The Noticing #24
If you were me
Hi! Let’s get it over with: are you mad at me? How much do you hate it when someone makes a big to-do about stepping away from social media and then announces their return? We hate it, right? Except when you’re the person who disappears for several weeks, it feels awkward to come back like nothing happened. There’s not a right way to do it. IT’S ALL MADE UP. As with virtually everything, I have overthought this and landed on: you will annoy some people and others will be grateful for the explanation for why there hasn’t been a newsletter for a few weeks. One of these days I’m going to be one of those people who stops trying to please everyone and I hope that you will still be here when she arrives on the scene. Until then, here’s what’s in the newsletter today.
*Connections: An essay about self-talk
*Affiliate Links: A guide for getting through the year’s most loaded holiday as well as ideas for yourself, other women in your life and a few graduation gift ideas
*Recommendations: Podcast episodes & a book review
*Life on Cloudland: A few images of what’s going on in our home and garden
Connections
If you were me, and you told me everything that’s been going on these past couple of months, I’d say this:
“Of course you couldn’t keep up with everything. It makes total sense that some things with work and home had to take a backseat. You’re trying to practice rather than perform vulnerability on the internet and how could you do that if you were faking it? I’m actually thankful you’re modeling what it looks like to be honest about the difficulty of pursuing a wholehearted life aligned with your values. It was a risk to trust that this is a long process and I’m proud of you for taking that break.”
But if I were me, I’d say:
“Okay, yes, parenting three kids in completely different developmental stages with a husband traveling non-stop since February is hard, but other women do it, right? So maybe you should just suck it up.
I know anxiety hits you daily. I know it always feel likes a panic attack or a debilitating migraine is right on the horizon. I know sleep, movement, and downtime are non-negotiable if you want to function but still, maybe don’t complain. Just get it done, like everyone else.
I get that this is your busiest season with work and that you’re also trying to launch a new business, one that doesn’t pay much yet. But still, why can’t you just work more, stay up later, get up earlier? And by the way, why are you trying to have dreams at all when your plate is already so full?
And sure, three kids in activities, practices going thirty minutes later than scheduled, one needing dinner while another’s at the ballpark, the onslaught of events and emails and calendar updates...honestly, other moms seem to do it just fine. So why is this so hard for you? Maybe you’re just more difficult. More high-maintenance and needy. Maybe even lazy.
So let’s just shut up and stick to the script: when someone asks how you’re doing, smile and say, “We’re good! Just busy!””
I don’t have a tidy ending, because I’m still in the swirl of all this in my own heart and mind. But I’m noticing how loud the shame voice can get. And I wonder if it might help you, too, to pay attention to what your mean voice says when you’re struggling. Maybe try listening for the softer voice, the one that tells the truth with tenderness.
And at the end of the day, amidst all the voices, may the loudest voice of all be the one that finally convinces the coaches to end practice on time.
Affiliate Links
Not only is it the craziest time of the year for those of us with school-aged children, it is also the time when we must do the strange cultural dance around yet another holiday that despite its made-upness holds an enormous amount of pressure and expectation for almost every woman you’ve ever met. Mother’s Day. We love to love it, we love to hate it.
Are you the mom who deserves gifts and time off? Yes, maybe.
Are you also the daughter who has to figure out gifts for your own mother, your mother-in-law or other women in your life? Probably.
Are you most likely bringing some sadness, grief and loss into this holiday? Chances are very good. This is a hard day for so many people.
All I can say to you is that this is a shitshow and here is my advice for how to prepare:
It’s just a day. You may feel loved, you may feel sad, you may feel disappointed. If you are me, you will probably cry at some point, maybe from joy, maybe from anger, probably a combination. Erin Moon says that we take a fake Mother’s Day for ourselves and I still can’t come up with a better self-care than that. Don’t expect Sunday to make your mothering dreams come true or heal the wounds that are worthy of the grief and longing you feel. If you can or want to, buy yourself something that makes you happy. You’re a grown-up, you know it’s a fleeting dopamine boost but that’s okay. Take a day or a few hours for yourself if you possibly can. There may be work you need to do to figure out what’s under all these feelings but that work is nothing that can be done quickly or easily. We can let this day come and let it go so that we can move along in our actual lives where whatever combination of feelings that come up around mothering and being mothered are honored with the time and attention they deserve.
Mother’s Day is a thing that is mostly about buying stuff and sometimes it is okay to play stupid games and win stupid prizes around really painful, really tender, really beautiful parts of humanity. And on that note, here are some things you could consider purchasing this Mother’s Day as well as a few graduation gift ideas. I really think there is a variety of options on this list for gifts you might want to purchase this spring. There are way more ideas than just the few images below if you click this link!
Recommendations & Reviews
I have a few podcast episodes to recommend.
This is a straight up practical recommendation. I met Jen Smith at Mom 2.0 and started listening to her podcast called Frugal Friends. This week they had an episode called How to Save Money on Food and I found it really helpful, especially with the whole unknown financial situation on the horizon. Jen and her co-host Jill are fun and easy to listen to and their episodes are efficient (code for not annoying).
This was a beautiful and powerful episode with Rabbi Sharon Brous on Kelly Corrigan’s podcast. When my friend April sends me a recommendation and says I should listen, that’s an immediate download for me.
Anderson Cooper is one of my favorite humans, even though his podcast is so real and brutal that I have to be in exactly the right emotional place to engage with it. His latest episode about grief and how Christians talk about anger and loss is so good that it makes me want to cuss.
Book Rec: My mom recommended that I listen to The Enchanted April after her book club read it together earlier this year. Y’all, it was such an easy, delightful read and absolutely perfect for a springtime escape. It is funny and winsome and evocative:
“All the radiance of April in Italy lay gathered together at her feet. The sun poured in on her. The sea lay asleep in it, hardly stirring. Across the bay the lovely mountains, exquisitely different in color, were asleep too in the light; and underneath her window, at the bottom of the flower-starred grass slope from which the wall of castle rose up, was a great cypress, cutting through the delicate blues and violets and rose-colors of the mountains and the sea like a great black sword.
She stared. Such beauty; and she there to see it. Such beauty; and she alive to feel it.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April
“It is true she liked him most when he wasn't there, but then she usually liked everybody most when they weren't there.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April
Cloudland Cottage (hate the name so much)
Here are a few scenes from home these days. The flowers are blooming, the dishes have been piling, the puppy has been chewing and we are all doing the best we can.
Thank you for being here and being a part of creating a space where we are learning to offer kindness and curiosity to ourselves so that we can love our neighbors and be the kind of people we want to see in the world. May is a hell of a month and I hope you give yourself a lot of grace as you navigate all of its ups and downs. Here if you need to talk!
I enjoyed reading all of this AND ALSO the puppy 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹