I don’t have anything pithy today. Just thinking about how tired I am. I feel tired most of the day but the best tired is how I feel when I come back from the climbing gym or when I finish an exercise on the bike.
During those rare times I feel like I gave it my all and I have nothing left. And then I come home and take a shower and lie down on the couch and feel really good about how I used my time. This way I’m not tired because I’m overthinking things but I’m tired because I’m really working my body to its limits and I’m not in my head but I’m inside my body. For me it’s a rare and a good feeling.
That’s how I’m feeling right now.
Yes to trying harder. Yes to being inside my body.
And just like that little boy is now a seventh grader.
He started and ended his sixth grade year completely remotely. This year he learned a lot, wrote a lot, built several hardware and software programs, learned physics, did a complete SAT math book, and started learning Spanish.
He has not seen a single friend in person since last March. It’s been a long 15 months for little boy. If all goes well, he gets his second shot tomorrow and maybe, just maybe he might get to see some friends after two weeks.
I am very proud of his resilience and hard work in this last year. He continues to add sunshine to our lives every day.
We are almost halfway through this year. My kids will finish school end of this week. And then we’re off to summer. Within two weeks we will all be two weeks past our second vaccination.
As we approach the second half of this year, it’s a good time to think about what else I want to say yes to this year. A good time to take stock and think about where to double down, where to pivot, and where to let go.
I think this is the perfect week to do some introspection and journaling. Bring it on.
Yes to taking time to step back and evaluate. Yes to resetting.
My ideal way to spend my day is by the water, with a cold coke zero, some delicious snack, and a great book.
My husband, on the others hand, prefers to go on adventures, push his limits and experience life.
As I get.older, I am realizing that I will hopefully be lucky enough to read books to a very old, ripe age. But my years of living life and going on adventures, especially ones that involve physical stamina will most naturally decline as my years incline.
So now is the time to follow my husband’s lead and make the time to life that life. Breathe the fresh air and swim in the sea.
Little boy was bored this weekend and created a project for himself. He thought of the project, researched it, built prototypes and then executed on it.
It was pretty awesome to see.
It also reminded me that it’s fun to get lost in a new project for a while. Fun to jump with both feet in.
Yes to fun, yes to creative ideas, yes to jumping in!
So much of life is the stories we tell ourselves. There are so few “facts” and we spend all our time weaving stories out of those facts, trying to make them make sense.
Except that none of the stories are true. Because by definition they are stories. We rarely even know why we did something we did let alone why someone else did or didn’t do something.
So once you put it all together, there’s more story than facts in the picture.
All this is to say if I’m writing stories anyway, I might as well write stories that make me happy. Stories that empower me and make me the best version of myself.
Because whatever you think, you’re right.
Yes to making up more positive stories. Yes to looking for the good.
““The reason they’re morons is they spend years, decades, hell, their whole lives regretting or apologizing for things nobody else even remembers. They carry those things around like bags of sand that keep them from going to all the places they could’ve gone and would’ve gone if they hadn’t been so busy thinking about the goddamn sand.”
This is a unique book. The blurb mentions “Silver Linings Playbook” and “The Breakfast Club” and in fairness, I do see elements of both of them though thinking about either of them too much might take away from enjoying this book itself. I read the whole book in a single sitting. I loved the way it was diary entries mixed with dialogue and narration.
“Soldier didn’t need to show me all the time that he loved me. He knew it and I knew it and that’s that. What he was doing was giving me a safe place to put my own love. It’s like he was saying, I’m never going to leave you. I’ll wait for you. I want you to know that I’ll always wait for you, that it’s safe to love me, that you have a place to put all the feelings you can’t give to anybody else because it’s too dangerous, because you’re worried they won’t understand, and they won’t wait for you. I’m here. I love you. And I will wait for you. I’m not going anywhere.”
I loved each of the characters and I loved their unique perspective of life and why they had decided to be where they were and what they were grappling with. I loved that most of them seemed real to me and I loved how they were thrown together and the one thing they had in common was enough to bind them.
“And if you’re wondering why no always trumps yes, it’s because when you’re married it takes two to say yes but only one to say no. Besides, there’s no risk in saying no. No means everything stays the same, you’re in control, and you don’t feel like you’ve lost out on anything.”
This is a great story with some profound insight about life, how painful it can be and what it means to respect each others’ choices and what it means to love each other (and ourselves) just the way we are, with pain and all.
with gratitude to netgalley and Gallery Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
This book was an unexpected surprise. It starts out as a light, funny read and then evolves into something touching and lovely. It’s about Wren who finds out that her childhood (and still) best friend has died. She is asked to clean his apartment and has to deal with all the people who are circling his friend’s belongings. She’s finding out all the things she didn’t know about her friend and finding out some things about herself in the process.
This is a real and touching story about a well-loved Shakespeare teacher a Columbia who gets early onset Alzheimers. It’s also a story about a complicated family with ex-wives and step-children and abandonment and love and belonging. It’s also a love letter to New York City and its people.
I’ve lived in New York for all of my twenties and the characters in this story jump off the paper and are real and textured. They try, they fail, and they try again. They let each other down, they love each other fiercely. They take care of each other. They stand by each other. They show up for each other.
Each character in this book is unique and familiar and it’s not possible not to fall in love with them.
with gratitude to netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
