Our House

Home.

This is the house we moved into when the kids were small.  This is the only house they remember.  They left for their first day of pre-K, kindergarten, and high school here.  They lost teeth in this house, believed in Santa in this house, and learned to tie shoes and ride bikes in this house.

This is the house with the hidey-spot closet under the stairs that heard the giggles of toddlers and the panting of scared dogs during tornado warnings.  It has the room upstairs that we have always called the toy room even when they never played up there.  All around you will see memories from trips and scars from daily living in this house.

This is the house where William smashed his two front teeth in and where Sophie denies knowing how it happened.  We stood on the curb in front of this house and watched as Maizy left for California and wondered how we got this old so quickly.  This is the house we all had the terrible flu in and we hunkered in the living room with a fire going for weeks; one of us recovering as another fell sick.  This is where we have nursed heartbreak and sadness, disappointment and defeat.  We learned to fall down and get back up again in this house.

This is the house that has shrieked with ten girls at a sleepover and listened to the whispering of secrets to friends.  It is where birthday parties were held and play-dates.  It is where our children brought home friends not only for themselves but for us as well.  We stretched and grew and became part of a community in this house.

This is the house where we fancied ourselves farmers and had a garden.  It is where morning glories opened and cardinals landed to chirp to us good mornings.  It is where our deck covers the back of the house and the front windows are still chipped from a hail storm long ago.  We brought home two dogs and have been here long enough to say goodbye to one.  We have watched wrinkles, grey hair, and toddlers become teenagers in this house.

This is the house in 2010 we were afraid we would lose.  We struggled to pay for it, struggled to maintain it, and somehow came through.  We spent our time inside it, we learned to make do with less and we turned towards each other and figured it out.  We held our breath and hoped the AC would make it one more summer at least five summers in a row.  We’ve ripped out the carpet and laughed about who chose the oatmeal-colored carpet.  We’ve walked on plywood floors for too long and bemoaned that oatmeal-colored carpet.  We’ve learned to fix the things that are broken; we’ve grown up a lot in this house.

This is the house that seems too big now.  It is a long drive to anywhere we need to be.  This is a house that yearns for little children and growing families.  It sighs because we are no longer that family.  It shelters us and stands with us, but it no longer supports the dynamics of our family.  It seems to be time for something smaller, better appointed, and less maintenance than this house.

This is the house that I thought we would live in forever.  This is the house I will go room to room before I leave, packing up the things and memories to take with us: the recorders I made all the kids play outside, the Christmases where William was so little and excited that he would shake, the way Sophie never ran when she was little, but galloped around and around the living room.  The kitchen where we ate so many wonderful meals, where we sat beleaguered trying to understand homework, where holidays happened despite having a dining room.   So much living happened in this house.

This is a house that we will not live in forever.  It will house a new family and their dreams of a forever home.  We will move on to a smaller home and miss some parts of this house, the deck, but not others, that toy room.  We will share memories of the house and the things that took place there and remember how the kids grew and we grew and our family grew.  We will smile about the red door, the crazy orange kitchen and lime-green laundry room.  We will groan about the garage door and scooter disaster, the kitchen sink, and the way grass never grew in spots around the yard.  We will continue to share the memories that happened in this house on Barbrook Drive and while we might no longer live here, we will forever hold it in our hearts as part of what we call home.

Walk the Line

I had a really good year teaching.  My classes were an interesting mix of kids and even the “bad” kids weren’t all that bad.  I had some students for the second year in a row and they would call me Mom and I would laugh until I read their senior reflections where they wrote about why they called me Mom and cried instead.  I had a class full of Creative Writers who didn’t want to write but that led to a girl in that class thanking me for showing her what it meant to be fierce and determined.  I had apathy, laziness, and students who swore like longshoremen but I also had laughter, some learning, and a network of coworkers I love and respect.  So, a good year, but teaching is a profession that can leave you feeling not only ineffective as a teacher but also as a person some days.  Teaching is stressful, demoralizing, degrading, chaotic, and pays terribly.  Teaching makes you really long for summer and the end of a long, hot summer makes you long to get back to teaching.  It’s a weird line that we walk.

I recently commented to a friend that my plan for this summer is to walk the line between self-care and selfish.  I spend the school year taking care of everyone else and being so busy in my brain, I rarely think about what I really want to do.  I am too busy thinking if I get that prescription after work I can also get a gallon of milk and bypass the grocery store for another two days, but if I go after work, I will also add twenty minutes to our commute.  It is very busy up in there and it is exhausting.  I’ve spent the first three weeks of summer sitting on my deck drinking coffee, watching birds, and simply being.  Self-care or selfish?  I’ve cooked a minimal amount of meals and reply with “huh” when the kids comment there is nothing to eat.  Selfish or self-care?  I plan some days around yoga and when I can get a nap in but that just seems sensible.

I feel like I am walking weird lines with all aspects of my summer life.  One of the lines all teachers walk is how much work to do over the summer.  It is thrilling to think that we throw our hands up in the air and run out the door after the students with sunscreen in one hand and a good book in the other, but we all end up working in one facet or another.  I spent a week with the incoming Freshman and am so incredibly grateful I do not teach Freshman and won’t see these kids for another two years.  I will also spend a week proctoring make-up exams because it is easy and pays well but not because I am a make-up exam fanatic.  I also have to write a curriculum for my new class!  A class about women!  Taught by me!  I am so excited and so scattered on where to start, how to structure it, what to do.  I am caught up in the fact that not only did this Women, Words, and Wisdom class make, it saw enough students sign up for two sections!  55 students want to learn about women and I am going to teach them and I’m not flustered, you’re flustered.  Work, do nothing, work, think you should be doing something, do a little something, go back to doing nothing, school starts.

Staying fit is definitely one line that is definitely seeing some zig-zagging this summer.  I froze my Camp Gladiator account because my knees hurt and because I didn’t want to work out at 6:10am three times a week in the summer; that craziness is for the school year.  However, as much as I proclaim that I might as well go round, I am not ready for elastic waistbands and snap-up housecoats, so I am walking the dog every morning and going to yoga as much as I can instead.  The other day it was 95 degrees in the yoga room with 61% humidity.  I have never, ever sweat that much in my entire life.  Rivers of sweat.  Oceans of sweat.  Detoxifying and purifying and healthy.  Surely, I followed that with green tea and a wheatgrass smoothie, right?  No.  I followed that with a shower, two beers and a sandwich that had not only chicken sausage on it, but bacon as well.  Zig. Zag.

Better one, or two?

One, or two?

Parenting teens is a tight-rope walk all the time, but one I have time to think about during the summer and not just react to like during the school year.  Sophie has a new job.  Great.  She still doesn’t drive.  Damn.  That’s on me and yet I keep saying it is on her.  She will be a Senior this year and I already find myself thinking “last this” or “last that”.  I have to stop that or I will make myself insane, but I also want to be sure I stop to appreciate all these "lasts" with her.  The boy would be on a screen 24/7 if he could and I waiver between standing over him with a whistle and a to-do list or hanging back and seeing if he realizes that he can and should do more.  I don’t think there are ever really any clear paths or decisions in parenting though, just lots of love and a little bit of common sense.  I hear them laughing and talking to one another after I go to bed and give myself a mental high-five for excellence in parenting and the very next day feel I have taught them nothing when dishes are piled in the sink because I didn’t ask anyone to empty the dishwasher.  Up, down, back, forth.

The other morning, I looked outside and noticed that our garbage can was the only out on the street and got worried.  Did I have it out on the wrong day? We couldn’t afford to miss because the boy brought an unemptied can back the week before and it was jam-packed and disgusting.  I stopped to consider trash pick-up days and had to stop because I didn’t even know what day of the week it was.  I didn’t even know what day of the week it was and that friends, is summertime magic at its finest.  So, no matter what lines I am walking, summer has its restorative hold on me and while I might be wondering what day it is, I won’t wonder for too long because I have birds to watch and coffee to drink out on the deck.

This New Year's Day

It is New Year's Day and I am sitting at a table crowded with Christmas decor that needs to be put away.  As I look on this untidy pile of snowmen and stockings and hand-crafted, misspelled schoolwork of years past, I find I am eager to get the mess off of the table yet hesitant to admit Christmas is over.  Admitting that Christmas is over means admitting that Winter Break is almost over.  Admitting that Winter Break is almost over means admitting that a new year is here.  There is a lot of pressure to perform in a new year.  Even typing new year makes me instantly associate it with "new me".  New year, new me.  Goals, resolutions, bigger, better, stronger, more.  What are my goals?  Where will I be?  How can I make 2019 better than ever?  

What if 2019 is not going to be my best year yet, but I appreciate it for the fact that I am living it?  Is that enough?  Do I have to buy into the hype, hoopla, and hyperbole that surrounds this gift of another year or can I just say "Cool, thanks"?  Do I need to be bigger, better, or stronger or can I rest in who I am?  As people, there is always room for improvement, don't get me wrong, but when do we get to rest in who we are, or like who we are, or appreciate who we are and what we offer the world?  

I have had ten days off and that makes me well-rested and contemplative.  I have exercised and napped.  I have feasted and watched what I was eating.  I have hiked and spent days in pajama pants.  I have read a book and watched too much Netflix.  I like how calm I feel at the end of a break and it leads me to wonder how I can be this person when school starts back up. The answer I keep coming to is self-care. Not self-love which would be a totally different kind of blog, or the self-improvement a New Year seems to demand, but self-care.  

Self-improvement can be good, but what are we doing for our self-care?  How can we present our best selves if we are continually pushing to be better, better, best?  I like to think of self-care as a pause, a reflection, a time-out to regroup and gather strength before setting back out into the world.  Maybe it is yoga, or a hot bath with a decadent bath bomb, or a glass of wine or most of those things all at once.  Maybe it is a can of soup for dinner so that you can read the last chapters in your book.  It could be getting up at 5am to exercise because you feel better during the day and not about how much you lift.  Maybe it is simply trying to be a good person and reminding others to try to do the same.  It is saying that you like things about yourself and nurturing those things rather than downplaying them or ignoring them entirely.  It is making time for the things that make you whole but might not be necessities.  It is finding time to listen, finding time to laugh, and finding a true connection to the people you surround yourself with.  

And really, may we all have one pure moment of bliss like this.

What if this new year we took time to celebrate the people that we are rather than trying to shape them into bigger, better, smarter, stronger, richer versions of ourselves?  What if the versions we sit in right now are enough?  I know that I will fail at things this year and I will also succeed.  I know that I will have classes that frustrate me to tears and classes that go so well I get goosebumps.  I will parent well but still miss opportunities to do it better.  I will love my husband and also take him for granted.  I will be a great friend and also the worst friend in the world.  I will feel happy with who I am and discouraged with myself as well.  I will be up and down, but what I want to do, and I hope that you do too, is I just want to live this year being me.  Not me trying to improve a thousand things, but me choosing to laugh in the car with my kids rather than itemizing what needs to be done when we get home.  Or me ignoring those same kids who are big enough to feed themselves and going someplace for me.  Me realizing that seventeen years into a marriage is no time to get lazy.  Me taking time for me so that I can truly appreciate this life and the people in it.  Me being present in my life and also being present in yours.  Self-care sounds like a much better alternative to self-improvement.

2019:  may it bring you joy and happiness and well-cared for versions of your self.