Six months ago I started this blog because adhesive chicken cutlets tried to ruin my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s not metaphorical. That\u2019s documented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had hives down to my hips, lips like I\u2019d picked a fight with a beehive, and a husband who lovingly coined the term \u201cTemu-bies.\u201d And instead of just adding it to my internal list of \u201cthings that make you cry in the bathroom,\u201d I wrote, \u201cIf you can\u2019t laugh at it after the fact, it\u2019ll just get added to the long list of things that make you cry in the bathroom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time, I thought I was just telling a funny story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I was actually doing was clearing my throat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because underneath the humor was a woman who had been running on fumes for a long time. I wrote in that first post that I wanted to be myself again. I wanted to laugh at the nonsense. I wanted to dance in the kitchen. And if I\u2019m honest, I didn\u2019t know where that version of me had gone. I just knew I missed her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the next few months, I wrote about overstimulation, perimenopause, texting Nick emotional novels instead of having a normal conversation like a regulated adult. I wrote about marriage on expert mode and toddlers negotiating like tiny attorneys. But what I was really circling was grief. The kind that doesn\u2019t politely sit in the passenger seat. The kind that grabs the wheel. \u201cWhen you let grief take the wheel, you don\u2019t glide gracefully down a smooth road. You find yourself off-roading through cornfields in a Subaru.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That wasn\u2019t drama. That was realization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was in the bleachers of my own life. Commentating. Managing. Holding everything together. But not exactly stepping onto the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then I wrote the hard one. The one about grieving someone who is still alive. And I admitted something I didn\u2019t want to admit: \u201cSilence is still an answer.\u201d At the time, I thought resolution meant accepting that and building a life around it. I thought peace meant letting it sit where it was and not poking it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But somewhere after writing that, I realized I had been calling silence an answer because it felt safer than asking again. So I stopped narrating it from a distance and stepped into it. I asked my dad to breakfast. Nothing dramatic. No script. No emotional thesis. Just a simple ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t cinematic. It wasn\u2019t some tearful reunion (although it was filled with tears on my part). It was two people sitting across from each other, older now, shaped by our own histories, finally saying some things out loud instead of assuming them. We didn\u2019t solve everything. But we understood more than we had before. And that understanding softened something that had been sharp for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It didn\u2019t erase the grief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it changed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around that same time, Nick and I went away to White Pine Camp. Snow. Pines. No TV. A gas fireplace and a tiny space that somehow felt more than sufficient for living. I took pictures of the night sky. I breathed without feeling like someone needed something from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Life sped right back up when we got home \u2014 teenagers, toddler, routines, the usual nonsense. But clarity stayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like a slower pace of life. I hold onto control as a form of safety. Not everything is personal. Parents are people too. Peace isn\u2019t something that arrives when everyone else behaves. It\u2019s something I grab and hold closer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was also Yertle. A toddler book. A stack of turtles. One small burp. \u201cHe didn\u2019t fall because someone attacked him. He fell because someone finally spoke\u2014quietly.\u201d That line has lingered with me in a way I didn\u2019t expect. Not because it demanded action. Not because it told me to do anything dramatic. But because it reframed power for me. Participation doesn\u2019t have to be loud. It doesn\u2019t have to be a speech or a confrontation. Sometimes it\u2019s simply presence. Sometimes it\u2019s restraint. Sometimes it\u2019s saying less and meaning more. Sometimes it\u2019s holding your peace instead of defending it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I turned 45 on February 13th. A Friday. I was also born on a Friday the 13th, which feels very on brand. Slightly misunderstood. Mildly chaotic. A little superstitious energy mixed with \u201cactually, she\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s something about turning 45 the same week this blog turns six months old that feels less like reinvention and more like alignment. I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m trying to get back to who I was. I feel like I\u2019m becoming more of who I\u2019ve always been \u2014 just without the bracing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that brings me to today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently, I was gently reminded that from the outside, a life can look easy. And in many ways, I am deeply privileged. I am grateful for the opportunity to stay home with my child. I know what supports that. I see it. I honor it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But gratitude and complexity can coexist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A life can be blessed and still require emotional work no one else sees. Emotional labor doesn\u2019t clock in and out. Anticipating needs, smoothing edges, managing disappointment quietly \u2014 those things don\u2019t always look like \u201chard,\u201d but they are movement all the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes what looks like negativity is really just processing. Sometimes what sounds like bracing is just an old nervous system doing what it learned to do. And this is part of the shadow work too. Not defending. Not accusing. Not keeping score. Just noticing where I brace before I need to. Where I anticipate disruption. Where I forget that peace is something I can choose instead of something I have to guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Six months ago I might have spiraled over that realization. Or sharpened. Or shut down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I\u2019m just noticing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Six months ago I was in the bleachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I\u2019m in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not perfectly. Not fearlessly. But willingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I open the windows in the morning and let the house breathe. I let myself breathe. I\u2019m still snarky. Still overstimulated by mid-afternoon. Still one questionable Amazon purchase away from chaos. But I am participating in my own life instead of narrating it from a safe distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Six months of this blog. Six months of you showing up. Sometimes late at night. Sometimes Friday around 2 p.m. (I see you.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it feels fitting that we\u2019re shifting posting to Fridays at 12:01 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friday the 13th baby energy. End-of-week exhale. Participation instead of pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Six months in. Forty-five years in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still me. Still here. Still choosing softness in a loud world. Still holding my peace closer \u2014 not because I\u2019m avoiding the noise, but because I finally understand I don\u2019t have to carry all of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
See you 2\/27 at 12:01 pm!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Six months ago I started this blog because adhesive chicken cutlets tried to ruin my life. That\u2019s not metaphorical. That\u2019s documented. I had hives down to my hips, lips like I\u2019d picked a fight with a beehive, and a husband who lovingly coined the term \u201cTemu-bies.\u201d And instead of just adding it to my internal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-lately"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":384,"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions\/384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillmeinhere.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}