Grateful #44 - put your camera phones down (minus a photo)

I love taking pictures.  It’s one of my favorite hobbies – I don’t necessarily have the skill set and the equipment to really delve into the world of photography, but playing with cameras makes me happy. 

I probably have about 150 pictures of the 4^th of July fireworks.  I tried every angle, every setting – I wanted to get the best display of the beautiful lights in the sky.  After the fireworks were over, my memory of them lived in the pictures.  Exactly that way.  In 2D.  In all my effort to take incredible pictures, I never really looked up at the incredible. 

A few days later, I went to a concert at a symphony; a very talented Brandi Carlile played with the Nashville Symphony in the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.  The building was spectacular and ornate – exactly the way I imagined orchestra halls to look.  Before the show started, the announcer informed everyone that no photography was allowed during the show.   My heart sank.  I was already constructing photos and angles, determining how much zoom to use, and playing with color and filters in my head.   How was I not going to take pictures of this? 

A funny thing happened.  I was present during the actual performance. I may have snuck in a picture or two (I couldn’t help it), but I put my camera phone away for 99% of the show and simply watched and listened in real time.  Present time.  

I watched the way Brandi Carlile tipped her head back slightly before she was about to belt out a big note.  I saw each violinist place her chin on the chin rest on cue, and I watched the conductor purposefully flail his arms about in a rhythmic sign language that eludes me.   I saw the cello players’ fingers plucking each individual string.  I caught glimpses of smiles between Brandi and her band mates.  While it’s possible that I could have captured some of that on film, it would not have been something I was part of – it would have simply been a frozen frame of where I happened to be at the moment.   By taking myself out from behind my camera lens, I became part of the event instead of the one documenting everyone else being part of the event.

The kicker here is that of those millions and trillions of photos I have on my camera phone, only a handful actually ends up in social media, and even fewer are printed and hanging on the walls of my house.  So why we do we take so many photos if we never plan on doing anything with them?  Pictures for posterity are one thing; I can appreciate wanting to remember something.  Pictures of beautiful beaches, mountains, and nature - I'm totally on board with that.  But, becoming so wrapped up in taking photos that you’re attending a photo shoot instead of a concert – that’s just stupid.  At least for me, anyway.  That’s what I noticed about myself this past week – I need to be more present when Im out doing the fun things; fun cannot be relived through a folder of 200, roughly similar photos.  Fun can be relived through talking about what you did/saw/heard with your friends. 

There are too many gorgeous, important, sexy, impossibly breathtaking things to capture on film so I will never stop taking pictures.  However, there’s a time and a place for it.  So today, I am grateful for that announcer who told me to put my camera away.   He knew that no matter the #nashvillefilter on my #instagram app, the real memory was developing right in front me.

grateful #43 - my dad's pride

 On the last day of school in the 2^nd grade, my dad celebrated my perfect report card by taking me to lunch and getting me the Optiums Prime toy I so badly wanted.    That’s not my earliest memory of my dad, but it’s one that stands out; I’m fortunate in that I have so many to choose from; my dad has been so present and involved throughout my entire life.  With the exception of a few of my friends, I can’t recall anyone else whose dad has been such an active participant in his child’s life.  I can only guess as to the reasons for this; the pressure society puts on men to be strong,  authoritative, and in charge, yielded a generation of dads who were hands off emotionally, sometimes not there at all, or only there to dole out responsibilities and punishments.  The way my father raised my brother and I had little to do with strength and power, and much more to do with family values and love.

I did my fair share of stupid things as a teenager, but what kept me out of any real  trouble wasn’t the fear that my dad would kill me or ground me for eternity.  My fear was seeing disappointment in his eyes.  There’s nothing worse than disappointing someone who thinks the world of you.   And he truly does think the world of me. 

Last year, my dad sent me print out (which I still have) of the email he wrote to my brother with the play by play of one of the most important tennis matches in my high school career, along with several newspaper clippings he kept from 1993-1997,  highlighting my scores and statistics.  He came to every match; he rearranged his schedule and his appointments to make sure he was at every tennis match I played.  In the email he wrote to my brother, which I didn’t see until 20 years later, you would think my dad was describing the world’s most talented, heroic tennis player to ever get on the court. 

I know my dad told me he was proud of me, but for him to take the time to describe how proud he was of me to someone else?  That’s legit. That's the real thing.

And now as the 35 year-old who has taken up this little blog endeavor, I find myself picking up the phone to conversations like this:

"Hey blair."

"hey dad, how are you?"

"i could be better."

"why?"

"id be better if i had one of your articles to read."

"ha, ok.  i'll write one."

"they really make my day."

My dad calls my blogs my "articles."  It's quite possibly one of the cutest things ever.  

Again, the support and pride my dad shows me is unwavering, still.   I am grateful for my dad's constant and complete pride he feels towards me.  The superhero student, the superhero tennis player, and the superhero writer my dad makes me out to be are only indicative of the kind parenting my father does.  And now I'm telling the world in one of my articles how proud I am to have him as my father.   That's legit.  That's the real thing. 

Grateful #42 - what matt nathanson's song, "headphones" makes me think about

So I heard Matt Nathanson’s new song today – “headphones.”  It’s a little more poppy than Im used to from him, but the lyrics, though simple, really resonated with me.     

The premise of the song is:  girl goes to New York City because she’s sick of everyone and everything in her life.  Wants to get away from it all.   The chorus: "I feel invincible with my headphones on.” Anyone who has ever put a pair of headphones on has felt this – the blocking out of the whole world, only hearing the music, only seeing the music, only moving to the music, and feeling like you can do anything. It’s like the song coming out of your headphones completely covers you and pulls you into your own private world.  You’re invincible. 

Listening to music with headphones is dramatically different than say, listening to music in your car or from the speakers of your computer.  When you have headphones on, the music is the first thing you’re doing – the main thing you’re paying attention to.  When you’re in the car or fluttering about your house with some background noise, the music becomes just that.  Background. 

Anyway, my point about hearing this song today is that it took me back to a specific day in April of 2011.

I was that girl.   I was tired of everything around me; I needed to get out of Atlanta in order to find home again.  That comfortable-in-your-own-skin, home.  So I left.  I went to New York City and I put on my headphones. 

Being that it’s me, I walked all over Manhattan in search of cozy seats in cute coffee shops where I could write and find the inner peace I swore was hiding up the the sleeves of the baristas serving me.   I walked 12 miles with my headphones; invincibility and the sun were at my back. 

I am grateful that I heard Matt Nathanson’s song today -  it made me remember my bold move to get up and go somewhere else, throw myself at the mercy of the busiest city in the world armed only with headphones, and come out unscathed.  for the better.  finding home. 

Below is the blog I wrote about it back then.

Grateful #41 - it's ok to say yeah

 

Desperate to write something down, I find myself turning to the people I’ve talked to in the past few days.  In any and all of those conversations,  I have had moments that stuck out and stayed with me.  In fact, I have about 5 sets of paragraphs strewn about my computer screen that never made it past the rough draft stage.  Perhaps the sun is making me lazy, but I can’t seem to finish a thought. 

The extra time built into only teaching 3 hours per day of summer school as the only form of distraction isn’t as easy breezy as one would think.   

I get caught up in my own thinking when I’m not being distracted by teenagers’ constant buzzing in classrooms, parent emails, tennis practices, planning and grading.  And so instead of purposefully setting aside time to write in my blog with whatever alone time I could muster up, I sit here with no time constraints, constrained. 

The plus side to this is that I’ve actually had time to talk on the phone or to hang out with people I generally don’t get to see very often – even my long-distance best friend commented on how often he has heard from me lately.  What’s funny is that 3 people have asked me in the last 2 days if I’m happy - my father, my long-distance best friend, and another friend.   Each time I immediately said, “yeah.”  Not, “yes,” but, “yeah.”  I over-thought about the difference, and decided that “yeah” implies that things are fine.  I am good.  I am even.  I think the word “yes” would have implied more than even.  More than good.  My answer flew under their radars, I think, which is probably better for me – I don’t have to try to discern the difference out loud.  It wasn’t until my dad asked me for the second time this week if I am dating anyone, that I began to panic a little.  Is he trying to tell me that I’m not getting any younger and that I should probably meet someone soon?  Is he trying to imply that true happiness is being with someone you love, thus bringing my “yeah” back into the spotlight for speculation?  Or is he just simply catching up on what’s going on in my life? 

Moreover, this is supposed to end in some circular fashion where I’ve pulled out a piece of gratefulness from life and assigned warm, fuzzy feelings to it.   I don’t’ think I’ve even picked out something I am grateful for yet.   I seem to be focusing on things that don’t really feel warm and fuzzy. 

But you know, maybe that’s my “yeah” talking.  And maybe it’s ok to be at just a “yeah, I’m happy.”   Gratitude doesn’t have to be something warm and fuzzy - after all, I could have responded with a "no."

Grateful #40 - Forks

Sometimes I imagine what it’s like to be one of those people who crave the energy of the masses – one of those people who can walk into a room and be completely fulfilled by the constant buzz and movement of conversing with the crowds.  I’m curious about what it’s like to be the center of attention, reciting the most ordinary facts in what seemingly comes off as chocolate-coated charisma.   I know people like this; the common thread in all of them is extroverted and it’s shiny. 

I do not have that thread; being in large groups makes me come undone.   My sugar rush is in the quiet, alone-time act of writing.   

With all this extra summer time on my hands, I wanted to spend it doing what makes me happy.  What makes me shiny.    My short-term goals, my long term goals, my bucket list, my dreams, and my wish list always include: write a book a someday.  I can’t remember not wanting to do it.  I’ve always just assumed it would happen in some very romantic, serendipitous way – to the point that I never really had to take ownership of it; I just assumed it would magically happen. 

From writing this blog, (and if you remember, my goal was to write in it at least 4 times a week) I realized that writing is not only time-consuming and hard, but it is a craft – it’s something that you have to work at and on – it’s something that takes planning and drafting and editing.  It’s something that doesn’t just happen because we think it should happen.   And so with that lesson staring blankly (sometimes literally) at me, I decided to go for it. 

But I’m stuck and I need your advice.   The proverbial fork is this:  Write a memoir/non-fiction style book, similar in style to these blogs, which would hopefully leave the reader feeling like he or she could identify with someone.  That we all understand.  That we all have the same thoughts and fears.  That’s the bottom line in all of this - I want to connect through our similarities, not isolate each other by highlighting our differences. 

OR.

I could put on my best American novelist hat, which I’ve never even tried on, and delve into the world of fictional characters and made up city streets covered in secrets and folklore.  I could try my hand at being someone else.  Someone else’s perspective.  Someone else’s thoughts, friends, and feelings.   

This fork is the last thing that will stop me from chasing my dream.  I just need a little push in the right direction.  I am grateful for spotting my road block instead of plowing into a brick a wall.   Any advice or thoughts are welcomed.  With your help,  my story cloud just may have a silverware lining. 

Grateful #39 - Envy. and what comes after it.

The line between jealousy and envy can be easily blurred; they are both awful feelings that result in possible acts of lunacy, irrational behavior, self-loathing, betrayal, and doubt. 

The big difference is that with jealousy, you end up having to apologize to others; with envy, you end up having to apologize to yourself. 

Harder than saying “I’m sorry,” is letting yourself off the hook. 

It started out very innocently – I was simply scrolling through the status updates and pictures added by my friends on facebook.  It wasn’t until the 4^th or 5^th picture of a beautiful cityscape or ocean view that I started to wonder what I was doing wrong in my life.  Everyone had these vacation photos, or even worse – pictures of distant cities and attractions that their jobs sent them off to explore on the company dollar – while all I can see when i hold up my camera phone is my own two feet.   

Enter evny.   Enter the wishing I was as smart, successful, and accomplished as someone else.  Enter the anger because I’m not. 

I spiraled down this envy path for a while.  The brutality of the self-talk one goes through when tumbling down the well of envy is not pretty.   Thankfully, my friend called and interrupted me.   While she was talking about something that was upsetting her, I heard myself say, “you gotta cut yourself some slack.”

Why is it so easy to tell someone that she has to let herself off the hook when she’s doing her best, but almost impossible to believe it’s ok for ourselves?   

Because when we’re beating ourselves up for not having, doing, or getting the things that other people have, feeling sorry for ourselves is much easier than accepting our shortcomings as temporary grievances - that maybe we’re a work in progress. 

And while we are forever talented at doling out the good advice and not taking it ourselves, it’s important that we find a way to take it.  We need to let ourselves off the hook sometimes.  Letting ourselves off the hook doesn’t mean we accept our current lot in life; it means we’re ok with not accepting it.   It means we can recognize where we have room to grow and we can actively take steps towards it.  I may not be vacationing in a little villa on the greek islands, or making any vertical leaps in my career path anytime soon, but I know that I want to – and I know that I can put energy towards those things without the damaging internal monologue.   I can let myself off the hook.

My gratitude is two-fold today.  This may sound backwards, but I am grateful for feeling envious.  Because it’s an uncontrollable, automatic response, it’s a damn good indicator as to what it is we really want (whether it be superficial or deep. Whether it be actual things or the idea of being able to get the things).   Feeling envious is kind of a really round-about way of goal setting.  The important part here is not the envy-induced goals, but what you do with that list afterwards.  Give yourself a break.  Recognize what it is that you want and be ok with not having it.  Be ok with trying to tweak some parts in order to get it.  You wouldn’t tell a friend that she is doomed to forever be inadequate, so you shouldn’t tell yourself that either.  The next time you try to put the wind back in someone else’s sails, give yourself a break and feel the breeze, too

Grateful #38 - listening to our bodies. our temples.

It’s usually our brain.  The thing we fight against, the thing we battle with, plead with, sometimes lose the fight to – it’s usually our brain.  It’s usually our brain that we try to silence when we know we shouldn’t do something that we really want to do.  I am very familiar with this internal struggle, but this time, my brain is not the problem.

I do things to the extremes –when I love something, I love it to excess, and when I do not like something, I want nothing to do with it.  

I am also a creature of habit.   Add excess to habit, and you have the makings of a very good addict. 

My addiction is not exactly unhealthy.  I don’t do drugs and I only have a drink or two on very rare occasions; I know myself better than to think I could do those things in moderation, so I never made them a habit.  Drinking coffee, however, is something that I took out of the average 1-3 mugs per day range, and multiplied it by a billion.  If you look over in my direction, it’s a safe bet  that you’ll see a cup of coffee in my hand.  I didn’t realize how much coffee I was actually consuming, despite the running commentary my friends and family make every time they see me pour another cup.  To me, it was normal.  My normal.  My normal excess.   

So I decided to cut my coffee consumption in half.  While the motivation for this is probably a whole other diatribe in itself, the important part is that I was trying to un-excess something that I love.   And my brain was completely on board; for three weeks I drank 4 cups of coffee per day instead of 8.  I was not battling anything – I was simply drinking much less coffee.   Yesterday, however, time got away from me, when I noticed that it was almost midnight and I only had 3 cups of coffee all day.  I noticed this because my body rebelled against me and the headache that pounded through the walls of my head was so bad, that I had to make a cup of coffee at midnight in order to numb the pain.    

Addiction is mind over matter.  Unless it’s not.  Unless it’s something you can’t talk down off the ledge.  Unless it’s your body’s rebellion.   No matter how much you tell your head to stop hurting, you can’t talk it away.  There’s literally nothing you can do about that pain except endure it.    

I am grateful for the not-so-gentle reminder that our bodies really are our temples. When our bodies are rebelling against us, it’s time examine what we’re doing to cause the rebellion.  We can ignore so many of the things we do to our bodies because they don’t produce such a visceral effect; we can think the bad things away by ignoring them.  But I can’t ignore this; it’s big and bold and it’s telling me to be more conscious.   I often wonder if anyone ever really listens to me.  But more importantly,  I should actually stop and listen to myself, my body, first. 

Gratful #37 - my mom's handwriting

Whenever I see my mom’s handwriting, I smile.  Like a natural reflex, the underlined, words, dashes and exclamation marks truly incite the excitement.   Whether on an envelope, package, or note, my mom’s handwriting signals to me that she took the time to find a way to show me how much loves me. 

We see and hear things that remind us of the people we love fairly often.  It may be fleeting, but we all do it.   Sometimes, we even make a mental note to tell our loved ones that we thought of them.  Occasionally, we buy the card, the cute knick-knack, or the book that we know they would absolutely love.  And although we have the best intentions, it’s not as often that we actually follow through. 

My mom follows through. 

Seeing her handwriting means that she followed through.  A little gift just because.  A note to say hello.   A spontaneous care package.  Words of encouragement when I'm having a hard time.  Words of praise when I'm doing great things. 

For 17 years, since the day I moved away and went to college, I have not lived in the same state as my parents.  But for those 17 years, my mom’s handwriting has landed on my doorstep or in my mailbox many, many more times than the standard birthday card.  Especially in a time when sending an email is so much easier than writing a letter, going to the post office, or mailing a package, seeing my mom’s handwriting is one more things she has taught me about how to love someone.  By following through.  By doing the little things. 

As we are grow up, we notice ourselves doing things our mother’s do – and it’s some kind of coming-of-age joke to gasp in horror and swear that we said we would never be like our mothers!   But when I find myself following through by sending a card, writing a little note, or finding a creative way to show someone how much I care about them, I realize that there’s no one else in the world I would rather be like than my mom.

Grateful #36 - cold-calling and posters

As May rolls around, countless seniors are trying to wrap their minds around what it will be like when they go to college.  They’re scared, they’re excited, and they’re ready for that next big adventure they’ve being hearing about since they first started going to school.  In every single conversation I’ve had with them, I try to give them that extra boost of confidence that yes, they will make friends and no, they will not be sitting alone on a Friday night.  More worried about the social aspect than the academic aspect, these seniors are realizing that the built in group of friends they’ve had for years is suddenly going to go disperse, and they will be left to try to create other meaningful friendships that do not originate from something they had in common in the 2^nd grade, or from bonding over the time they got in trouble for laughing at the teacher in their freshman English class. 

Today, one of my students was lamenting about the possibility of getting stuck with horrible roommates.  I pointed out that she will probably get the names and numbers of her roommates ahead of time, which means she’ll get a chance to talk to them before she’s thrown in a room with them for a year.  And then I remembered getting the name and number of my first college roommate, Ellen.  Before the days of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, (and kind of right on the cusp of when email was used as a means of correspondence) my only choice was to call her.  On a land line.  I don’t really even remember the conversation; we probably discussed our majors, our hobbies, our boyfriend struggles, and the color of our comforters.   Bigger than all of those get-to-know-you questions, we went into the conversation WANTING to like each other.  And when we finally met in person in room 1311 of the East Tower, we instantly clicked.   

And then I thought about how current high school seniors will get to know their new roommates before they meet them. 

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. 

A very likely scenario:   Students are given the names and email addresses of  their future roommates.  A student will find her future roommate on facebook and begin to scroll through all of the future roommate’s pictures and judge her based on her clothes, her hair, what her friends look like, how many selfies she takes, and what her favorite bands are.   The senior will definitely compare herself to her future roommate, worry that her future roommate is prettier than she is, make up a story in her head about how her future roommate steals her friends and her love interest, and then have already decided that she hates her future roommate - before she has even seen or spoken to her. 

I wish it wasn’t that way – for as much as I use and love social media, it has it’s downfalls.  Pre-judgment will undoubtedly be the downfall that causes future college roommates to have to work really hard to be liked.

Besides, we tend to put things on our facebook pages that we want the world to see.  We only give a snipit of ourselves to the world, and it's usually the prettiest days, the happiest occasions, and the things that make us look good - we never upload photos of what we look like when we're feeling insecure, we never broadcast to the world how much we've been hurt by someone we cared about,  and we don't brag about our mistakes and our errors.   Our portraits on social media have few flaws; our reality is often quite the opposite.   

 I'm grateful for a poster that hangs on one of the classrooms  across from mine.   It says, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."  I think we forget that.  I think we forget that behind the Macbook Pro screen protectors, and all the URLs and the prom photos and pictures of our families and the posts about our best 5k time and checking in at our favorite restaurant- we are all fighting hard battles.    Human kindness, as my friend Melissa told me about her years of living abroad, is the one thing that all people, regardless of place in the world, have in common.  Tweet that. 

Grateful #35 (which is a coincidence) Ducks not in a row

I don’t know how it happened.  All of a sudden, I was at party with all my co-worker friends I’ve been teaching with over the last nine years, and I noticed that every single friend, save one, had a baby.  Or two.  I almost felt like an imposter.  I sat with this feeling for a few days and I came up with this:

I’m in that age bracket where everyone gets married and has children.   I average one or two weddings a summer and at least three or four baby showers a year.  At times I’ve felt a little far behind, but because I never really do anything on the same timeline as others, I’ve never really internalized my lack of marriage and baby in a negative way. 

 It could be my impending 35^th birthday.  It could be my sans-child status I take with me to parties and social gatherings.  It could be that my newsfeed on facebook has been overcrowded with ridiculously cute pics of babies holding bunnies, babies dressed like bunnies, or babies eating chocolate bunnies.  Whatever it is, something has been messing with my sense of accomplishment, equilibrium, and self-confidence.  

I think they named the life-crisis cycle incorrectly.  Instead of the quarter life crisis, (because when you’re 25 everything is a crisis, really) they need to add 10 years and call it the “why aren’t all my bunnies  ducks in a row crisis.”  Because 35 year-olds have things.  They’ve done their due diligence in their 20’s, and by the time they reach 35, they have stability, a husband or wife, friends, children, and a career.  I am not naïve; I do not believe that all 35 year-olds have all of these things.  However, as I think about my peers, I can honestly say that the vast majority of them do not have holes or gaps in the areas of marriage partners or children.   Not everyone is happy all the time either; marriages break up, children go through their terrible twos and their teenage angst, and some couples decide not to have children. But all in all, 35 year olds have things lined up in an attempt to secure a happy, meaningful life.   They don’t stare down the end of their 30’s and worry that they’re too old to have children or that they’re never going to meet the right person.

The thing that makes this life crisis the most challenging is that there are not many other 35 year olds with the same fears, challenges, problems, and concerns.   They are signing their kids up for daycare and paying exorbitant amounts of money to do so, taking their kids to little league, soccer practice, changing diapers, and finding a minute to spend time with their partner in order to maintain a healthy marriage.  Pitting my issues of not having enough time to go grocery shopping at the 3 different grocery stores I need to go to in order to satisfy all of my strange eating habits, wanting to find time to take a writing class, improving my backhand, paying off debt, finding people I would want to date and getting some quality time with my friends against a mom who has her own set of issues plus kids and possibly a spouse?  I lose every time.  I feel stupid for even pretending my struggle is hard.    

 And not many other 35 year-olds can relate; they’re too busy getting their kids ready for school, helping them with their homework, and then finding whatever time they can, to work on their own things whether it be for their job, their family, or themselves.  So it makes me quiet.  It makes me keep a lot of my daily struggles inside. 

But. While I may be missing some ducks, I can still quack.  Loudly.  That is to say, I can be bigger in other areas that my peers may not have access to anymore.  I can find someone to watch my dog and go on a vacation at the drop of a hat.  I can play tennis on 3 different teams without securing a babysitter before a match.  I can take classes on the weekends, make dinner the way I like it and I can take a writing class at night when everyone else is tucking in their kids, watching tv, and going to bed.  I can write in my blog without feeling guilty or bad about having me time. 

Putting a timer on my duck pond is like strapping a weight to the few ducks I do have.  I’m just going to let my ducks float for a while and see if I can pick some up along the way, because I do want to be madly in love with someone and I do want to have children.  I just need to have my own timeline.   This may be a strange thing to be grateful for, but I am grateful for that story, “The Ugly Duckling” – not because the ugly duck became a beautiful swan, but because there were so many ducks in a row and in the end, the one who wasn’t in a row was the happiest one of all.

Grateful #34 - Proactivenss AKA the 4th car is the charm.

My very first car was beautiful.   It had a sunroof, leather seats, a spoiler, and was adorned with 716 bumper stickers that told the drivers behind me that A)  I was obviously a teenager and B) I liked music, democrats, going against the norm, and clever sayings that reaffirmed my youth.   And while it looked so cool from the outside, I neglected to think about the inner workings of the car – the parts of the car that made it run.  I drove it through PA, NY, and everywhere in between, without so much as an oil change, a tire rotation, or a service check.  One day it literally just stopped working.   Every car I’ve had since then (save the car I have now) was given to me or handed down to me, and suffered a similar fate.  Learning from my mistakes takes me a few more mistakes than the rest of the world, apparently.

I bought my own brand new car a year and a half ago; funny that when you buy something yourself, you tend to treat it better.  Today I took my car in for its 10,000 mile routine service check.  Before something went wrong.  Before the check engine, check oil, check fluids, check battery, check everything lights came on.   Before I was stuck on the side of the road with smoke wafting out of the engine.  I am grateful for  finally doing something as a precautionary measure instead of as an emergency measure.  Never again do I want to get in my car and have to say a little prayer to the automotive gods that the warning lights on my dashboard don’t light up – it’s a feeling of impending doom.  A very expensive impending doom.

I’ve learned my lesson about taking care of things along the way instead of having to fix them after a catastrophe.  If I ever have kids, the 4^th one is going to be in great shape.   

Grateful #33 - The end of your comfort zone

Occasionally, I get stuck on Pinterest.  After I look at all the Do –It-Yourself projects that I can never do by myself, I tend to browse the quotes for some inspiration.  Tonight, I came across this picture of a girl jumping off of a cliff into a lake – arms wide open.  The quote read: Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.  The picture was almost identical to a picture of 22 year-old me jumping off of a cliff into a lake – arms wide open. 

I think about that day, back in Ithaca – I remember hiking out there with my friends, climbing up a huge embankment and pulling myself up a rope to reach the spot where everyone jumps – it was a cliff that jutted out maybe 2 feet from the embankment, which is not a lot of clearance room, especially since it’s a 30 foot drop.  My 3 friends jumped before I did - each one of them came back up, bobbing in the water, exhilarated.  I danced around the edge, and then I hurled myself into the air – arms wide open.   You're only in the air for a few seconds, but it feels like you're never going to hit the water - and all forethought about how you should positions your legs, or how you should hold your arms - it doesn't even matter.  At 9.8m/s/s all you can do is scream and ride it out.   Free-falling should be named in reverse.  It should be called falling-free.  Because that's how you feel.  Free.  

I am grateful for opportunities I've taken to break away from the routines, the average, the safe, the usual, the status quo, the normalcy – and hurl myself over any fear and past my comfort zone.  While jumping off of a cliff is a literal interpreation, there are many things that take you to the edge of your comfort zone -  it could be starting a new job, being in large social situations, dealing with loss, or learning something new.  

Maybe it's not that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, but that you grow into your life at the end of your comfort zone.  Because you're always living your life; you just may not feel it until you hit a growth spurt.  

Grateful#32-milestones

Milestones.  We remember them with such a warm, nostalgic fondness.  Our first kiss.  The day we got our driver’s license.   Throwing your graduation cap up in the air.  The day we moved into an apartment and our parents’ house was no longer what we meant when we said we were going home.  The memories come rushing back and bring that slow, wide smile – the kind where your teeth don’t show, and you raise your eyebrow as you realize you’re referring to these memories as the good ole days. 

As the coach of the high school tennis team, I have to say goodbye to a group of seniors every year.  The class of 2014 gave me 7 seniors that I absolutely adore, the biggest group to go through my tennis program. Tonight I held a senior night celebration to honor their athletic achievements.   This was the last home tennis match they will play in their high school tennis careers.  It wasn’t how they reacted to the medals, flowers, goodie bags, player bios being read aloud for everyone to hear, or the handshakes and hugs they got – it was the conversations I overhead that made me grateful for milestones. 

Overheard:

“who do you think will be the next me?”

“im totally going to come back and give a pep talk to next years team”

“we should come back from college over break and play tennis and do lunch”

On paper they may not sound like much, but watching them have this air of maturity (or at least acting like they have an air of maturity) brought me back to those same kinds of thoughts and emotions that I had when I was a senior in high school at my last tennis match.  I thought I was so cool, so mature – the same underclassmen I just played tennis with all season suddenly looked so sweet and innocent from my mature and grown up perspective. 

I stood there watching these seniors with flowers in hand, medals hanging around their necks, and I almost envied their innocence more than the innocence of the freshman.   I was watching these kids live out in real time the moments that in many year from now, they will refer to as the good ole days. It’s not often that moments are tangible, and thought it’s not my own milestone moment, I am holding it very close to my heart. 

Grateful #31 - The stars

The Sunday night blues sink in right after dinner.  The weekend is officially over; relaxation will be non-existent in about 12 hours.  I sit here with my laptop and some file folders and my calendar, shuffling each one around enough to make it seem like progress is happening.  But it’s not.  I looked up at the tv and there were stars all over the screen.  Fox was airing a show called, "Cosmos." 

There are a few things in this world that will literally take my breath away every single time.  I do not mean the rare, special, romantic, emotional, or extreme moments – those are a different kind of breathtaking.  I am talking about something that occurs fairly regularly, that despite it’s normalcy, still takes your breath away.  Every time.  One of those things is looking up at a star-filled sky.  I grew up in town that hosted brilliant constellations every night.   My trips to the planetarium as an elementary school kid brought the stars even closer to me.  As soon as Mr. Danner turned off the lights and put the stars on the ceiling, I was mesmerized.  (sidebar: just thinking about that while I’m writing – i remember how the room smelled, what his voice sounded like, how the plastic chairs felt when I leaned my head back as far as it could go…)  My eyes couldn’t take it all in fast enough and I was swirling about the room, (which I could have sworn was really moving) grabbing onto Orion’s belt while sliding down the big dipper.   As an adult, I have found myself in the magazine section of Barnes and Noble tracing the cover of Astronomy Magazine without even knowing why.   A few years ago, I lived near a church that had an outdoor spiral staircase that led to terrace on top of the building– there was one bench with a perfect view of the sky.   I sat there for hours some nights, simply getting sucked in by the gravitation pull of outer space. 

I am grateful for the way the stars in the sky is one place where getting lost is actually how you get found.    

Grateful #30 - not flying under the radar

For the first 18 (and depending on how far we go in school, 22-25) years of our lives, we get accustomed to hearing parents, teachers, and professors shout our praises when we do things well.  And though we learn how to be proud of ourselves without needing recognition from others, that extrinsic reward somehow means more.  For me, it’s never been about the money or the grade as much as it’s been about being able to hear someone I respect or admire tell me I’ve done well or think that I’m smart and creative. 

There’s a point, however, when we enter the workplace, when this constant feedback stops being constant.  We go through our daily grind, work our hardest, solve problems, put out fires, reconcile differences in people or numbers,  pack up and go home.   This is not to say that we don’t witness the value of our work from student achievement, client retention, or increased sales.   However, the acknowledgements from our bosses and colleagues are not as common anymore; they shout, “see you tomorrow!” or “have a good weekend!”  but those reaffirming praises we used to hear all the time have long since stopped.  As the years of being in the work force add up, we get used to it - we forget how good it made us feel when people stopped to notice our efforts. 

Perhaps that’s why I am writing this today –I had a significant moment that I wanted to relish in for a while.  When a colleague noticed my efforts AND said something about it – it was like I was given an A+ gold star, put on a float, and paraded around the room in all my glory.

Simple praise.  Literally the words were:  “You did a really good job.”  That’s all it took.  Adults are very quick to praise children, but we need to praise our peers, too.  I’m all for intrinsic motivation and having self-confidence on my own accord – but I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t want to hear that he or she is doing a good job.  It’s not the same as saying thank you – that’s kind, too, but that’s someone needing something and being thankful they got it from you.  The kind of praise I’m talking about is different.  It’s from someone who knows your job, does similar things that you do, and instead of thinking about him or herself, someone is taking the time to honor you.  The job YOU did.

I am grateful for not flying under the radar today.  And for the person who happened to look up and see me flying. 

Newfound Freedom

So, I decided not to hold myself accountable for this most recent bout of absenteeism.  I am entitled, I think.  But, I do feel particularly grateful for a few things today.  So, I’ve decided to share.

First, and this is a huge one, my son is medically stable.  His surgery was successful and his port is operational.  He is well.  I am able to administer medication (though with a lot of struggle and resistance) to him and, therefore, he is not in pain.  Score.

Second, as a direct result of this newfound freedom from seemingly crisis after crisis, and due to my ability to be (semi) self-reliant in the administration of his medication, we have been cleared for travel.

In two (2) days, for the first time since my son was born, we are going on a vacation. For those of you reading this and plotting a break in, my parents will be staying at our home.  Don’t even think about it.

I find it befitting that our first vacation will be to the Hemophilia Federation of America’s Annual Symposium (a big thanks to “you know who you are”), this year featuring an entire day devoted to the topic of the allergy my son has.  It was meant to be.  Our first vacation and my son is stable. Oh, it’s a fine time, indeed. 

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