Dear 2020...don't let the door hit you...

Dear 2020, 

Well. What a difference a year makes, eh?

• A year ago, I was all about “the end of a decade and the beginning of a decade” jokes.

• A year ago, I was worried about the state of the world, but felt distant and safe from where I sat.

• A year ago, I felt at peace with myself in a way I hadn’t before and felt so fortunate to feel that way.

• A year ago, I was working out with others in a space that I loved and doing things with my body that I could hardly imagine doing.

• A year ago, I felt safe and happy around my bustling school and loved that feeling of belonging that came with being part of a community.

• A year ago, there were gross inequities in education across our country, lack of technology that was a given for others, but only a few really talked about it.

• A year ago, people could pretend that civil rights battles were a thing of the past, even though deep down they probably knew better.

• A year ago, a global pandemic was the stuff of horror movies.

• A year ago, it would have been laughable to think that the idea of protecting fellow citizens in the name of public health was something that could be politicized in such a way that people would deny there was anything wrong, or worse, use a laughing emoji as a reaction to a post about a fellow countryman’s death.

How was I to know what you had in store for us all?  In my world, as excited as I was to welcome you, by the end of the very first day, I was ready to send you back. Fear and trauma in my own family gave way to grief and sadness for friends, big losses in my community, and finally so much loss, anger and anxiety in the world. I’m honestly not sure rehashing the year is the direction I want to take, since just about every other person who has something to say today is already doing that. Instead, more and more lately, I can’t help but think there’s a reason we all (collectively) have experienced this hard year together. 

Brene Brown refers to the big events that people experience together as “collective effervescence,” an “experience of connection, communal emotion, and a ‘sensation of sacredness’ that happens when we are a part of something bigger than us.” She writes that she got the term from a Dutch social scientist and ever since I read it a few years ago, it’s stayed with me and I come back to it. A lot. Usually thinking of big, happy events. A great rock concert attended as a teen and finding out that a current friend was there that night, too. The day it snowed in Miami. The day your team won the big championship (looking at you, '72 Dolphins). But sad ones, too. 9/11. The Challenger explosion. The day John Lennon died. And now, 2020. 

There has to be a reason, or a lesson, or even a moral to this crazy story. So many times this year, I’ve thought, “No. Seriously…this isn’t really happening. Right?” And then, of course, “Oh. Yes. It is.” Maybe it was the message to slow down. Maybe it was that we need to take a time-out and figure out what our priorities are, as individuals, as communities, as a country, as a world. Maybe we’re supposed to fix the things that are wrong. Maybe we’ll never really know because we’re too busy fighting. With each other. With the messenger. With the message.

2020, when I look back at you, I know that part of your lasting mark will be the memory of loss, tears shed and anxiety. The year we said goodbye to our beloved dog, the year of "virtual" graduations and everything else. The year of curbside pickup and words we'd all probably prefer never to hear again (looking at you, Unprecedented, pod, pivot and hoax). 

But I don't think that tells the whole story. I think your legacy will also be the beauty noticed in everyday things. A gorgeous sunrise on an early morning walk, or an equally as gorgeous sunset on a different day’s later walk. Cooking dinner at home, night, after night, after night. People met in my neighborhood during daily walks; different “regulars” depending on time of day, most ready with a wave and "Hello." And when you stop seeing someone, having a little tug of concern, even if you don’t know them well enough to check on them. A global explosion of creative expression and compassion in a world that so often feels less than kind.

I’ll look back on you as the year you almost took my love from me, but then didn't, and we found new ways to live and be grateful for what we have; the year you brought my immediate family together, under one roof, for a time. At a time when, while getting used to and sort of digging the empty nest, having us all together felt safe and right and like a gift that was most unexpected. Realizing, as an extrovert, that I might actually just prefer being at home with my people and that might not be a terrible thing. And really, maybe the biggest take away for me is how much the things I need the most, the things that sustain me the most, have been right in front of me all along. And I didn’t have to get stuck in a twister and go on a journey to a strange land with a scarecrow, tin man and lion to figure it out.

I don’t know what your successor has on tap for us. I certainly don’t harbor any illusion that 2021 will magically put us in a happy place where we’re all singing “Kumbaya” together. I’ve spent enough time deep in thought over  the past 10 months, trying to imagine how others in past eras responded to their own hard times. They pushed through, they found the strength and courage to do the tough things. And that’s what I hope we can do, too. 

Happy New Year, 2020...don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Love,

Jen

Halftime for 2020

December 31, 2019. I was all about celebrating the “lasts” of the decade, reminiscing about the tremendous amount of change we’d undergone through the 2010’s and looking forward to 2020 and the “firsts” that a new decade had in store. Little could I have imagined. 

Today, we are six months into 2020 and if someone had given me a hint of what was to come, I’d have laughed at the sheer audacity one would have to make some of this stuff up. It wasn’t like there was a gradual…let’s make this year a test of the average person’s strength and meddle…thing that happened. No. We jumped right in and everything changed on the first night of the year as we were thrust into a new world of scary medical stuff. And before I go any further, I am incredibly thankful for the emergency medical people at our local hospital, as well as the cardiac care staff at the big city hospital where we went. Things could have taken  a drastically different turn that night and I will forever be grateful that they didn’t. I know too many who have undergone extreme pain and loss and sorrow in the past six months and I think about them every single day.

But as the news ramped up in those first few weeks of this year, stories of raging brush fires in Australia, insect infestations, blizzards and then tornadoes were only part of it. Because when that new virus showed up on the news, it didn’t really register as a real threat for most of us. Until it did. And by then, it was pretty much too late. 

March 13, 2020, a Friday the 13th, by the way, if you’re a superstitious type. To me, this is the day that will live on as the one where everything changed. When I left work that day knowing that school was going to be shut down for the next few weeks, I never would have imagined that “the next few weeks” would last until the end of the school year and into the summer and in some way into the next year. 

In the weeks and months that’ve followed, the thing I wonder most is, “What would I have done differently if I’d known I wouldn’t see my students or the majority of my friends and coworkers in person again?” I’m not a terribly “huggy” person, but I would have hugged my friends goodbye. Tightly, like the kind of hug where you might hold on for just an awkward second too long. I would have looked them in the eyes as they spoke to me in those last few days and listened. Hard. And been more present. I was working on a big deadline that week, and was in my head a lot of the time. Knowing what I know right now, I’d have gotten out of my head and enjoyed the exact moments that I was running around trying to document to meet that deadline.

Back then, I wrote in a post that if Ma Ingalls could manage life on a prairie and tend to people with yellow fever and still manage her farm chores, then I could certainly handle what was to come in my suburban town. And I can. And I have, but it sure hasn’t been easy. Don’t get me wrong…there are parts of this that I’ve actually loved. The slowed down lifestyle, the time with my immediate family. In what other recent time has empty nester parents suddenly been given back their kids for a little while? This time with our kids has been a great gift. But I also know that it’s hard on them and they want…they need…to move on and into their actual adult lives.The emotional ups and downs have been hard on everyone.  

The world has changed in so many unimaginable ways in this new decade. In April, I wrote about how I hoped we could take the good parts of our quarantine lives and leave behind the bad as part of our “new normal.” But that was before the term “new normal” was hijacked and turned into something ugly and weaponized. We’ve moved from the quiet, peaceful part of quarantine to the restless, angry part of it. We’ve watched in horror as 126,000 of our fellow Americans have died from this virus, and yet some of us haven’t been willing to do the simple things needed to help slow the spread. Wear a mask, stay home when possible, keep our distance from others. The Internet is filled with awful pictures and video of people behaving horribly in the name of “their rights” while at the same time disregarding the rights of others. Stop looking for conspiracies where there are none and just do the right thing.

But here’s the other thing. In the midst of this pandemic and all that has gone with it, we’ve finally been forced to take a long, hard look at our racial past and the awful mistakes that were made along the way that today still impact the lives of fellow human beings and Americans. And when I say things like, “I just wish we could get back to the way things used to be,” I recognize the privilege that lies behind a statement like that. My “the way things used to be” is another person’s time of fear, anger or sadness over a lifetime of mistreatment or a history told wrong. And we have so much work to do to find a way to come together and make things right.

20, 30, or even 50 years from now. What will they say about this period in history? What will today’s kids tell their own kids or grandkids about the “Year of the Pandemic?” Will they look at us and marvel at our strength and courage during a really scary time? Will they look at us with scorn because half of us refused to do even the bare minimum to help make things better as part of a political game of wills? Will they change the story to make us look better or worse than we do right now? The first half of the first year of the decade of the 20’s is over. But the second half starts today and that story hasn’t been written yet. We all have the power to control and write the story that should be written. Let’s get to it.

Where is the hope?

It’s hard to be hopeful when things really don’t feel very hopeful, isn’t it? I started writing this yesterday afternoon, before I’d seen the video of the Minneapolis police and what they did to unarmed George Floyd. We have to find a way to make this better.

I'd like to think I'm a fairly positive person. When I write, even if it’s not a happy topic, I like to end on a more positive note because that’s how I’m wired…I need to find the bright side of things. And yet, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic with no real end in sight. And we don’t know what the future holds as far as the rest of this year and school and other things that we think of as “normal.” And the man who is supposed to be leading our country is having a much better time dividing us, mocking his rivals, tweeting conspiracy theories, with little relief from his horribleness or lack of leadership in sight. And his defenders still defend him. And public health has become a political weapon; simple protective face masks weaponized in a weird new culture war. And the same people who a year ago insisted their right to bear arms at all costs was more important than our children’s right to be safe in their school now insist their right to a good time somehow supersedes yours or my right to feel safe when we leave our houses. And on and on and on. And I just don’t know how to find a hopeful note to end on when everything feels so hopeless.

I’m heartbroken for the mess we seem to be embroiled in: the vitriol spewed on social media comments by people on the extremes (and maybe not so extremes) and the awful things that are happening in the news: Covid deaths reaching over 100,000 and apparent disdain/disbelief of it, the murders of black men on video, disaster after disaster. With no end in sight for any of this ugliness, we’re like sideline players left to feel. And heal. It’s hard to find hope. Right now. But I don’t feel like all hope is lost.

Can you feel as though you’ve been sucked into a vortex of hopelessness and sadness, but not feel like you’ve lost all hope or feel sad all the time? How does that work? I think of it like this: There were some bad things that happened to me in childhood, but if you ask me, I would say (with complete honesty) that I had a happy childhood. These things aren’t mutually exclusive, are they?

What did people in other eras do when things felt this bad? Because in the history of our country, or all humankind for that matter, there have been times that have felt just as, or even more, devastatingly terrible. Young people facing angry mobs with rocks and other things hurtled at them as they integrated schools, Japanese families rounded up and stuck in internment camps, slavery, Civil War. 

I have friends who’ve intentionally been writing about the goodness of the world…that’s their gift and they do a great job of it. I want to find that hope and see things to be grateful for in every day life, too. Mr. Rogers reminded us to look for the helpers.  Laura Ingalls Wilder said, “As you read my stories of long ago I hope you will remember that things truly worthwhile and that will give you happiness are the same now as they were then. It is not the things you have that make you happy. It is love and kindness and helping each other and just plain being good.”

And Anne Frank was able to see the beauty in a world that locked her and her family in a tiny room for two years and ultimately killed most of them. “It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart,” she wrote. 

If Anne Frank can do that, so can I. The hope is there. So is the beauty. I don’t think we have to give up hope to care about the awfulness of what we see. But I do think we have to compartmentalize to avoid getting sucked into that vortex of despair. So I guess that’s what I’m going to do.

Random Quarantine Thoughts (pt. 2)

Random Quarantine Thoughts (pt. 2)

Masks

For some reason they’re controversial, probably because the CDC reversed course in its recommendations regarding them, saying at first that they weren’t needed and later changing to yes, they will protect others from ourselves. Because, you know…science and data change and so do conclusions. But since wearing them is going to be part of our new reality going forward (note that I didn’t say “new normal?”), they bear some thought. At least for me.

First, they’re not terribly comfortable. They’re itchy and hot and they make it weird to breathe in and make you notice that you might need to pop a breath mint or chew some gum. Second, they make it hard to recognize people. I was wearing mine at the grocery store the other day and saw someone wearing hers. She said, “Hi” to me, so I said, “Hi” back thinking it was a polite greeting, but as I walked away, I realized I knew her. Not well…she’s a teacher of a similar content area at another school and we’re Facebook friends who’ve met in person a handful of times. So I had to double back and confirm that I did know her. We laughed and I realized that wearing masks means we will need to depend on eye and hair recognition in a way we haven’t before. Third, the fashion sense of these will be interesting. I wonder if people will like wearing them more when they have cute ones that match their personalities? And fourth, I was wearing my mask as I picked up our take-out dinner last night. As I walked out, there was a couple waiting in their truck to go in that smiled a greeting at me and I smiled back at them. After all…PEOPLE! But then I realized I was wearing my mask and they couldn’t tell I’d responded. So I said, “You can’t tell, but I just smiled back at you!” And the woman said, “I did know. I could see the smile in your eyes.” So…the eyes have it.  

(And, because these are random thoughts, this topic reminded me of this song from the Top Gun soundtrack )

Can we pull this one out?

Have you ever walked into a class where you were hit with a pop quiz you weren’t really prepared for and as you started it, you thought, “Hmmm..it's tough, but I think I might be able to pull this out.”? Then, as you got further into it, you realized it was harder than you thought and you weren’t really sure which way it might go, after all? 

I kind of feel like we, as a country, were hit with a pop quiz six weeks ago. Maybe not a pop quiz, but a test. Probably the biggest test of our lives. Really, it's the ultimate test of courage. None of us regular people had studied for it (of course scientists and epidemiologists had). And we started out thinking how daunting it seemed, but we were doing it anyway. And we came together in that spirit of sticktoitiveness that makes America great (not the slogan, but for real, actually great). The way our ancestors did in times of world war or as they settled this new country and everyone worked together for the greater good. We knew that by staying in and experiencing some discomfort, we were not only protecting the vulnerable among us, but we were also helping the first responders, the doctors, the nurses, so they could do their jobs. This was our “Greatest Generation” moment. A time for us to look beyond our own needs and think about others.

And at first, most of us did all that. Many businesses learned new ways to conduct business. Teachers learned new ways to teach, children learned new ways to learn, families did things together. Social media feeds were filled with love and sharing and caring. It was like after years of divisiveness, we’d started to come together in this shared experience to fight a common enemy, Covid-19. But then, some started getting restless and stories emerged of politicians who’d said awful things like, “Old people should be willing to die to save the economy.” Never mind that these same politicians ran on a “pro-life” platform. Never mind that we were all coming together. New hashtags started appearing and the president began calling for states to “liberate” even after he himself had released a “phase in” approach to “reopening” states and our country.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. If we can remember why we were doing this and have some patience and perspective, it would go so far.  What we’ve been doing is one of the most selfless acts we’ve ever collectively done.  Is anyone really willing to sacrifice family members so others can go back to the way life used to be? Will life really go back to what it used to be? Do we want that? Can those who say to let the vulnerable, older, or weaker people die pick someone in their own family to let go? I sincerely doubt it.

Suddenly, it feels like that test that was really challenging but we could handle is a test that we, as a country, are failing. But it’s a pretty long test. It's ongoing, and I feel like if we could just take a collective deep breath, we can dig in deep and maybe turn things around to get that passing mark, after all.

"All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with white carpet is one of them." (Erma Bombeck)

Random Quarantine Thoughts (pt. 1)

Random Quarantine Thoughts (pt. 1)

Heavy

I know I’m not alone when I think of this time we’ve been quarantining to say that it’s like this crazy roller coaster of emotions. I wrote about it early on here. One day, it’s all, “This isn’t bad. I have time to do my work and read my book and enjoy my family and cook dinner and go for a walk and play some music and, and, and.” Other days, it’s anxiety central, and you know the best thing to do is try to do some of the healthy stuff you do on the good days and stay off social media and turn off the news for a little while and even reach out to someone to talk (if your anxiety doesn’t stop you from doing that). 

And other days are just heavy. And lonely feeling. And sad. Rightly or wrongly, I keep this website  as an open tab on my computer and check it daily. When the president rarely expresses any kind of compassion for the loss of life during his daily “press briefings,” I shake my head in disbelief. The number goes up by the thousands every single day. Yesterday morning it was just over 45,000. Today it is just under 48,000. Yes, 84,000 have recovered. But that means just under 48,000 families are grieving the loss of someone right this minute due to this virus, even while 84,000 are celebrating recovery. You can be relieved and sad and realistic all at the same time. Loss of life is loss of life. And while just under 48,000 have died from this in two months, that’s just 10,000 less than the number of US soldiers that died in Vietnam, a conflict that lasted almost two decades. And at the same time, there are so many other families struggling and in pain and dealing with loss, too. Cancer, car crashes, families making end of life decisions for loved ones due to old age, families losing loved ones due to addiction, suicide, weather disasters and on and on. We do what we can to manage these feelings of heaviness, but man, these days are definitely the hard ones.

View from my window

I found a group on Facebook this week called “View from My Window” and it's filled with photos taken from all

"View from my window"

around the world of peoples’ views from a window in their homes. These photos are lovely. And captivating. Photos of far off places I’ve not yet visited, some of which I hope to one day. Photos from cities and towns in the US that I’ve never been to and some that I have been to where the scene is familiar or something I've seen in person before.

And as I look at these photos, I realize that from where my temporary work desk is set up in my bedroom, I have spent a good deal of time looking out my own window lately, as well. The edge of our flag waving in spring breezes catches my eye many times during my Zoom classes. The green of the leaves on the trees in our front yard and across the street. The sounds of birds singing or children out for a social distancing morning run with their moms as they head up the street. They all vie for my attention and help distract me with a reminder that there's beauty in our own worlds, too. We’ve lived in our house for 18 years and I think I’ve looked out my bedroom window a handful of times before this.

Fading

Fading fake tattoo.

See my “fake” tattoo? My workout friends and I had these made for photos as part of a “virtual April Fool’s gag,” a gag that had been planned weeks before this began, but it has become a fairly big piece of symbolism for me during our quarantine. It pops into my line of vision while I’m working out at home or other random times during the day. Sometimes, I do a double take when I see it because I forget it’s there, but it makes me happy every time I notice it. It reminds me of: 1) friends I adore that I miss seeing in person so much, 2) the big parts of LBC that I miss, 3) that I have strength and can be strong in the face of hard and scary things.

It’s been just over three weeks since I applied the “tattoo,” and as it’s fading now, that feels fairly symbolic, too. I: 1) worry that so much time away from the things that I love will fade not just in my memory, but will be hard to recover when we start venturing out again, 2) that the good vibes and all the goodness we saw at the beginning of this crisis are starting to fade away, 3) that the divisiveness that is politically motivated and may be advantageous for some, is really incredibly damaging to the rest of us and that the country we grew up knowing and loving is fading away and what can we do to protect it and bring it back? 

"In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers." (Mr. Rogers)

Leaving a decade/starting a decade

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this past decade has been one of so much change. Ten years is a long time. And, it's not really a very long time. Ten years ago, I had an 11 year old and a 14 year old. The oldest had just started high school. Now, they are 21 and 24 and the youngest is about to finish college. I’ve moved from my almost mid-40’s to my...ahem...almost mid-50’s. 

Going from being the parents of children to the parents of teens to the parents of young adults has brought much growth and change and with that change has come reflection. A strong desire to “fix” what needs fixing and to find ways to feel strong and whole came with that.

As I did bounding box-jumps at a workout one day last week, my instructor said, “Bet you couldn’t do that a decade ago.” And she was right. Then, during yesterday’s class, she suggested we set our intention by thinking about the victories we’d had in that (workout) space. I know that working out is kind of “practice for the playing field of life,” so as I worked through that class, I started thinking about things I couldn’t (Or didn’t. Or wouldn’t) do a decade ago.

So, in no particular order, here are some of those things that I have done that I didn’t know I could do or never thought about doing before the 2010’s began:

Make a yearbook. Never thought about it, never wanted to and yet somehow I can’t imagine not doing it now.

Teach in a high school. Another thing I never thought I’d do, but here I am in my 10th year of doing it (actually started this in fall of 2009). And I might just almost sort of be getting the knack of it!

Produce videos. This may have been my college major, but here’s the truth: I wasn’t very good at it back then. Yes, technology has sure worked in my favor, plus I love the creative outlet I get with it.

Work out. Hard to talk about this without getting a little emotional. A decade ago, I occasionally tried some new form of exercise. I’d do it for a little while and then I’d be done. I had a bad back and would be laid up from it for a few days at least once a year. Six years ago, that changed. I don’t know what it was that changed. Community? New/stronger friendships? Accountability partner? But now, I can’t imagine my life without this as part of it. I’ve learned that my body is so much more capable of doing things that I ever gave it credit for. I’ve learned how to work through injury (not to ignore/exacerbate, but to work around it and not use it as an excuse) and how to come back after. I’ve learned not to quit.

Host/produce a podcast. How lucky am I to find a way to “play radio” and do some of the things I loved to do when I was much younger. 

Friendships. This one also makes me get a little emotional. They say you’re lucky in your life if you find a community of people you can count on as friends. And I’m not sure of another time in my life when I knew I had a strong group of friends that genuinely has my back in the way I do right now. 

Grad school classes in the summers. These classes have taught me so much about myself, aside from the content...dorm living is tolerable for about a week. But going to school is hard. It takes a lot out of a person and taking these classes each summer gives me a little reminder each year of what we ask of kids every day during the school year. A little empathy is never a bad thing. 

Maintain really long streaks with apps. Looking at you, My Fitness Pal and Apple Watch. I have logged in to MFP 2,275 days in a row and closed all three rings on my Apple Watch every day since mid-June. These little things are my personal challenges to keep up with and help me keep my fitness goals in mind.

Deal with past hurts. This one sure is hard and important and is a definite work in progress.

Enjoy travel adventures with my husband. Our two big trips in the last two years makes me realize we have a lot of country and world to see together.

Learn to be with my husband without kids. I thought being empty nesters would be harder than it was, but I really do enjoy spending time with my husband and that we have things we enjoy apart from each other is great, too! 

This past decade has been good for me in a lot of ways. Has it been easy? No. The world we live in is tough and going through rapid, scary changes. And there are times of crushing sadness. We have so much work to do to fix things. But I’m also proud of the changes I’ve made and am looking forward to what the next 10 bring as I keep my focus on getting stronger and better. 

I listened to the last episode of the “Dolly Parton’s America” podcast during my walk today (my last of the decade!) and in it, she said, “If you’re at peace within yourself you can do good for other people.” So that’s what I’m going to keep working on as we move into tomorrow with a new day, a new month, a new year and a new decade.

18 Things I Learned (or Relearned) in 2018

18 Things I Learned (or Relearned) in 2018

1. There really is never not a good time for red shoes.  
2. Everyone has a story…some good, some bad. Taking time to learn others’ stories is more important now than ever before.
3. Standing up for what’s right is not always easy, but always the right way to go.
4. Taking breaks from the news, or at least limiting it in some ways, while finding healthy ways to handle it, is not a bad way to go.
5. Parenting young adults is different and challenging in its own right, and means you have to find new ways to continue old and start new traditions. But it’s also really cool to watch them launch into their own lives and see them figure things out for themselves.
6. The easy solution is not always (usually) the best solution.
   
7. Trying new things is a good idea at any age.
8. I am so lucky to have a strong community to work out in. 
9. And also a good accountability partner. I can’t imagine that I’d have stuck with it without her. 
10. Sometimes, no matter how much you want to achieve a goal, factors outside your control might conspire to stop you (or at least slow you down). 
11. When you think you just can’t do one more of something, you probably can.
12. I am incredibly good at being lazy, but being active and getting regular exercise makes me a much better person.
13. There’s nothing quite like spending an entire day curled up on a chair with your dog and a good book.
14. Just wanting something to happen isn’t really enough. Wanting it enough to make it happen gives it more of a chance of actually happening. 
15. I’m stronger than I think I am, but not really as strong as I’d like to be. 
16. Facing your past can be hard. Really hard. And often harder than you want it to be. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
17. Shoulders are really important and do so much more for us than we realize or give them credit for. They deserve some serious props for the many things they do for us.
18. Taking time to reflect and be thankful for the things we have, particularly family, friends, pets, jobs, safe home, food to eat, good health, etc, etc, is important any time…not just at the beginning of a new year.