This is Me (& My Us)Where to begin? I would currently descibe myself as a, "Jesus, I love You. Now please tell me what it is I am supposed to be when I grow up." I'm 50, married to my best friend, aka My Fave, for 21 years. We met in October 1999, moved in together after our first date (totally by accident but it's part of our story all the same), and have been doing life together every since.
We have two boys. J is 19, never wanted to do anything in life but get paid to play golf, didn't really like school, and decided (with our blessing and encouragement) to bypass college to chase his dream. He turned pro in March 2022 to play and teach golf professionally. C is 18, looking at colleges, and thinks he knows what he wants to do but has a fantastic quality of not being afraid to change his mind and tell the world to get over it when he does. We often joke that this is his world and he just lets us all live here. My Fave and I had a list of parenting goals when we had babies. All the "Aren't we amazing parents who are going to raise the most perfect, God-fearing, others-focused, world-changing human beings?" goals upon we would measure our success as parents and their ability to enter the world ready for anything. As our boys entered high school, COVID hit, they began living their best lives, and we came to the hard truth that the humans we were raising had a desire to be their own people, not some parenting trophy we wanted them to be, we widdle our goals down to:
I love Mondays. I have a Sharpie and Paper Mate Flair obsession. Writing in pencil to me is a sign of lack of commitment, so I rarely use one. I group the people in my world into a few different categories: those I will clear my calendar for and whose calls I answer (aka My Tribe), those I fit into my calendar when I can and might find themselves in voicemail more often than not, and those who only get onto my calendar because I don't have much of a choice. I am a recovering "Yes" person, professional volunteer, Twitter resident, consultant specializing in Chaos Coordinating, want-to-be speaker and author, and facing an empty nest which means I have to figure out what I want to me when I grow up. I think failure is fantastic and should be savored, but I totally suck at living it out. (You'll find that much of what you read here is what I need to hear; self-talk that I share out loud in case someone else can relate or is willing to hold me accountable.) I think middle- and high-school kids are fantastic - they are seriously some of my favorite people in the world and helping them become the best versions of themselves is what I think Jesus put me here for. I'm sort of sarcastic and tend to have little patience for the vast majority of people. Intolerance is a non-starter for me and you'll find that includes a belief that I'm expected to be open and respectful of your thoughts/feelings/life/values, you better be willing to return that respect. "Cancel culture" is, well, dumb for lack of a better word and I'm beyond over the judgment we bestow on each other based on a sliver of life. We are all messed up humans doing the best we can and if we can just approach each other from a place of good and believing the best, You won't really find professional photos or perfect grammar here. This is life. My story. My "ick". My successes and failures. And our story - the good, bad, ugly and amazing. |