Hello from Here

Summer so far

It’s the middle of the summer and about the time of year when a tension headache becomes a permanent state of being. I just accept it. No amount of coffee or dopamine or sex or meditation or spring-fed water or cicada chirping through pecan tree will cure this mid-summer headache. It’s the background hum of a kids-at-home-summer universe.

Who am I kidding though. As much as I hate the absolute absence of peace and quiet, I love it. The freedom of summer! (But also, it’s time for a schedule.) The hum of kids at home! (But also, let’s hum a little quieter.) They bounce around the house, full of energy and asking for snacks. What’s not to love?

I made these two lists today:

Summer So Far as a Mom

Movie-making, nightswims, libraries, trampoline parks, texting and typewriters, camps, burned grilled cheeses, noise, Uno (the 5-year-old beats me every time), squeezing work into the margins, fighting and yelling and tears (Theirs? Mine? Who can tell at this point.), more Roblox than I’ve bothered to clock.

Summer So Far as a Me

Croissant dates, night runs, naked dances in the rain (don’t worry, we have a 10’ fence and it’s only rained like… twice), living in swimsuits, oysters and whiskey, ocean and sand, live music and leg sweat.

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In a writing circle last week, a friend said that she needs to look at more flowers and less existential crises.

Honestly? I felt attacked. Last summer, I had enough existential crises to last a lifetime. This summer, fine. I’ll try looking at the flowers. Sure. They’re all dried up in the Texas heat. But I’ll look at them.

My point is, last summer I floundered with, “Who am I if not a mom?” This summer, I’ve found some measure of balance between me as a person and me as a mother. Ok, that’s a lie. I’ve found zero balance and maybe just admitted to myself balance is impossible.

I’ve talked about this with so many parents. How do we hold that balance without going to one extreme or another? We’ve seen both extremes happen, and we don’t want either one.

My solution? Stop trying. Not completely! Don’t panic! But somewhere along the way I let go of my kids as the most important part of me, as an extension of me. I’m not so concerned about optimizing their childhood. I’m not so concerned about trying to produce a certain outcome.

They will be who they will be. It’ll be imperfect. They will have tension headaches someday. I water and feed and nurture them. But I can’t change them. I can love them. I can’t really even mold them. I can be with them. But they’re not a lump of clay. They’re a living person. They are the subject of their life, not the direct object.

So am I.

My grandpa was a farmer, and before that he did a lot of other things. He was a car mechanic, builder, carpenter, cattle rancher. But when I knew him best, he was a farmer. Teenage summers, I spent working with him on his farm. Planting, harvesting, selling at the farmer’s market. He grew all sorts of things, but watermelon was his big crop. 

I think about my grandpa a lot these days. How he reinvented himself over and over again. But he was still him. Same person. How he lived his personhood changed because the world around him changed and because he craved the new, the novel, the risk, the adventure. He gave some of that to me. I’m the same person. But how I live my personhood is changing. Because my world is changing and because I crave the new.

I told my friend today, I want to live that line between what’s comfortable and uncomfortable. I wanna do something just because it makes me a lil bit squeeshy, a lil bit butterflied. I guess what I’m saying is, I want the new.

She texted me while I was doing an inversion. Upsidedown on my yoga mat, the world looked so funny. And there it was, the new, right here. Yoga and running and swimming and dancing in the rain. Same body, same mat, same cushion. Same trail, same song, same water. But I’m moving through it.

So if you need me, I’ll be over here up against my bedroom wall, tension headache and all, head on the ground, feet in the air. Nothing much has changed, but I’m looking at it new.