Celebrating our nation or whatever

Not pictured: Susan's mama bear freak out as the post-beer, post-fireworks, crowd-weary, hypervigilant, and stomach-achey side of me came raging out into sight. Guess I just get home sick.

Alright, here are the real highlights.

8th birthday party planning begins

And I felt like the Facebook gods were sending me a message (uh, duh, that's how the fascists in social media keep us hooked)...

GROUPON wants you to enjoy a party for up to 30 at its Niles location for 53% off!

Yes! Yes, I do want that! Oh wait, what's this....? Oh.

9 weeks in a cast. Torn ACL. Shit. Oh well, back to swimming in anxiety about how to celebrate Z's bday.

Tiny dancer

Calendar of events

So let's look at the calendar and see if we can make something work. If we can't then I need to know so I can make other plans.

Sure.

Or maybe I can stop making so many plans and just enjoy this lovely condo that I pay so much money to live in, and spend time with these sweet cats of which I took ownership and whom I care for daily. I'm just saying.

Thinking about finally buying some damn paint for my walls. Originally planned on doing a 4 seasons theme. Seems like a good time to follow through. What with 13 days off work and all. Okay?

Check in

I'm going to make a conscious effort to use this blog as a tool for checking in with myself. Seeing as how my work keeps getting busier, and social life and housekeeping never end, I have found that it's very much in my interest to have an intervention with myself as often as I can. To show myself some kindness, take some of the load off for a bit, put the worries and thoughts in a little container so they don't go all over and make a mess.

Lunch with Phil

About once a month I have lunch with a very trusted friend named Phil. Professionally, he is a strategy advisor of sorts. To me he is a life coach, a motivator. We talk mostly about me, about how I'm going through this rough patch in life, about how I'm going to overcome some major obstacles to get to a better place. He's Buddhist. He encourages me to follow my heart, rather than material or superficial things. He drew me a Venn diagram the first time we met...to illustrate that I exist in one circle, my ideal career in another, and that intersecting area, that's where I need to be. Lately I've been so caught up in the challenges he's assigned (such as "Try to meet 5 new people every week") and failing miserably. I ignored his email request to meet up this month, until he stubbornly asked a second time. All morning I worried about how I would disappoint him. So I decided to make that the focus of our conversation today. And to my surprise, my honesty paid off. I needed him to know that I've been feeling overwhelmed by all my responsibilities, to the point that I'm at a standstill. We touched on some very painful issues, and we talked about how I can solve them. We role played (he played my dad and I told him the thing that I've been too scared to say: "I still need your support, but you need to back off on my parenting choices"). I cried. He told me he still feels the same pressure, and that his own dad had just passed away...and that he misses him very much. Well, that put a whole different spin on the conversation. And it showed me that this fear never goes away. I left feeling so grateful for the opportunity to be candid. For the chance to open up without performance anxiety or fear of criticism. Everything felt a little more manageable after that.

Four decades

My fourth decade ended at midnight in the dark, appropriately, at the center of a circle of unbroken and unceasing love and kindness. My blood slow dancing and hiccups clumsily erupting in the aftermath of an $8 bottle of prosecco, and my baby, now so grown, hugging my shoulders heavily, her surrogate siblings looking on and asking for the 100th time why we don't just sleep over. Such a terribly* peaceful haze of love and acceptance it nearly suffocated me.

In the waning orange rays of a June sunset, the clouds seemed so full and light and radiant. They swelled as the air cooled, and burst, the vapor transforming into tiny droplets, then larger ones, too heavy to be suspended in the atmosphere above us. Brave tears filling up lower lids, a quivering lip, a tipping point. Clouds engorged, filled to critical mass with ether and wishes and prayers and purgatorial ghosts and red balloons and angels and demons and fairy dust and ultraviolet and magenta and gold. Spasms of lightning and unrestrained growls of thunder woke me like a fevery child, demanding I hear its cries. Then, all at once, the fever broke. Lulled back to slumber by the whisper of breaths nearby. My heart surrounded by a pillow of peace, shielded from the ticking of clocks and the light of the day that marks my 5th decade.