or completely misinterpreted by me.

Another way I hurt my own feelings is when something goes wrong, and I pre-play the way I think the news will be received.  For example, one time, I was plowing snow with the tractor, and the three-point hitch broke.  I thought my husband was going to flip out and yell and scream and throw things when I told him, and I had myself all built up and practiced on how I'd respond and defend myself so that I was on Quite A High Horse by the time I actually got to talk to him and tell him about it.  I was so sure that he was going to yell at me that I ended up yelling at him as I told him about how it all happened.  

He was confused by the yelling, and took the news that the tractor was broken quite in stride.  It got fixed, and that was that.  In hindsight, I wish I hadn't spent so much time hurting my own feelings and then yelling instead of telling what happened.

I think the key to stop hurting our own feelings is to understand that each of us is the center of our own universe and only our own universe.  What I mean is that instead of that simplified elementary-school model of a solar system with a sun in the center and all the planets orbiting around it in neat, concentric rings, we're each a whole galaxy unto ourselves, and while we orbit someone else, they're orbiting us, and there are other people in other orbits.  There are no concentric rings, but just an infinite series of crossing paths.

I'm not being mean.  It can be a tough little pill to swallow, coming to the realization that one is not the center of all the orbits.  On the other hand, once we each can accept that we're only the center of our very own life, and all the people we're connected to is the center of their very own life, it starts to feel like quite an honor to be included in someone else's meandering path across the universe.  

So if it feels like people are ignoring you, that doesn't mean that you're just super-boring and you should bow out; it just means maybe everybody else is doing other things right now- maybe they're all sitting around, hurting their own feelings over something.  Maybe their toilet backed up and is overflowing all over everything.  I mean, that's a legitimate reason not to pay attention to someone else with laser-sharp focus, isn't it?  Or they're just living their own lives in the centers of their own universes, as is their right.

It probably isn't worth us sittin' here, hurtin' our own damn feelings over stuff.  If we could teach ourselves to silence those mean-girl voices in our heads, it would save us so much anguish and interpersonal turbulence.  So... be kind to yourselves today, Friends.  Don't let yourself hurt your own damn feelings!

Compare-n-Despair Arena

I've heard it said that "comparison steals your joy."

There's this group of people I know who do a thing that drives me nuts.  We'll be watching a show, or eating some meal, or listening to some song, or riding in a vehicle, and the'll say, "Which one of [these things we're watching, eating, listening to, or riding in] is better?  [This one now], or [that other one]?"

"I don't know," I'll mutter.  "I like them both?"

"No," they'll say.  "You've got to pick one.  One is better than the other.  Which one's better?"

"Hell if I know," I'll say, getting agitated and exasperated.  "In this moment, I like the one I have better than not having it at all, and making me compare the two is just pissing me off, so which is better in this moment?  Making me decide which one's better and getting into a big fight about it, or letting me just enjoy this thing in peace and not having a fight about it?"

"Jeez!  I was just asking!" they'll say.

It isn't enough to notice that the sky is blue today.  You have to muse on whether the blue of the sky today is bluer than the sky was yesterday.  Is the green grass this year greener than the green grass was last year?  Which is better?  Which is BETTER?  WHICH IS BETTER?!

I don't know.  I just don't know.  Dude, why does one thing always have to be better than another?  Can't they both be great for their own reasons?

But before I get too high-n-mighty about that particular flavor of comparing things, I have to admit that I've been a regular in the Compare-n-Despair Arena myself.  Maybe not in comparing which product is better, but in comparing myself against others.  And it really does bring on a sense of despair. 

It's easy to pin "Compare-n-Despair" on social media.  We've all heard the blah-blah-blah about how people only post idealized versions of themselves on social media, and then their friends and followers see those idealized versions and believe that the poster's reality must really be that ideal while the observer, knowing all his or her own messy stuff, compares his or her life, warts and all, to that glossy, idealized version of someone else's life.

I sum this up by saying "We only get to see other people's highlight reels while we have full access to our own bloopers and outtakes."

So we compare our lives as we know them to be and we despair because we don't think they measure up to the version of other people's lives that they present.

I do think there's something to social media contributing to compare-n-despair, but I don't think it's entirely at fault.  This has been going on long before social media became a Thing, though, hasn't it?  We just had to do it from closer range, maybe, back in the day. 

I remember being a kid and noticing that some of my classmates could do math without breaking a sweat, and for me, math tied me up in knots.  I'd compare my skills (or lack thereof) with their skills and despair that mine didn't measure up. 

There were cool, Popular Kids back in school, as I'm sure there are now, still.  Because my school was small, everybody played more than one role, so you'd see cool, Popular Kids also in with the sporty kids and the music nerds.  Our cool, Popular Kids weren't the feathered-blond-hair and popped-collar douchebags that turn up as cool, Popular Kids in every teen movie from the '80s, but there were kids who had ascended to the very apex of the high school social pyramid, even as they interacted with kids from all social strata.  I was not one of those apex CPKs.  I always wondered what I did wrong, why I didn't make that particular cut.  I'd compare their popularity to my lack of fitting in, and I'd despair.  I'd agonize. 

Same with the skinny girls/pretty girls/effortlessly talented girls.  I'd compare my lack of height, my dumb red hair and freckles, my need to put in a LOT of work just to be adequately proficient in something to what they had, and I'd despair. 

It really didn't get any better in college.  There were lots of people who were better writers than me.  They were smarter and more literary, far more clever.  I'd compare my mediocre work with their masterful works of heartbreaking genius and I'd despair.

How dare all these people have a better experience being them than I was having being me?  I mean, seriously?!

Well, again.  We only get to see everybody else's highlight reels while we're stuck with full access to our own bloopers and outtakes. 

But you can imagine my shock when I learned that I'm up on the JumboTron in others' Compare-n-Despair Arenas.  Me!  But why, though?  Don't they know I've got to be one of the top ten most insecure people on the planet?  Don't they know I was constantly compared to the Seinfeld character George Costanza when I was younger?  Not hilarious Jerry or crazy Kramer (thank Gawd, actually), not smart and sassy Elaine?  George Freakin-Loser-Ass Costanza.

Why on earth would anybody be comparing themselves to me and feeling bad about themselves? 

Because all they see is my highlight reel, and they have full access passes to all their own bloopers, outtakes, insecurities, and mistakes. 

It isn't always a bad thing to compare.  It's how we find the best prices.  Sometimes we learn new things by comparing.  Sometimes it DOES motivate us to address a weakness or shortcoming in ourselves.  But comparing too much steals joy from the moment.  And any time you step into Compare-n-Despair Arena, it's going to end in despair, most likely.

I think sometimes, you've really got to be aggressive about noticing what's GOOD with you, instead of comparing yourself to someone else.  If it's hard to find something that's good in yourself, ask someone else.  Sometimes we get stuck in the stories we tell ourselves and need some outside perspective to keep us out of Compare-n-Despair Arena.

The Really Really Famous Fifth Grade Field Trip

May was always a month of field trips back when I was in school, and it would have been a month of field trips this year, too, if everything hadn't gone all upside-down and sideways over the last few months.  Since our students and teachers in 2020 can't go anywhere on field trips this May, I'd like to bring you back in time with me to May 4, 1989, the day the Northern Potter Children's School Fifth Grade Class embarked on an historic trek to our State's Capital City: Harrisburg, Pee-Yay.

It was a memorable trip because we had to leave at 5AM in the Morning!  And we took TWO buses- one for section 5A and another for 5B.  We were going to the William Penn Museum, and then the State Capitol Building, and then we'd be eating dinner at McDonalds in Shamokin Dam on the way home.  We wouldn't be getting home until After Dark! 

Wowza! 

Yep!  We Fifth Graders had really hit the Big Time!

This is before Route 15 was a four-lane much past Williamsport.  I'd never actually been Down That Way, ever in my life, but it turned out to be a route I traveled a LOT less than a decade after this trip.  And I'll never forget the sign for English Center and Buttonwood, because it seemed like we'd been on the road FOREVAH and it was right around there that 5B's bus started having Trouble.  Something on the bus was "leaking like a sieve."

So instead of turning us all back and taking us home, the entire Fifth Grade piled on to 5A's bus, squeezing in 3 to a seat, and off we rolled on our way. 

Now, we were the class that was billed as "The Worst Class to Ever Go Through Northern Potter," somehow, the whole time we were in school.  I'm not sure what we actually did to earn this distinction but we knew our teachers weren't super-thrilled with being out-n-about with us under the best circumstances, and having us all crammed onto one hot, smelly school-bus was tense.

We pretty much had a blast, though.  I think all things considered, with the excitement, and the early leave-time, and the sudden quality-together-time with our entire class on one vehicle, I think Fifth Grade handled it all Very Well!

After what felt like even foreverer forever, we went through Duncannon and saw the replica Statue of Liberty in the Susquehanna River.  That caused quite a sensation.  I'm not sure about the rest of my class, but I hadn't been to such exotic places in my life!

We went on our tour at the William Penn Museum.  We got our picture taken on the marble stairs of the Capitol Building.  We ate our lunches From Home on the patio at the museum, and I think we all felt like big cheeses.  I know we got the biggest kick out of the word "Dam" in "Shamokin Dam" when we stopped for dinner at McDonalds on The Strip on Rts. 11/15.

The sky was turning purple and orange as we headed back up the road.  It had been a hot May 4th that year, and they let us open the bus windows on the way home, so the evening air breezed through the bus.  I remember a lot of chatter about all the things we'd seen that day.  I remember at some point, the driver slowed down and pointed out a huge herd of deer feeding on the side of a hill on the way home.  As advertised, we didn't get home until After Dark. 

That was the Really Really Famous Fifth Grade Field Trip of May 4, 1989.  I don't remember what Friday, May 5th brought to 5th Grade.  We must have been tired.  I know we were full of stories.

My heart breaks for the kids who aren't going on their long-awaited field trips this May.  There's always a certain uncomfortable factor when it comes to Travel, especially when classmates and school buses are concerned.  But that trip stuck with us for the rest of the time we were in school. I think it's stuck with us for our whole lives.  I hope that when we can travel again, there are still Field Trips, with 5 AM in the Morning AIS leave times.  I hope there are always teachers who can roll with things when things don't go to plan.

And I hope, after all the isolation and quarantining, that when we can Return, there will always be Classmates to make lifelong memories with.

She Ain't Gettin' Any Smaller, Ya Know!

It's hard to let go of the Little Girl who wore those Little Girl Clothes!

You know what requires more emotional savagery than cleaning out my own closet?  Cleaning out Zoe's closet, that's what!

Isn't it ridiculous that it's even more difficult to clean out her closet than it is mine? With her, the clothes have to go because they don't fit her anymore.  Pure and simple.  She has gotten bigger, but the clothes have remained the same size. 

There is no internal debate about something coming back in style that hasn't been worn in years, or whether she'll get back down into a particular size shirt or jeans.  There's just the reflection that her little legs used to be the size her arms are today.

Some of her clothes, she wears until there are holes in the knees.  Or they get stained, ripped, shredded, or they just don't hold up well.  Those are no-brainers.  Away they go.  We consider socks consumables in our house.  Don't get attached.  Their fate is to wind up as dust-cloths or dry-erase board erasers.

But those adorable little clothes.  Nothing knots my chest and makes those little water-prickles rare up in my nose like holding up adorable little clothes and realizing that the little girl who used to wear them and ride around on my hip is too big for one-pieces and for carrying now.

I don't think it's really the clothes I have such a hard time cleaning out, come to think of it.  They're just clothes.  There are certain memories attached to certain pieces that sneak up on me and roll down my cheek whenever I clean out Zoe's closet.  But it's seeing the lineup of the little clothes as I pull them out to be folded and put in a bin.  It's measuring those clothes against me, remembering how her little head would rest on my shoulder when I held her in those clothes, and where her little feet would fall- on my chest, at my waist, around my waist... 

She's just a little more than a foot shorter than I am now.  All knees and elbows.

Cleaning out Zoe's closet is so hard for me because with each round of cleaning out, I realize that she's grown farther and farther away from the little tiny baby I brought home from the hospital. I've been a little bit terrified her whole life.  When I was pregnant, I told my doctor that I didn't mind that she was overdue, because I knew where she was; I knew she was safe.  When she was a newborn, she was attached to me for the first two weeks of her life.  I knew where she was.  I was terrified, but she was safe.  She was right there in my arms.  We started letting her "cry it out."  We were those people.  But she learned to self-console.  And I was always listening on the baby monitor.  I always had an ear tuned to her bedroom or whichever portable crib she was napping in.  I knew where she was.  She was safe.  Never far from my arms. 

Then she started rolling, and crawling and she took her first tentative steps.  And she started running.  She started climbing.  She rode her bike off the living room couch one time when I stepped out of the room to put dinner in the Instant Pot.  I started to realize that we were coming to a time when I couldn't keep her safe, even from herself, forever. 

She went to school.  I love her school.  I love everything about it.  But I have worries.  I have nightmares that wake me up from a sound sleep and send me stumbling to her room in the middle of the night to check on her, to hug her, to kiss her cheeks that aren't so baby-chubby as they used to be.  My heart breaks a little bit each day, knowing that there will be hurt and heartache that I won't be able to save her from.  I won't be able to fix it for her. 

I shouldn't rush to fix it all for her.  If I lawn-mow or snow-plow all her troubles away, I am stealing from her the opportunity to learn to deal with pain and heartache and hurt and messy emotions while I'm still here to guide her.  It's the "Cry It Out" thing all over again.  It was so hard for me to listen to her cry and not go get her.  But she learned to console herself.  In the end, she was stronger for it.

It's safe to say I probably won't be jettisoning any too-small clothes during these times.  And as much as the play-room and it's helter-skelter irks me, I probably won't be making her cull her toys right now, either, because that opens up a whole big can of emotional wormage.  We've got to be strong for those types of tasks around here.

Because it isn't the outgrown clothes or toys that bring the tight chest and the tears; it's knowing that even though I feel like the same person who brought her home from the hospital, and I look like the same person who brought her home from the hospital, Zoe has gone through transformation after transformation, As It Should Be, and every morning, I see a new butterfly eating breakfast at my table.  It makes my heart so proud, even as it's breaking.

She ain't gettin' any smaller, ya know.

Am I Afraid to Fall... Or Am I Afraid to Fly?

I was flying my plane when I took this picture in March.

Remember in Back to the Future, when George McFly was writing his science fiction stories in 1955, and Marty was taken aback that the teenage version of his old man was a writer?  Remember how he asked George why he never let anybody else read his writing?  And George McFly said, "Oh...you know... I'm afraid of... rejection..."

Friends, if you've ever heard me say that, in even a very George McFly voice, you can go ahead and honk.  I won't be upset.  Those words come flying out of my mouth with less than zero effort. 

But the thing is, when I'm really pressed to think about it, am I really afraid of the rejection?  I'm rejected all the time. I've sent work out and been told it wasn't what was being looked for at this time.  I've pitched ideas and been told "no." 

Then I change the word "rejection" to "failure," to see if that's what has me so snake-bit, and again, I'm not so sure.  When I was younger, I definitely would have told you I was afraid of failing.  Failing algebra tests got me grounded.  If it'd have failed my driving test, I wouldn't have had the freedom to drive.  Failure meant shame, shame, shame to me in the first two decades of my life.  Failing would make me just about want to die.

But now the thing is this- I failed my check-ride for my pilot's license the first time I took it.  A checkride is the aviation equivalent of the Road Test.  I made a bad decision that in real life could have cost me my life, and I failed that test.  I failed it hard.  And I melted down, threw a little tantrum.  I'm not proud of that at all.  I was so ashamed of failing the test, and I was even more ashamed of the way I acted afterward that I thought about not even calling the examiner back to try the test again.  My instructor and my airport friends gave me their shoulders to cry on, and then let me know in no uncertain terms that my time for crying was over, I needed to get over myself, and they all took a turn at giving me a swift kick in the ass to get me back on track.

I failed that time, but I had a chance at redemption.  I got a chance to apologize to the examiner, who was very understanding about the whole thing.  He said I was "very high-strung."  I could not argue with that.  I was very high strung when I made that first impression on him.  My second check-ride was a rip-roaring success.  It was fun, even.

And as it turns out, not only did I not die from failing, but the lessons I learned from failing saved my life. 

Huh. 

Maybe I've been telling myself the wrong story this whole time.  I seem to be Just Fine with rejection.  If I were really afraid of being rejected, seven-eighths of what I write on this blog would not meet your eyes, Friends.  If I were really afraid of letting people read my work for fear of being vulnerable or baring too much of my soul... well, hell, hasn't that ship sailed right out of the harbor?  I thought it would hurt, letting people know how much I struggle with ... everything.  Now that it's out  there, I realize it was hurting me worse to keep it all to myself behind that infamous Frozen Smile.

And the failure. I fail all the time.  The check-ride was the biggest and flashiest failure.  I still think I came out of that deal-e-oh ahead. But my more minor failures, of which there are many, on a daily basis, even, I firmly believe that when I eff something up really good and fail, at least I've learned how NOT to do the thing next time.  Sometimes I fail on purpose, in order to grow- in the weight-room, for instance.  I'll lift until my muscles fail, and then they get to heal and grow.  That is failure that I control.  I've been telling myself that failure is not an option, and those are brave-sounding words, but I think what they really mean is that failure is not an option; it's the only way to grow and get to where you want to be.  I've told myself that failure is shameful.  I could just *die* from it!

Yet, here I still stand. 

I don't think it's the looming of Failure and Rejection, the fear to Fall that's held me back all this time, Friends.  I don't.  Are you ready for this?  Are you sitting down?

I think the thing holding me back all this time is that I'm afraid to Fly.

Wouldja get a load of this broad?  Afraid to fly?  Afraid to succeed?  What in the actual hell is wrong with this picture?  Who in their right mind is afraid to succeed?  Isn't that the whole point?  Isn't it?

But here's this thing.  I know how to take rejection and failure.  I take a rejection, I fail, and I shrug and say, "I'll try again another time, maybe."  "I'll approach this another way."  I'll walk away from that with a lesson.  I'll be a little wiser.  But otherwise, nothing else really changes.  I'm still more or less the same.  My income is the same.  My life is the same.  My schedule and routines are the same.  Life doesn't change radically if I'm rejected or if I fail.  And that's great, because what do humans hate the most?  Change.  What threatens our sense of security, stability, connectedness?  Change.

I sure can spin Success up into something pretty negative, too.  I point to flying the airplane.  There was something I really wanted to do, so I pursued it and put in the work and practiced and learned all I could about flying an aluminum machine.  And I got it.  I succeeded.  I passed that test (eventually).  And it almost killed me the day I had my engine-out.  Didn't it?  I mean, the plane and I made it safe and unscathed back to the runway... just.  There was no physical trauma to either of us.  But I had time to let myself go to some pretty dark places on the way down.  I figured I'd be a fiery blotch on the giant 28 painted on the approach end of the runway.  There's some success for ya.

And this writing thing.  What if.  What if, what if what if?  Say I do write a thing, and it's successful.  What would that do to my family?  Would I still be able to be so available to help my husband with things that have to do with his business, or would I have to be more preoccupied with promoting or following up whatever masterwork of heartbreaking genius I place at the world's feet?  Would I still be able to be involved at my daughter's school if I'm promoting a book?  What about my workout routine if I had to be on the road?  What would people think of me?  Would I still fit here, if I succeeded?  Would people be nervous that they might recognize themselves- real or imagined- in the things I write?  Would people think I had to live through the stuff I write for my characters?  (the answer here is no- sometimes, writers live it, but writers are creatures of imagination.  Especially fiction writers. We can empathize and imagine and spool out a story without having lived the life we're writing.  Sometimes we draw characters from life, but if we're smart, we make composites; we take just elements of real people we know, and smoosh them all together with elements of other real people we know, and then we add a whole bunch of imagination and caulk and maybe some epoxy.  The real people in our lives inspire us, but most of us try not to do one-to-one transliterations... unless we're writing nonfiction, and then we can't be so imaginationy.  In which case you'd be contacted about whether it's okay or not to use your story, your words, your experience, if at all possible.)

If I did something really rad, and it was ridiculously successful, or even moderately successful, would I still fit within the frame of my family?  Would I be forcing change on them, or a whole bunch of unwanted attention on them because of my selfish quest for fulfillment?

At least I know I fit in the box I live in right now.  It isn't necessarily exciting.  I don't feel especially wonderful about it.  But at least things are stable.  I can go on like this, probably.  I don't need to be bigger.  I don't need to upend everybody else in my life to accommodate me following my dreams.

Boxes, though.  Don't they put us in boxes when we die?  Even if we're going on Team Extra-Crispy and being scattered to the four winds?  There's a point we all wind up in a box.  Sheesh.  That took a turn for the dark and airless, didn't it? 

That's what it's like, living in a damn box before you're dead.  Isn't it.

So I started this blog back up.  And that was pretty scary for me, at this point in my life.  Before, I'd write it, and it'd just be throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck.  Not a lot of people paid much attention.  They paid attention to my Daily Zoe blog, because that was stories about my cute little kid, or stories told from what I imagined her perspective was.  I took a little shit for that, too, from some, because they saw it as an invasion of her privacy, of her very person, since she didn't consent to me writing about her like that.  I didn't mean it to be an invasion.  I saw it as a scrapbook on steroids, something we'd look back at when she's older, and we'll laugh and laugh.  Most people loved it, but it was those with the heavy criticism, those who said, with a little glee in their eyes, "Oooooh, she is going to HATE you when she's older!"  That got to me. 

So there's that ball of wax. What if people read me?  What if they listen when I speak (or write)?  What if they hate what I'm saying?

You know, some will.  I get the occasional message to the tune of "What were you thinking?!" in my inbox after a particularly lay-it-on-the-line piece.  I'm learning to get under the reaction of "What were you thinking?!" and not take that so personally. 

I also get a lot of messages of support.  People are reading me.  People are "hearing" me and "listening."  It's a little scary sometimes.  I love hearing how the things I write touch or affect the people who take the time to read me.  Putting myself and my work out there like this IS scary.

Yet here I still stand.

Part of the exhilaration of flying is feeling and tasting the fear that comes with defying gravity... and doing it anyway. 

So here I go!

What Was Supposed to Be

Zoe at the 2012 Maple Festival Car Show- her very first!

It's the first Saturday in May, strange as that seems.  If life were normal, the Maple Festival would be going on in Coudersport today.  The square around the courthouse in the center of town would be packed with food trucks and vendors and a big tent where all the area maple producers sell their products. 

There's a car show that goes along with the Maple Festival.  That's where we'd be today, if life were normal.  It's always the first car show we attend, each season. 

We took Zoe for the first time when she was five months old.  She rode around in her orange stroller, which matched the orange Gremlin that we took that year.  I'm not sure what she thought of all of it, but she was a hit.  A little charmer.

She's grown up over at the Maple Festival Car Show. 

I didn't think I'd be this sad over the lack of a Maple Festival or a Maple Festival Car Show this year.  Don't get me wrong.  I like to go.  I like seeing all our Car-Friends a lot.  But it's an early morning, and the weather in Coudersport can be squirrely on the first Saturday in May.  There have been Maple Festival Car Shows where we started the morning out in winter coats and I've come home with a Good First Sunburn of the Season.  The snot-bugs invariably make their first appearance of the season, on the drive home from the festivities.  Crikey, last year, one hit my windshield right where I see out, and I thought someone threw an extra-large chicken egg at me!

I miss it, though.  It isn't a matter of me just sitting out this year and knowing the show's still going on.  I've done that a few times over the years.  This is knowing there are crickets chirping over in that empty courthouse square right now.  I wouldn't say it's a depressing feeling, but I do feel just a little empty. 

It's kind of a hitting-home moment.  All the spring and summer activities have been paused for this year.  It's sobering.  That's what this is.  It's the first sobering Saturday of the season.  The first of many to come. 

But, hey.  That'll make us appreciate all the more all the festivals and car shows and parades and fireworks that we'll get to go to next year, God willing.  We won't be taking anything like that for granted next year, I hope. 

As for what we'll do this year, maybe we'll line up all of Zoe's matchbox cars and Barbie cars and LOL doll cars up and have our own show, right on the living room rug.  It's fairly temperate there.  Probably won't get a sunburn of epic proportions.  No snot-bugs to hit in the windshield on the way home.  There is a big white hurricane named Sylvie to watch out for, but if we throw treats in the opposite direction, she chases those and leaves the living room car show alone.  If only the real weather were so easy to manipulate!

Well, Just Who the Hell Am I Then?

Hi.  My name is April.  I'm kind of just getting to know me again, too!

When I was a little kid, I had some confidence.  I mean the kind of confidence where I'd run around the house in nothing but my Wonder Woman Underroos, leaping from the back of the couch to the seat of the chair and somersaulting across the floor.  There was nothing I couldn't do.  

I had Big Dreams, a Big Personality (some would say overwhelming), Big Ideas, Big Opinions, a Big Mouth.  

A Big Heart.

Somewhere along the way, I got it in my head that I'd be a lot more easy for other people to stomach if I were a little less big... a little less...Me.  

I remember clearly one day in junior high, feeling like I didn't belong anywhere, and that nobody liked me the way I was. I was standing in the mirror, and I saw this short, round, frizzy-red-haired troll with glasses and crooked teeth and bad skin peering back at me, and I looked back at her and said "F*ck this shit," and started packing myself away into smaller and smaller boxes to avoid taking up quite so damn much room in other people's lives.  

Then maybe I could fit in a little better and people would like me more.  

No matter how less obtrusive I made myself, it was never quite enough for some.  I'd be sparkly when they needed drab, and my sparkly would butt up against their drab, and there'd be conflict.  I'd have the audacity to ask for attention or space, and I'd be pushy or distant.  The message I'd get is "It'd be so much better if you could just not be so... you!"  and my damn big stupid heart took the message and I'd smallify accordingly.

I've got to be just sparkly enough not to come off as a miserable cow, but not so sparkly as to make others feel bad about themselves for not being willing or able to be sparkly.

 Be Smart Enough, but not too smart.

Apologize for everything.  Taking up too much space, talking too loud, being too ambitious, being not ambitious enough.  Definitely apologize for apologizing!

Got it.  

And then came the day somebody asked me who I am, and I answered without missing a beat, "I'm April Blake.  I'm Zoe's Mom and Shane's wife.  He's a dentist..."

"Yeah, but who are you?" they asked.  "Not in terms of mom or wife.  Who are you?"

I didn't know how to answer.  And I apologized for not knowing how to answer, because the fact that I'd smallified myself so much that I had lost who I am had happened so gradually, over decades, that I didn't realize that I'd even lost me.  I never identified myself as a person who didn't know who I was. I thought I knew exactly who I was, what I wanted, what I don't like.  I don't like people who don't know who they are, because how much of a wimp do you have to be?

Turns out I've gotten a sudden lesson in empathy for people who don't know who they are or what they want.  I understand how you can slip away from yourself without even noticing.  

I don't think I'm ever going to have the confidence to run around the house in my Wonder Woman UnderRoos.  That's probably just fine. But I'm working on having the confidence to be me and to know Who I Am without worrying who I'm Too Much for. It's a journey, Friends!