Whew, I gave my website a little attention today. I updated the Home, About Me and Podcast pages. When I get time to write, I just want to write a blog post or work on my fantasy series. But the website pages were so outdated, it was getting ridiculous.

I also did some work today for … [drum roll, please!] … my new podcast!

I created my podcast cover art, picked some music for the introduction, and brainstormed the first several episodes. I hope to record the first episode this week and have everything uploaded and synched with iTunes by the end of July. Then I will record weekly episodes about all the things I am learning ad adventures I am having as a woman in my forties.

I first got the idea for this show about a year ago. I even recorded the first four episodes last fall. But then I got overwhelmed and decided I did not have enough kid-free time to start a podcast. I would wait until Julian was going to preschool five times a week during the 2020-21 school year.

Well, shit, y’all. It’s Summer 2020 and I have even less kid-free time than I did in Fall 2019. But my inner voice will not leave me alone. It keeps saying, Podcast, podcast, podcast. Pandemic or no pandemic, this is something I have to do.

I deleted the four episodes I recorded last fall. -They are literally from a different era. This week, I will start fresh with some new episodes.

I am so excited to get this podcast off the ground already!

Several years ago, when Pippa was about one year old, I got an idea for a fantasy novel. It was just the tiniest glimmer of an idea, and I was already writing my memoir about postpartum depression, but the idea would not leave me alone.

I finally started writing the rough draft for the fantasy novel in Spring 2018. I wrote about 75% of that first attempt at a first draft, and then realized I had it all wrong. So I opened a new document and started over. I got about 50% written of that first draft before realizing, again, I had it all wrong. So I opened yet another new document and started yet again on the story idea that would not leave me alone.

Is it still a first draft if you have written 75% + 50% of the prior drafts?

After about three first drafts (I lost track), I wrote a very long outline. In Fall 2019 (approximately an eon ago, in an entirely different world), the outline felt right.The final draft will be very different from that outline, but I knew I had my heroine and her world. It was time to buckle up and actually finish a first draft already.

I started writing.

At the beginning of this year, as I was thinking about my 2020 goals, I looked at what I had written and decided I could probably finish the first draft of the first book in my fantasy series by July 31, 2020. I told myself that I was being ambitious but it was important to have a deadline. I would just push back the deadline as necessary.

Then the Covid-19 Adventures started.

I kissed the July 31, 2020 deadline goodbye. How could I finish a first draft of a first novel while overseeing distance learning with my kids? But I kept writing! The hour or two that I spent writing the first draft of my fantasy novel was a fun escape from the uncertainty of the pandemic. It energized me. I could not NOT continue working on my fantasy series.

Then I finished the first draft in mid-May 2020, two and a half months ahead of my self-imposed deadline.

WTF?

It happened quite suddenly. I have been using a four-part structure that I learned in Larry Brooks’ book Story Engineering. I highly recommend the book to anyone writing a novel. Writing the middle part of my first draft (Parts 2 and 3 in Brooks’ structure) was a slog. I kind of knew what I needed to write, but I abandoned my outline after writing about 10,000 words of the first draft. As much as I would like to be a plotter, I’m a pantser. I discover my story by writing it.

But then I hit Part 4, the last 25% of my draft, and holy eff, I just knew what I had to write. The words poured out of me. In the space of two weeks, I went from “I’ll be lucky to finish a draft in 2020” to “OMG it’s done!” It was glorious.

So now, whew, it’s June 2020 and I have not been blogging much because I have been digging into the first draft of my fantasy novel. First, I had to read it. I told myself I would read it as quickly as possible and hardly take any notes. By the time I finished reading the draft, I “only” had 28 pages of handwritten notes. (Both sides of the page.)

I guess “read it as quickly as possible and hardly take any notes” is not my process.

Now I am turning the 28 pages of notes into a Plan of Attack. I am getting a lot of ideas (many of which might eventually be good), and I am having fun. Once I have finished typing up my notes, I am going to attempt to reverse engineer an outline, and then use that outline to reshape the story.

I did not think it was possible to make any real progress on my first novel during the pandemic, but now, as I do the work, this feels very right. The pandemic is restricting the amount of time I have to work on revisions, but maybe that is a good thing. I am getting plenty of time to mull things over and have shower epiphanies.

Almost six weeks ago, I decided it was time for a Therapy Hiatus. I have done this many times with different therapists. It is how therapy seems to work best for me: for awhile, I need to go to therapy; but eventually, I need to leave and live without therapy for awhile. I figure out some things while I am in therapy; I figure out other things when I am not in therapy.

But I must admit, when I told my therapist during our early May 2020 video appointment that I was going to take an indefinite break, I felt a little insane.

Who takes a therapy break during the middle of a historic pandemic???

Well, apparently I do.

During our last session, I told my therapist that I did not know how long I would be going on break. At the time, I thought there was a very real possibility that an hour after ending therapy, I would email my therapist, Just kidding! I want another appointment! But I also thought that I might be on break for several years. Or forever. I never know how long my therapy breaks will be until I wake up one day and think, Yep, it’s time to go back to therapy.

I also never know why I need to take a therapy break until I let myself take the break. I will usually have a few hunches but mostly, my intuition says, Take a break, and I say, Okay.

Six weeks ago, when my intuition told me it was time for another therapy break, I had three hunches as to why I needed to go on break:

1. Hunch No. 1: I have been allowing myself to embrace my spiritual side more and more but I really only talked about this with my therapist. I thought that I needed to leave the comfort zone of therapy to force myself to talk about spiritual matters with more people.
2. Hunch No. 2: I have also been deepening my connection with my intuition. I thought I might need to leave therapy so I could get better at relying on my inner voice. As soon as I start asking other people to backup my intuition, I am undermining my connection with my inner voice. And since I often talk about my thought processes with my therapist, it can sometime feel like I am getting approval of my intuition.
3. Hunch No. 3: Finally, I also thought that maybe I just needed a therapy break video therapy just drains the crap out of me. It does not leave me energized the way that in-person therapy usually does.

Shortly after leaving therapy, I started reading Loving What Is by Byron Katie. On page 1, Byron writes:

You are the teacher you’ve been waiting for. You are the one who can end your own suffering.

Loving What Is, Pg. 1.

The quote hit me like a lightning bolt and I immediately thought, That is why I had to leave therapy!

I am the teacher I have been waiting for.

I am the one who can end my own suffering.

I have everything I need to live the life I want.

And that is why I am currently on an Indefinite Therapy Hiatus: to prove to myself that I am the teacher I have been waiting for.

I may go back to therapy someday. That someday may not be that far away. I don’t know. My intuition will let me know when it’s time. Therapy is a wonderful tool when I need it; but it is also wonderful when I need to set that tool aside and do my own thing for awhile.

Even in the middle of a pandemic.

I went to IKEA today to get an art table for the kids. Our closest IKEA only recently reopened from the Covid-19 shutdown, so I assumed there would be a line to get inside. I packed my headphones along with my face mask so I could listen to an audiobook while I waited to get into my favorite Swedish establishment.

I knew I was in trouble when I could see the line from the freeway. Still, I really wanted to get the art table. (That’s another story!) And once I stepped into the line, I figured it would take fifteen minutes max to get into the mega store. Social distancing really spreads out lines and makes them look a lot longer than they actually are.

It took fifty-six minutes for me to get into IKEA.

But do you want to hear the really crazy thing? I stayed calm the entire time I was in the line.

I used to be the sort of person who lost all of her shits in traffic jams, even traffic jams that were expected (for example: my old commute, every single morning; there was always traffic; and I always lost all my shits). Once, when I was twenty and my sister was ten, we went to Universal Studios and there was construction, so we got funneled on to a freeway going in the wrong direction. I flipped and started shouting obscenities and pounding the palm of my hand against the steering wheel. I recently talked about this experience with my sister and she confirmed that yes, I completely and utterly lost my mind over a minor delay.

I used to take every annoyance and inconvenience personally, gathering those moments as proof that I was a victim of a cruel world that was out to make me as miserable as possible.

A customer holding up the line at the bank or post office? Outrage! Torture! Fuck this shit!

The car ahead of me driving too slowly on the freeway? Abomination! Indignation! Fuck this shit!

The restaurant forgot to put croutons on my takeout salad? WHY DOES MY LIFE SUCK SO MUCH? FUCK THIS SHIT!

It was not a very happy way of living.

But today, as I waited in a fifty-six minute line to get into a store that had been closed for nearly three months, I caught myself gazing out at the freeway, admiring the mountains, and thinking, How beautiful this moment is.

This is not exactly the sort of photograph you find on a postcard, but I felt so calm and serene, I had to take a picture. The 20 year old who pounded her steering wheel over a five minute traffic delay is now a 41 year old woman who can calmly wait in a fifty-six minute line to get into IKEA.

The only thing that has changed? My mindset.

And how has that changed?

Well, I have started to embrace the idea of Enough. I have enough, and I am enough. I do not have to chase after some future version of myself in order to be happy and content. Everything I need is right here, right now. I do not need to lose weight or find the perfect lipstick before I can be happy. I’m happy right now, right here, even if here-and-now is standing in the middle of a fifty-six minute line (that does not even have the promise of a roller coaster at the end).

There are a lot of other ideas that have helped me get to a place where I can be perfectly happy to wait in a fifty-six minute line for IKEA:

• There’s The Obstacle is the Way, the book that taught me to see challenges as opportunities. Like today was an opportunity for me to experience something historic. In ten years, I’ll be telling my kids about the ridiculous line at IKEA while we enjoy Swedish meatballs in the IKEA food court.
• The Four Agreements taught me to stop taking things personally. The line? Totally beyond my control. And also: it had nothing to do with me. I chose to wait in the line, so there was no sense getting riled up about it.
• And most recently, I have been reading Loving What Is by Byron Katie and wow, I feel like I am truly getting at the root of my anxiety. Katie says there are three types of business: my business, your business, and God’s business. (God’s business being things like war, earthquakes, and oh, pandemics.) If I stray into your business or God’s business, then I just get anxious. I have been practicing this for a few weeks, catching myself whenever I stray into Your Business or God’s Business, and it’s becoming second nature. I did not even think to agonize over the IKEA line because shit, it’s just not my business.

There’s a lot more to my mindset. That’s why I am blogging. I am a writer, and I understand things by writing about them. I know if I keep blogging, I’ll start to understand myself better and I’ll be able to become a better and better version of myself.

In the meantime, I am going to look at my kids’ new IKEA art table as a sort of trophy or monument to my calmer, happier mindset. (And yeah, I let the kids decorate their chairs and table with stickers and washi tape. That’s the whole point of buying their furniture at IKEA!)

p.s. As calm as I was in line today, there is no way I am going back to IKEA this summer!

p.p.s. That’s a lie. I’m totally going back when the food court opens. Nom nom meatballs.

Sugar.

Oh, sugar.

I feel as if I could write a book of poetry dedicated to that sweet temptress and our epic, tumultuous relationship.

I have been paying attention for several years, and every time I quit sugar, I transform into a woman of radiant health. I sleep beautifully and feel my body buzzing with joyful energy. And every time I go back to sugar, I feel ragged, raw and depleted.

When I write about sugar, I mean refined sugar. I can eat all the fruit I want and still feel gloriously healthy. And when I write about refined sugar, I mean the amounts present in ice cream, cupcakes, cookies and candy. I know there is sometimes a little sugar in a pasta sauce or pizza crust, but that bit of sugar does not make me feel deranged.

I have observed, several times, how too much refined sugar unbalances my hormones and affects my sleep. Common senses suggests I should just walk away from sugar already and get my kicks with salt and fat.

The problem is, I have tried sugar abstinence several times.

And I have failed abysmally at sugar abstinence several times.

I just love sugary treats too much. And, I can have some sugary treats without any ill consequences. Total abstinence just tortures me. When I cannot have sugar, it becomes forbidden and then I think about it constantly. I become hyper-aware of every Snickers bar. My willpower might be able to resist for a few months, but then I succumb to sugar’s siren call and end up attacking ice cream with a frenzy that would disgust Augustus Gloop.

So sugar abstinence does not work for me.

I have noticed that sugar affects my sleep if I have it during the second half of my menstrual cycle. If I have too much sugar after I ovulate, I wind up with homicidal-ish PMS. That is not ideal when you are responsible for small children, so in the beginning of 2020, I decided to just have sugar two or three times during the first half of my menstrual cycle.

Then, of course, we began to shelter-at-home in March, and ice cream felt necessary. At first, I only had some every few days, but soon enough, I was having it every night with Nathan after the kids went to bed. I started having some sleep woes, but as I am wont to do, I blamed my insomnia on the weather, hormones, and stress.

When I am on a sugar bender, I am very good at blaming anything but sugar for my sleep issues.

But I am not beating myself up for eating so much sugar, I found myself struggling with insomnia. After all, there’s a pandemic and zero certainty about what the 2020-2021 school year will be like. I know I am not alone in finding comfort in a big bowl of ice cream.

But as much as I love ice cream (and I really love ice cream), I also really, really, really love a good night’s sleep.

I have never met a bowl of ice cream or slice of cake that tasted better than a good night’s sleep.

So just over a week ago, I took a deep breath and hit the reset button. I’ve been abstaining from refined sugar again, and I am sleeping like an angel. I am sleeping so deeply, and feel so glorious, I do not even miss my sugary mistress. But I am not attempting any sort of long-term, total abstinence. Been there, done that!

In fact, I am probably going to have ice cream tomorrow night.

Probably Chocolate Moose Tracks. But maybe a scoop of Mocha Almond Fudge as well…

In my last post, I wrote about feeling overwhelmed and uncomfortable about racism. Part of me wants to delete that post. It’s embarrassing because when people are scared for their lives and the lives of their children, who gives a shit about my discomfort?

But I am going to leave the post published, for now at least, because I am a writer and writing is how I figure things out. And for better or worse, I feel called to share my journey and personal work on this blog. That work used to be mostly about motherhood and mental health. Now it has expanded to include learning about racism and anti-racism.

I do not want to write too much about racism and anti-racism today because right now, my job is to listen and learn. I am going to read books about racism because I always learn best from books. I have started with the audiobook for So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo.

I have listened to the first five chapters and it’s been a great introduction to the things I need to learn. I wish I had the actual book so I could share some quotes, but it’s been an excellent audiobook during my morning walk. I only listen to about 30 minutes at a time. After that, my brain is full and I need to listen to music so I can process what I have learned.

I also started following some new accounts on Instagram as well: @moemotivate, @iamrachelricketts, @laylafsaad, @mireillecharper, @thedailyshow, @ibramxk, @austinchanning, and @ijeomaoluo.

There are some podcasts on my radar, but I have been busy with the audiobook. I’ll share as I listen to those in the coming weeks.

Less than two weeks ago, I thought it was enough to not be racist. I am starting to see, more and more, that I was wrong. I am also quickly learning that when it comes to talking and writing about race, I am not very articulate. I have avoided these conversations and discussions because they make me feel awkward. Now I am seeing it is okay to feel awkward but it is not okay to stay in my white privileged bubble.

For the past 24 hours, my entire social media feed has been filled with messages and memes about George Floyd, anti-racism, Donald Trump, white supremacists, protests and looting.

It’s been overwhelming and uncomfortable.

But sometimes, it is good to be overwhelmed and uncomfortable.

As I keep trying to write a coherent blog post that does not make me sound like an idiot on the subject of race, I feel a sort of heat in my chest. It’s the same heat I get when I am embarrassed. Why should I feel embarrassed to write about race?

Well, I am white. I don’t think I am racist, but then again, I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood. I went to Catholic schools with mostly white students and white teachers. I read books with white characters and watched television shows with mostly white casts. What racist beliefs did I internalize along the way?

I feel embarrassed and uncomfortable to say this but: I don’t know.

I don’t know what racists ideas I might have internalized as a white woman in America because I have not spent a lot of time thinking about race, racism and anti-racism.

During my first year of law school, I took a class on constitutional law. Midway through the semester, we studied Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision about racial segregation in public schools. As we were talking about the decision, one of my classmates remarked, “Isn’t it crazy that we are talking about this case and there are no black students in this class?”

You could hear a stirring as eighty students looked over their shoulders and surveyed the classroom and then, a murmur, as eighty students collectively realized, midway through the semester, that there were no black students in the classroom.

It took me half a semester to realize that? And still, I did not see a need to consider my own beliefs about race.

Today I ordered White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo. It’s temporarily unavailable from Amazon, as are all the other books about racism and anti-racism on my radar, but that’s okay. I can order something else on audio and get started educating myself on something I wish I had done years ago.

I’m sure this post made me sound like an idiot on the subject of race and racism. Good. It’s nice to write about subjects that make me sound intelligent and enlightened, but damnit, sometimes we just need to get into the muck and admit that we are an idiot about something and that we are ready to do better. Even if that means feeling uncomfortable and overwhelmed. When it comes to the issue of race, I am no longer comfortable with hiding in my comfort zone.