Internet Grapes

Election Day

Last night I had a nightmare. Geoff and I were downtown at church, for choir practice, I think, although I don't remember us singing. We were with some other people we know, but Katie and Annabel weren't with us. It was the golden hour of the evening, and sun was streaming slantedly through the stained glass windows of the sanctuary, and suddenly there was a deafening boom, and as we looked toward the sound, we could see billowing clouds of smoke and huge flames on the other side of the now broken glass, and I stood, stunned, not knowing what to do. A text popped up on my phone from Katie, and it said "please come home." My ears were ringing and I was terrified and turned to stone, and I thought to myself that I didn't know whether we would actually be able to get home, and I was worried about Katie and Annabel, but I didn't do anything. And then I woke up. 

It wasn't really time for me to get up for the day yet, but it was almost 4:30, and I decided I didn't want to take the chance of continuing that dream, so I woke up to get ready for the day, and in a flash I realized: it's election day. 

I was in the kitchen making coffee and putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher when I thought about my dream again, and thought about all of those times in recent memory that ordinary people have found themselves in tragic and terrifying situations, and I realized what I should have been doing while I was trapped there in the church: I should have been texting my daughter back, to tell her how much I loved her. I should have been texting everyone I loved, so that if they never saw me again, they would at least have that from me. It was my chance to say goodbye. 

A few weeks ago we had a lockdown at school, and although I've been in schools during lockdowns before, I hadn't ever experienced one at this school, and I hadn't ever experienced one when I was the full-time teacher. I hadn't expected the announcement, and I didn't know if it was a drill or not, and although the kids assumed it was, I wasn't so sure. We locked the door and turned off the lights and huddled in a corner of the room where we couldn't be seen from the windows to the hallway, and I tried to keep them quiet, which was a lot harder, I am sure, than it would have been if they'd had any idea that it might have been real. I thought about all of the news stories, all of the school shootings where the adults put themselves in the literal line of fire to save the kids they're with, and I realized that I would do that, too, although not without regret for my own family. But it would have to be me, because I am the one here with them, and there is no one else here to protect them, from something they should never have to be protected from in the first place. 

In 15 minutes, I am going to go vote. I hope you do, too. 

being human can be so dispiriting

 

I currently have a huge protruding cyst of acne on my right upper eyelid. It just so happens that this week I have also been reading Anne Lamott's Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace. It turns out these two things go well together, because it helps me feel like it is completely appropriate for me to metaphorically shake my fist at the heavens over the existence of this stupid disfiguring yet completely benign lump even while still living this amazingly blessedly wonderful life, populated by all of this beauty and all of these people I love who love me. 

See, for example, from the same book: "Being human can be so dispiriting. It is a real stretch for me a lot of the time."  And also: "I started skiing only six years ago, and tend to have balance and steering issues. I fall fairly often, and can't get up, but I enjoy the part between the spills, humiliation, and abject despair - sort of like real life."

This sums up a lot of how I've been feeling lately. I am really enjoying the parts between the spills, humiliation, and abject despair! Those parts include my sweet daughters (most of the time; let's be real), my husband (an even higher percentage of the time!), my mom & dad & stepmom & brother & his kids. Those parts include the days, like today, when the sun in the bright blue sky reflects off the pure white snow. The times when Katie and I watch Gilmore Girls together (up to season 4 now) and read books together (we just finished James & the Giant Peach and just started Lois Lowry's The Giver). The times when Annabel comes into the kitchen and starts dancing her very own crazy dance, then holds out her hand to invite me to join in. The moment yesterday evening, when I was in the kitchen, after a difficult and draining day at work, and saw Geoff approaching the back (kitchen) door from our garage in the deepening twilight and thought "home" at the sight of his face. These things, and so many more, are so ridiculously, abundantly good and joyous that when they are filling me with joy it seems crazy that I have any complaints at all. 

You will not be surprised to hear that I do. I mean, see above. Being human = dispiriting. 

Last March, almost a year ago now, I showed Katie some of the blog/journal posts that I had written to her when she was very young, much too young to read them. Last March she was turning 10, and I thought that she might be old enough to appreciate what I had written, and I think that I was right. She looked up at me with an excited face and asked, "Are you still writing these now?" And when I said that I wasn't, she looked like she might cry. "I keep wanting to write," I told her. "Write!" she said. "I want you to!" 

It has only taken about 11 months for me to sit down to do it. 

Right now, I am 44 (and a half!) years old. I am about 60 pounds lighter than I was up to and including September of 2013, and - partially related to that - I seem to have become a bit of a runner. I ran an official 5K last summer, and for awhile I was regularly running 2-3 miles two to three times a week most weeks. I haven't run much since December or so, when the paths & sidewalks became covered with snow and ice, but I am signed up to run a half marathon at the beginning of May, and my official training begins next Monday, February 8th, so I am going to get back out there whether it's ice covered or not. 

As of this summer, Geoff and I will have been together for 17 years, and last November we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. The years seem to be speeding along quickly, especially with respect to our children, who are now (almost) 11 (Katie, whose birthday is in 4 weeks), and 6 (and a half!) (Annabel) and in 5th and 1st grade, respectively. They are no longer very young children. They sleep through the night and dress themselves and get themselves snacks and sometimes do chores that we ask them to do. They are beautiful and intelligent and sometimes really obnoxious, and the other day I was thinking that while I still stand by my earlier disavowal of that notion (that I heard so often when pregnant with Katie) that parenthood "never gets any easier," I do think that possibly I am starting to know what people who said that might have actually meant, because while the day-to-day duties of parenting are so, so much easier than they used to be (since they sleep through the night, feed themselves & need no help going to the bathroom (they even wake up and make it to the toilet on time if they have to throw up in the night!), tell us what they want and what they're thinking and feeling, and spend most of each week day in school for almost 10 months out of the year), what's actually harder, for me, is knowing how to be a good parent. When they were little, even though I was exhausted by their neediness, I almost always felt like I was doing a good job as their mother - occasional issues with sleep training and potty training aside. And now, on a regular basis, I am not so sure. When do we stick to our guns no matter what? When do we give in based on logical & emotional arguments & negotiation tactics? When do we make exceptions for rules? Why can't they get along? How do I make them stop goofing off? Will the whining ever end? Why did I lose my temper and yell at them like that??! What kind of mother drops her child off at school in tears from being scolded? Is she going to be okay?

The other day I said to Geoff that I kind of wanted a new baby just so that I could feel, once again, that certainty that I knew that what I was doing was a good and right thing to do, even if all I was doing was just sitting in a rocking chair, snuggling that baby. 

I am also very aware that having babies gave me a sense of life purpose that having grade school children does not. It was all-encompassing, taking care of them, and it was an exception in time to the rest of the rules of life. And now, life has settled down, and we are all moving forward - except, I often feel, for me.

There are huge, vast parts of my life that could hardly be going better, but when it comes to money and career, the last five or six years have been full of (not just financial, but also emotional) struggle, each year in many ways becoming more difficult than the last. And so, since I am missing fulfillment in that part of my life, I give it an extreme measure of importance. That's what you do, in order to properly punish yourself for the things you haven't done as well as you thought you should have, right?

I think sometimes about what I would like to have taught my children, when I look back at their childhoods. What can I teach them that will make their lives easier? How can I help them reach a point in their lives where they feel that their lives are successful ones, and that they are getting to spend their time (most of it, anyway) the way that they would like to spend it? What is my sagest advice?

On my saddest, worst days, I think that I don't know anything, that I have no wisdom to impart to them other than telling them something about not doing as I have done. But life has so many myriad pathways that only being able to tell them "don't do that one thing" seems so useless as to be completely meaningless. (We are so hard on ourselves, sometimes.)

Two days before Christmas I bought myself a bracelet at Creative Women of the World that has the word "hope" stamped on it, and during the past few weeks, in the aftermath of Christmas & New Year's, and in the doldrums of January & February in Indiana, I have been wearing it.

Anne Lamott says that "hope is not about proving anything. It's choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim bleak shit anyone can throw at us." So I have been hoping, and trying to let the love be the biggest, most important part of my life, instead of spending so much time focusing on the crap.

And so, Katie and Annabel, because today is a good day, I have some sage words for you, after all, and they go like this:

Trust in your own value. Trust that I love you. Trust that your family will love you no matter what. Trust that I am proud of you. Trust that I believe in you and will support you.Trust that you are the best judge of what and who will make you happy. 

On the other hand, it is all right to change your mind about what you want and what makes you happy. It is ok to walk halfway down a path, realize that you are lost (or confused or bored), and decide to go back to the beginning or try to take a shortcut or decide to climb a tree or practice your dance moves or sit down and pitch a tent right there instead of continuing down the path at all.

I believe it is important to be honest, as often and as much as you can, especially with yourself. But I also believe it is even more important to be kind, especially to yourself. I believe it is important to allow yourself to be vulnerable, and I also believe that it's ok if that means that sometimes you end up getting wounded. I believe it is important to apologize when you have wounded someone else.

Notice the beauty in your life and be thankful for it. Do the best you can. Hope: dare to believe that love is bigger than all the grim bleak shit.

My love for you, my sweet beloved daughters, is bigger than all of that grim bleak shit; believe it. 

 

SOCK BUN HOMELAND WINNING!

Guess what? (CHICKEN BUTT!) 

It turns out that this preschool teaching gig is not a job where I can sit in front of the computer all day, taking 5 minute breaks every so often to browse the internet, to online shop, to jot down lines for a blog entry to finish up later. It turns out that the days go fast, the time for sitting down is short (and when it does happen, it usually just means that now it's time to keep an eagle eye on The Ones Who Cause Frequent Disruption & to separate them if necessary), and the mental energy required is large. Who knew? (WHO KNEW?) 

So this thing is happening where certain turns of phrase get shouted in my head. Like, for instance, the other day some online friends of mine were talking about and providing links to tutorials on sock buns (SOCK BUNS! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK BUNS!), so then I watched a couple, and became intrigued, and even though my hair is relatively short these days (above my shoulders when dry, although possibly when wet with all the curls mostly straightened out, it might be shoulder length), I was intrigued, and decided to try to put my hair into a SOCK BUN. And then I did. And then I had a SOCK BUN! on the top of my head, and I even took a picture of it. 

I am not even kidding: every time I look at that or think about it, I hear "SOCK BUN!" in my head. 

Also? There is this tv show Homeland (HOMELAND!), and it is a good show that Geoff and I love watching, but can never watch until Monday, the day after it has aired (because I can not possibly stay up to watch a show that begins at 10 pm, are you kidding me?), and during the day on Monday, when I thought about watching it that night, it was all HOMELAND! in my head. 

Last night I bribed Katie & Annabel with promises of 2 pieces of candy if they'd cooperate & stay in the church nursery while we finished up choir practice. Katie did, but Annabel didn't. Before Annabel could even whine much, Katie had offered to give one of her pieces of candy to Annabel. Moved by her spontaneous act of generosity toward the sister who she often can not come to a compromise with over something like who gets to use WHICH IDENTICAL PIECE OF WHITE PAPER, we let her. And today we came home to find that Molly had knocked over the entire trash can; while I cleaned up the mess, Katie took out the trash AND the recycling, then began sweeping the stairs. "I'm not doing this to get you to do anything for me," she said. "I'm just doing it because I want to."  At which point I thought to myself: older child in this house = WINNING!

 

thankful

From a Facebook status a couple of weeks ago:

A partial list of jobs I have held: babysitter, typist, front desk clerk at dorm, data entry clerk (at accounting firm, at bank, at blood bank administrative location), bookkeeper at bank, member of acting troupe, customer service rep (at power tool company), associate at law firm, claims attorney at title insurance company, photographer, copywriter, stay at home mom, communications assistant (at church). My "career trajectory" is scattershot. Heh. And soon, preschool teacher will join the list!

Yesterday I started a new job, unlike any other job I've ever done before. Well, I guess that's not completely true - it's got a lot of similarities with parenting - but it's unlike any other job I've ever done for a salary. Between 8 am and 3:30 pm, I worked as a preschool teacher at Annabel's preschool, which is run by a woman who's become a friend of ours since we moved to Fort Wayne. Right now I will be working there MWF. Next fall I might start working full-time. 

I had expected the start of a new job to feel much more momentous than this has felt. I have applied for some office jobs and then occasionally cried (yes, cried!) because I was very well qualified for the position and might actually get it and have to start over again with that corporate schedule: 9-5, 5 days a week, 10 or 11 paid company holidays a year, 5 sick days a year, 2 weeks of vacation. Once I was outside of that - and after I'd started over 3 times with 2 weeks of vacation and then earned more, only to be returned to the bottom rung of vacation again at a new job - it felt like some sort of prison, especially since I always imagined that whatever I was doing would be in an office with no windows, doing something I wasn't really that interested in that could be done the same way by anyone, that didn't make use of any (many?) of my specific talents or degrees or expertise. That's what I'd imagine, and I couldn't easily imagine many other alternatives. I have more clerical/legal/office experience than any other work experience. It made sense that if I became employed by someone again - rather than making a success of my own photography business, for instance - that I'd be doing that. 

Preschool teaching has come as a surprise. There was no job posting, no application (no cover letter, no resume), no confirmation of application received, no interview request, no interview, no job offer negotiation. I told Geoff a few weeks ago that I had been thinking that it would be worth telling L., the preschool director, that the next time she had a job opening, I'd be interested in applying for it; a few days later, when he picked up Annabel, he and L. talked about me coming in on Friday, and L. told Geoff that she was impressed by how good I was with the kids, which prompted Geoff to say that I'd been thinking I'd be interested in working there; the next morning, when I dropped Annabel off, she said, "So, Geoff tells me you'd like to work here. I would have asked you before, but I thought you were too busy! I can give you part-time starting in January, and full time in the fall if you want it." January got changed to December, and the money is a little less than I had anticipated, but otherwise it is kind of a dream job. For now, I'll be working 3 days a week. I'll take Annabel to school with me, spend the day with her and the other kids, and arrive home before Katie gets home from school. I'll have winter vacation along with the girls (and along with Geoff's teaching schedule), and I'll have summers off, too. In addition, I'll have Tuesdays & Thursdays to do any work for the part-time church job I'm doing, and/or to work on my photography business. (Also: to do housework, because ay yi yi.) 

I spent a lot of time in November thinking about what I was thankful for and posting about it on Facebook, and oh, dear reader, it is a lot. Really, it is almost everything, or almost everything that matters. I started out the month wanting to be humorous and silly and light, being thankful for peppermint mochas and chocolate chip cookies and twinkly lights at Christmas and paint from Benjamin Moore and Homeland and Dexter and Parenthood (and I am, in fact, thankful for all of those things), but as days went by on the way to Thanksgiving, I found myself posting about the big stuff, with little stuff thrown in, because basically, it came down to what I'd posted at the end of October: 

Here's the thing: over the past few years, I have been sad a lot, and felt hopeless fairly often, and wished for a different life than the one I have. So if I say things that make you roll your eyes from the saccharine Pollyanna sap of them, just ignore me. I am feeling so much better, and I am moved to share it. And with that said, allow me to say: I sure do love these three amazing human beings I live with. (I have thought that a lot this weekend.)

One woman commented, "So many people wear masks, so it is difficult for us to realize who they are and what they are feeling. Thanks for removing your mask and letting your friends in." And oh, that made me cry, because it was just right. Since I lost my job, and since we moved to Fort Wayne, I have worn a mask a lot. I am pretty sure that if you'd asked just about anyone at the church how I was doing, whether I was happy, they would have said yes, that I was fine, was pleasant, was chatty, was calm. It really is a shame to wear a mask most of the time, but how do you know when to take it off? If underneath the mask you are just destroyed, what is the point of showing everyone how poorly you're really doing? Most of the people who would see it would either not want to help, would not know how to help, would be offended, or would be profoundly uncomfortable, none of which would do me any good. 

These days, I hardly ever wear any kind of mask at all, and this sunlight, right here on my skin? That's good stuff. 

hope you guess my name

Oh, hello there! Do I know you? Some of you I do. Maybe some of you are new. I don't know who is who. (Maybe some of you like to chew blue glue in canoes! I don't; do you?) I have been blogging since 2000 (or, as we called it back then, "online journalling"), and over the years I've come and gone enough times that I've done quite a few introductions. 

The very first introduction is here, transferred over to this site from the old journal that I called "Internet Persona":  I'm not in the mood to introduce myself, even though that's probably how one should start a journal. Is that how I should start this journal? You (yes, you - who else is reading this besides you?) might like reading this more if you knew something about me. Of course, what are the chances that you (no, not you, the rest of you) are reading this if you don't know anything about me already?  I should do it anyway, shouldn't I? The short version, at least. For posterity...

After that there are some boring facts, some of which are still true, some of which are not. I am not 30 anymore; I am 42. I am not an attorney at a law firm, or an attorney at all (not really). I am still left handed and blue-eyed (sort of; they're more grayish greenish these days, it seems like). I have not been single in a little over a decade, having gotten married in November 2002 to the then-boyfriend that I was about to move in with back in August of 2000, and since 2004, I do have kid(s) (first Katie, then Annabel). I'm no longer in Chicago, although I am still in the U.S. midwest; I've been in Fort Wayne, Indiana since July 2010. 

I still drink a lot of diet Coke, I still listen to a lot of music, my name's still Jessamyn and most people still call me Jessie. I no longer dance around the living room for exercise, but a little over a month ago I started doing a Couch to 5K program (I had to take a couple of weeks off after I hurt my knees falling down the stairs. I hope to get back to it this week, after I'm recovered from this flu or whatever it is). 

It has been over 12 years, and so much has changed. I know that I have changed, too, but I also know that I am the same. I am the same me, deep down inside, as I have been since I was 2nd grade or earlier. Or at least it feels that way.  

Here's another introduction, this one from December 2010:  "Oh, hello there!  Let me introduce myself.  Actually, I have a hard time with introductions these days, because one of the first questions people ask is something about what you DO, and I don't have a good answer right now. I'm a stay at home mom, sort of.  I'm unemployed (and still collecting unemployment, for another week and a half). I'm a(n) aspiring photographer. I'm the wife of the director of music here at the church.  I sing in the choir. Grudgingly, but with a smile, I admit that I'm licensed as an attorney in Illinois, although not here in Indiana.

It turns out that I'm relatively uncomfortable with general uncertainty. (Gee, who knew?) I am happy, these days, most of the time, most of each day, with most of the parts of my life."

And then I talked about how I loved our home - the one we rented for the first two years we lived in Fort Wayne, until the landlord opted not to renew our lease this past summer and we had to move - and how I loved the feeling of possibility, how the days were passing quickly, how I'd been exploring my new surroundings, how overall, I was doing well. 

Sometime after that, everything went to hell.

I exaggerate. Not everything went to hell. Geoff's job has been fine, he and I remain glad to be together and grateful for each other, the girls are doing well, we've been generally very physically healthy. Nothing really went to hell, actually, except what was inside of me. I just...broke. I look back at what I was writing at the end of 2010, and I remember that not too long after I'd hit "publish," I was crying and feeling sad, not because anything I wrote was untrue, but because my state of mind was so fragile. I think maybe what eventually happened is that I got so tired of feeling crushed so often that my hopes rose less and less high, until my even keel was not a good thing, but rather some sort of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other death march that left me feeling numb on a good day, and semi-numb (but also worthless!) on a bad one. 

I have come through that. I no longer think that a robot would be able to parent my daughters as well or better than I do. I no longer think that the world would be a better place without me here. I no longer wonder how I will make it through the next day or the next week or the next month or the next year. I no longer believe that I'm unworthy of love. (It feels crazy to type all of that, even; it seems ludicrous to act like I felt that way. Who feels that way? That's so melodramatic! And yes, I guess it was. But yes, I definitely did.) 

I'm Jessamyn, and most people still call me Jessie. I work part-time as Communications Assistant for the church where my husband Geoff is the director of music & organist. I sing in both of the church choirs he directs, and sometimes I even sing a solo. I am trying to launch a photography business, and am enrolled in a certificate program at the local university for (would be) professional photographers. Starting this Thursday, I will also be working part-time as a preschool teacher at my 4 year old daughter Annabel's preschool. Geoff's three jobs are as the church music director, as music instructor at the university, and as accompanist & assistant director of the choirs at the university. Katie is in 3rd grade at an arts magnet school, where she's taking violin and piano and choir and dance. She also loves art and is a great reader who's recently discovered she's also good at math. We live in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in an old house that we bought this summer; there's a lot I'd like to change about it, but there's also a lot I love about it, including the yard, the three toilets, the skylight in our bedroom, our very own washer & dryer in the basement, a great wooden deck off the back door. Since we moved in, I have painted every downstairs room. 

I am left handed, and I drink a lot of diet Coke, although not as much as I used to. Now I also drink coffee, and I always have water on hand. I have one brother, and he has two children, my niece and nephew. My dad & stepmom, my mom, my brother & his kids all live about an hour and a half away from us, which I love, even though I still don't feel like I see them enough. Our days are busy, which is almost always a good thing. I am on a near constant quest to eat better and get more exercise and lose some weight (three separate goals, really, although I recognize they're all related), and right now is no exception. I'm 42 years old, and I have given up thinking that my career path is going to have any sort of linearity to it. But I have not given up hope that I will enjoy what I do for a living. 

It's nice to be here. I hope you'll be back.