Category: Family

On Writing My Own Job

posted 29th April 2012    Written by: Sarah    CATEGORY: Creativity, Family, Job/Career/Work, Sarah

I never pictured myself the entreprenurial type.  The idea of striking out and doing anything on my own felt painfully uncomfortable.  I don’t know anything about running a business.  How could any take me seriously?

I’m a super rule follower.  That’s probably why I ended up with a government major and a government job.  The government provides tons of manuals and rules and requirements.  You don’t have to come up with anything yourself.  In fact, it would best if you didn’t.

But it turns out I wasn’t so well suited to cubicle work.

After Kate was born and Dan and I decided I’d stay home with her, I not-so-secretly found myself gleeful over getting to leave the workforce.  Not that motherhood doesn’t offer it’s own set of challenges.  Really, it should come with combat pay.  But motherhood wouldn’t require me to input data into spreadsheets that I didn’t understand or care about.

So I quit my job and made motherhood my full time job.  But that didn’t feel that great either.  I needed something else, something more to get back to my identity and the Sarah I knew before she was a wife and a mother.

In the height of the loneliness and identityless feelings, I looked back on all my previous jobs.  Did I want to go back to work full time?  Where?  Back to a job like all the other jobs I left?

When I thought back to my employment history, it read like a textbook case of a misplaced girl with a liberal arts BA and public policy Masters.  And nothing about those jobs said “Sarah.”  They only said “traditional path.”

Since I’m a rule follower, I assumed that traditional path was the only path.  The only right path.  There could be no other way.  You don’t just make your own way!  That would break about 565,598,716,894 rules in my Good Girl Playbook.

But I finally saw what all those jobs didn’t have in common.  Anything I loved doing.

It was all rote, paperworking stuff, Excel-filled, jammed printer trauma drama.  Nothing I did felt important or meaningful.  I’m pretty sure no one was interested in my thoughts and ideas.

Writing, sharing, storytelling.  That’s the stuff I love.  I started my blog because work crushed my soul.  So after I left the traditional work force, I wanted to more with my writing.

But I was scared.

I didn’t get a degree in writing.  Or blogging.  Or social media.  Or creative endeavors.

Who was I to call myself a writer?

But I knew I didn’t want to go back to anything I’ve done before.  So maybe it was time to do my own thing.

Coming up with something I loved to do while still being Kate’s mom presented a challenge.  I still wanted to stay home with her.  But I needed something outside motherhood that made me feel good about myself.

So I started toying with the idea of freelancing.  Freelancing is a tough road.  One just doesn’t decide to be a freelancer and sit back while publications vie for one’s writing.  It would require putting myself out there and selling myself, two things I don’t find particularly comfortable.

I almost quit when I realized I would need to write pitches and send them to editors.  Unsolicited.  And say I’m the best writer to take on that pitch.

Oftentimes I find myself falling back into these old constructs where I decide I can’t fully embrace this newer, stronger version of myself because that’s not how I’ve always seen myself.  I’ve fallen all over the less-than-confident spectrum throughout my life.  I’ve told myself, oh I could never do that, for no reason other than I just decided I could never be good enough.

Owning my talents and skills is not my best thing.  And telling other people about my skills and talents?  No, thanks.

But after becomming part of the Stratejoy community, I saw these other young women who admitted, yes, it’s scary to put yourself out there and do new things, but what they have to give is meaningful and valueable and so worth celebrating.

So I decided to take a risk and pursue freelancing with everything I had.  I made a website.  Contacted publications.  Pitched articles.

Sometimes I heard a thanks, but no thanks.  Sometimes the editors didn’t email me back at all.  But one time I got back a yes.  And that one yes was all I needed to start owning my new path.

My first article came out in Washington Parent Magazine this month.  Seeing my name in print just about blows my mind.

When people used to ask me what I did, I used to mumble and fumble around for words and say oh, I’m just a stay at home mom.  But now when people ask me about myself, I say with confidence, I’m a writer.  I blog.  I freelance.  And I’m a mom, too.

Setting up my own rule book?  Yeah, it feels pretty good.

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Piñatas, Candles, Cute Dresses Oh My!

posted 27th April 2012    Written by: Camila    CATEGORY: All Posts, Camila, Events, Family, Job/Career/Work, Love/Relationships, Season 6, Travel, Travel/Adventure

My grandmother was 25 years old when she had my mother. My mama was 25 when she had me. Tomorrow, I turn 25 and I have no babies on the way and I find it strange that I’m considered an “adult” because frankly I don’t always feel like one.

Holy. Shit.

I’m turning a quarter-of-a-century tomorrow! I remember turning twenty and crying because I was saying hasta la vista to my childhood.

How am I going to celebrate reaching this epic age? Perhaps I’ll have cake, go out for a high tea, take a trip with Geoffrey to the gorges Ithaca. Maybe… I’ll even by myself a present like a cute dress or tickets to go to a Broadway show. Until then it’s time for a little speculation on the 30 things I’d like to accomplish before I turn 30 because I’m a list maker, and it makes sense to make an age related checklist before my it turns 10:10 tomorrow morning and I turn the big 2-5.

30 before 30

1 ) Get married (I know this is cheating a little since it’s already in the works, but I thought I’d include it anyway).

2 ) Spend one season growing and nourishing a garden. This garden would of course include tomatoes, snap peas, basil, and I’m going to try for beets too.

3 ) Travel to India with my fiance. During this trip visit Mother Theresa’s Sisters of Charity in Kolkata, set foot in the Indian Ocean, stay in an Ashram, visit Dharamsala (preferably when His Holiness the Dalai Lama is there), stay in Auroville, and of course visit some artisans.

4 ) Get into graduate school and go! This doesn’t mean I have to have my PhD by the time I’m 30 I just have to be well on my way towards obtaining that doctorate.

5 ) Learn how to make the following food items: spanikopita, cheese, cream puffs, jam, chutney and tiramisu.

6 ) Attend Burning Man with Geoffrey. I get bonus points if my siblings go too.

7 ) Walk the road to Santiago with my sister. If you’ve ever read Paulo Coelho’s The Pilgramage, this is our inspiration.

8 ) Take the train across Canada. This journey must include my lovely friend Kristin.

9 ) Visit Iceland. Have you seen pictures of the place? It’s absolutely stunning!

10 ) Sew a dress all by myself. Part two of this is to design and then sew another dress all by myself.

11 ) Make a quilt… you know, while we’re on the topic of sewing.

12 ) Become fluent in Spanish, continue with my Kiswahili, and begin learning French.

13 ) Have a little kiddo.

14 ) Read the following books: The Bible, The Qur’an, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Upanishads, The Tao Te Ching

15 ) Attend the Gandhi-King Conference. If possible be a speaker at the conference.

16 ) Go through Kingian non-violence training.

17 ) Sleep in a ger in Mongolia.

18 ) Go to Carnavale in Venice, Italy. Costumes must be worn.

19 ) Be in Mexico for The Day of The Dead.

20 ) Take part in Holi in India.

21 ) Go para-sailing. It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do. I might as well right? It looks riveting.

22 ) Get something published. This could be a poem in a magazine, or a novel, or an article in a newspaper.

23 ) Learn how to play the guitar. I was given a guitar when I was 13 and I still have yet to play it correctly.

24 ) Take part in NaNoWriMo and complete a novel.

25 ) Perform some of my poetry in front of a crowd. Eek!

26 ) Go to another film festival. Possible options include The Sundance Film Festival, The Toronto International Film Festival, or another one.

27 ) Meet someone I consider famous like Josh Ritter, Lila Downs, Nelson Mandela, Paulo Coelho, Andrea Gibson, etc.

28 ) Make exercise a routine part of life. Join a gym, take a dance class, or learn how to rock climb.

29 )Visit Coney Island before leaving the East Coast. Take lots of pictures.

30 ) Fully take part in these five years living in the moment, loving life, and giving it my all. I’m making this a goal because sometimes I forget to just enjoy myself.

Adieu my first quarter of a century. Farewell to braces and poor fashion choices. Sayonara growth spurts and puberty. Ciao school and living with parents. Goodbye intentional poverty and youth.

Hello Life 2.0. Welcome health and family. Greetings achievement and more travel. Enter in beauty, spirituality, and appreciation. I greet you my next 25 years with my arms wide open. I just think it might need to start with a piñata.

Photo Credit: smarnad

 

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Radical Acceptance

posted 22nd April 2012    Written by: Sarah    CATEGORY: All Posts, Family, Quarterlife Crisis, Sarah

“How did you do this?  How did you entertain me for hours on end and not got crazy?  I won’t be mad if you said sometimes hid in the bathroom.”

My mom’s laugh comes through the phone as I press speaker and redirect Kate’s crayon-filled hands from my walls to her Elmo coloring book.

“I don’t know, toddlers are tough,” she said.  “This is the time when you need to practice some radical acceptance.”

Radical acceptance.

She’s said that before.

And each time I’ve wanted to throw myself on the floor like my toddler and kick and scream because I don’t want to accept.

I want to change things.

I want motherhood to be easier so I can get things done.  I want more time to myself to think.  I want to ward off temper tantrums.  I want Kate to nap in the afternoon, so I can pursue things that are important to me.  I want some space.  I want her to eat her dinner instead of throwing it to the dog.  I want to come up with bunches of stuff for her to do instead of millions of boring trips to the same park.

But in this moment in my life, there are just things I can’t change.  I can’t change how long she naps or temper tantrums.  I can’t change the little time I get to myself.  I can’t change her age or my age or where we are in life right now.

So it seems the only thing to do is accept.

Acceptance is my achilles heel.  My arch nemisis.  For a girl like me who likes to change and do and be better, acceptance is not something I take to kindly.

Because acceptance feels like giving up.

Like if I accepted my life stage just how it is, that I would die inside from a lack of ambition.  All my gumption would dry up.  And then there’d be nothing left.

The thing I like most about myself also ends up making me an enemy of myself.  This insistance on doing more and being more keeps me motivated.  But it also drives me crazy when circumstances force me to slow down.

But railing against my life isn’t working.  I’m not a nice friend or parent or spouse.  I feel disjoined, irritable, unhappy for no particular reason.  Like there’s some invisible irritant poking and proding me until I can’t bear the weight of the frustration another moment.

So ruminating and fixating on how I want to change things isn’t working.  There has to be a better way.

And maybe that way is radical acceptance.

And maybe it’s not about giving up.

Maybe it’s about being okay with what is in this moment.

It’s not acquiescence.  Or a tacit agreement with myself to live in mediocrity because that’s easier.  But rather acknowledging those feelings of frustrations in my life and allowing myself to lean into the frustrations.  Instead of spending all my energy pummeling my frustrations until they bounce back in my face, I accept those feelings and let them wash over me.

I don’t have to like every moment of everyday.  But I also don’t have to spend every moment of everyday fighting myself.

In a way, radical acceptance is freedom.  I can’t be doing more or being more.  Because much of my day is out of my hands.  I acknowledge I feel thwarted.  But I don’t let that feeling carry me away.

I radically accept that I have a toddler who’s wishes and demands are unpredictable.

I radically accept that I might not get time for myself today.

I radically accept that my days don’t always go as planned.

I radically accept that the things I want to accomplish might take days or weeks or months.

I radically accept that this season of my life is a challenging one.

And I radically accept those sweet hugs and kisses from my toddler, any time together Dan and I have to be a couple instead of a couple of parents, and for all those times when I release the frustrations and set myself free.

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The Memory Keeper’s Granddaughter

posted 15th April 2012    Written by: Sarah    CATEGORY: All Posts, Family, Quarterlife Crisis, Sarah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Grandma, me, and Kate at three months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My sister, Megan, Kate at twelve months, and my Grandma.

For the third time that evening she asked me where I live.

You know where I live, Grandma.  Same place I’ve lived for a long time now.  With Dan and Kate.  The house with the black shutters?  Remember how my daffodils are coming up?  We talked about that.

My family moved to Virginia the summer before my 8th grade year.  We picked a house five minutes down the road from my Grandma.  She’d been a widower for a while by then, still living in a house much too big for one person.  But she kept herself busy, worked a couple of hours a week.

Middle school was a rough time for me.  I was the new girl with a mouth full of braces and curvier than my narrow-hipped friends.  And my parents and I got into it with the usual teenage angst stuff that ended with me slamming my door and it coming off the hinges as punishment.

But I had an ally.

My Grandma Rosemary, my mom’s mom, and for whom I get the Rosemary in Sarah Rosemary, became my confidant.

I’d call her up when my mom refused to buy me the latest and greatest jeans, and she’d drive on over in her white Subaru and take me shopping and out to lunch.

After school I’d walk over and she’d pour me a diet Coke and offer me her signature, baked-to-a-crisp, chocolate oatmeal cookies while I whinned about mean middle school girls and how my parents didn’t understand me.

When I got my driver’s license, she let me drive her all over town.  Whenever my parents said no because they were in a hurry, I knew I could count on my Grandma.  She’d hand over her keys without me asking and away we’d go.  She never cared where we went, hasseled me over my following distance, or braced herself when approaching a stop sign.

One time my parents were out of town, so my sister and I spent the night at my Grandma’s.  I needed to get up early for my morning shift at the vet, so I jumped into my parent’s van at the top of my Grandma’s curvy driveway.

It was dark.  I was a new driver.  Backing up was not my best thing.

Misjudging the path down the driveway, I veered too far to the left, smashing into a fire hydrant.

I slammed the van into park and got out to assess the damage.  I broke the tail light.  Bits and pieces of reflective red plastic littered the grass.

My Grandma padded down the driveway in her dog-chewed slippers and picked up the largest piece of tail light.  Maybe we can glue it back together she said.

She told me she’d take care of it, just to get back in the car and go onto work.  I spent the day in knots, wondering just how my parents planned to kill me.  When I got back to my Grandma’s house she said she had a plan.

This is how it’s going to go she said.  I’m going to call your dad and say I did it.

I was pretty sure letting my Grandma take the fall for me would rank me up there as one of the Worst Grandchildren in History, so I told her thanks, but no thanks, to let me face my parent’s wrath myself.

She nodded and started dialing my Dad’s number.  When he answered she put on her best gruff voice and said now Michael, Sarah has something to tell you, and you better not yell at her.  It’s not her fault.  She’s only 16.

I got in pretty big trouble for that broken tail light.  And I shelled $80 for the repair.  But my Grandma softened the blow.

But now, when I look into her eyes, I see symptons of the disease taking over her mind, her thoughts.  I repeat the same answers over and over again.  Calmly explain remember, we had to sell your car when she calls me up and asks what happened to her Subaru.  Print out a list of family members and friend’s names, phone numbers, and birthdays in size 100 font to tape up on her fridge.

My Grandmother’s 85.  But it feels like she left me years ago.  She gets frustrated and angry.  Upset with herself, my mother, me, the cashier at CVS.  Doesn’t understand this world we live in.

When I suffered through my mini-teenage crisis, my Grandma came to my rescue.  Now, at this quarterlife crisis stage, I can’t call her up to moan about feeling lonely in motherhood or complain about Dan’s travel schedule because I’d have to remind her who Dan is.

It’s almost as if we’re both moving through a life crisis, her at the end of her life and me, in so many ways, just beginning.  When I brace her for a hug, I wish her mind would come back and she’d be my confidant, help me through my QLC with her sage-y grandma-isms.  But I know she won’t.  So I’ll help her.  I’ll keep reminding her, repeating answers, filling those gaps in her memory to keep her spirit alive.

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Mothering with Confidence

posted 8th April 2012    Written by: Sarah    CATEGORY: All Posts, Family, Quarterlife Crisis, Sarah

I didn’t take any parenting classes.  No birthing classes, breastfeeding classes, taking care of infants classes.

As I sat in front of my computer around 30 weeks pregnant, one hand scrolling through the hospital’s class listings and the other hand feeling my daughter punch and kick through my round belly, I decided we’d wing it.

I didn’t want to tour the hospital.  What could I learn about nursing before I had a baby to nurse?  Spending an entire Saturday and Sunday talking about birthing a baby when no one could say with certainty how she’d arrive felt like a waste.

I had a copy of What To Expect (also known as Start Freaking Out Now), that I’d thumb through and immediately put down when it started to verge into the this probably won’t happen to you but let’s get you all nervous anyway territory.

So I gave up parenting books.  And parenting classes.  Parenting websites.  Growing baby newsletter updates.  I dutifully checked in with my OB at our scheduled appointments, peed in numerous cups, drank nasty orange glucose-checking serums, slathered up in blue goo for ultrasound appointments.  I listened to my OB and my OB only.

When labor came on out of nowhere, I felt calm.  My OB would be there.  This was happening. Everything would be okay.

Kate delivered just fine.  No issues.  Healthy baby, healthy mama.

And then she had jaundice and I completely melted down.

Now I know that jaundice is no big deal, as a first time mom, it threw me for a loop.  How did this happen?  I bet they covered this in those stupid parenting classes.  Clearly I am a bad mother.

And so it began.

I’m a bad mother became my refrain.

Whatever bouts of confidence in myself I had before Kate vanished once I held that jaundiced-yellow baby in my arms.  I cried every single day.  Multiple times a day.  Slept with my face next to hers.  With one eye open.  Until I just about ran myself ragged.

Why did I think I could do this?  Clearly, I wasn’t meant to be a mother.  I second-guessed myself from minute to minute.  Should I let her cry or go get her?  Hmm…does she have a cold or something worse?  Should I force her to drink from the bottle?  How much tummy time have I done today?  She’s getting too much sun.  Or not enough.  Isn’t there something I’m supposed to be doing about Vitamin D?

I tormented myself.  Then I got caught up in what every other mother was doing.  What book is she reading?  Well then I better read that, too.  Oh wait, maybe I should read this book as well.  Wait.  Those books contradict each other.  Aren’t you people supposed to be experts?  What am I supposed to do?

Somewhere around six months, I gave up all parenting stuff.  No more books.  No more advice.  No more parenting websites.  All that stuff just served to make me distrust myself.  I kept searching for answers that weren’t there.  Because all that advice was about some fictional baby.  And my baby was Kate.

So I started listening to my instincts instead.  When I thought Kate was hungry, I fed her.  When I thought she was sleepy, I put her down for a nap.  When I thought her cries were really whines, I let her go.  When I thought her cries meant she needed mama, I went to her.

And I started doing better.  And Kate became less fussy.

Now, as Kate is almost two, I feel I’m back at that newborn stage again.  While we’re past breastfeeding and swaddling, issues like very public displays of tantrums, “no,” and refusal to eat anything besides goldfish have become my new battle grounds.

And, of course, there are all sorts of books and advice on how to deal with these Terrible Twos.

Everyone has a theory.  And there’s is best.  So when I listen to moms debate when and how to potty train, I get that anxious feeling in my stomach.  Is that what I should do?  Gosh, I don’t have a plan for that yet.  I better do that.  Like yesterday.

There’s nothing like parenting to make you feel like a failure.

But there’s also nothing like parenting that makes you feel empowered to grow and nurture and support your baby in a way that only you know how.

The other day at the park a mom and I were talking about parenting toddlers.  I was telling her some stuff that seems to work for me – at least for now.  She eagerly took my advice and asked what book I was using.  I laughed and said I came up with this stuff on my own.  From being Kate’s mom.

The thing about kids is, there’s always something.  And I know parents like me worry every day, hoping they said and did the right things.  But maybe there is no right thing.  And while sometimes I watch Kate run across the playground, and I think I don’t know what tomorrow will bring or if I’m ready for it, I figure I’ll just do the best I can.  And perhaps wing it.

 

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