lxforever

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men all.”

—Luke 2:14, Linus

“Dear Santa Claus, / But how is your mom?”

—Letter to Santa 2017

It’s all going too fast. Just one year, just two, three four five. Tiny still-new born and marble-running sister, a dollhouse and a smile, mops and infant and descending an attic staircase into the perfect cinnamon-roll life. Didn’t Christmas just start? How is it over? Shimmer and Shine, a big yellow school bus, red corduroy Christmas dresses and hairbrushes in the mirror. Two little girls, steeped in everything we do.

We’re very lucky, and we’ve had a good year. This year has not been good, however, unless we’ll call the finally-getting-it-all-out-there (still more to go) part of it good, I guess. When I was Googling for this quote (what, you think I have a Bible sitting here?!), an article from 2012 Huffington Post came up, asking “Whatever happened to peace on earth, goodwill?” Whatever happened, indeed. I don’t love watching people having to fight for basic acknowledgement, or bickering about Human Rights 101 as people actually suffer, or having to have it pointed out yet again, every single time, that women’s rights are human rights. I loathe it all, and it doesn’t make sense in the slightest. It’s humiliating and horrifying to watch humans hurt their fellow humans this way.

And I don’t love worrying about these girls and their own futures being compromised by all of this, even as we’re lucky and wealthy and safe. It’s a good (comparatively) time in history, we’re in a good place, and still, it’s not given.

But to see this article come up from five years ago, wondering the same thing, to realize this isn’t necessarily new; to know that in history there were shepherds and wise men needing to soothed by the words of an angel about a baby—though it shouldn’t, that this has always been there, that we’ve always held our anxieties, gives me pause. Steps forward followed by steps back, waiting in joyful, jittery hope, answers that come and go and still won’t be revealed. We’re all human, we’re all here, and we will find our way even in this mess.

That in and of itself is reason for hope. Happy Christmas!

ETA: now THIS is the 20th year of Xmas eve updates. Yer damn right! /fin

“I run so fast / a shot gun blast / can’t hurt me not one bit / I’m on my toes / ’cause heaven knows / a moving target’s hard to hit // So as we play / in life’s ballet / we’re not the dying swan / we just move on / we move on!”

—Chicago

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas / Let your heart be light / From now on your troubles will be out of sight”

—Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane, Judy Garland

“Christmas time is here / we’ll be drawing near / Oh, that we could always see / such spirit through the year / Oh, that we could always see / such spirit through the year”

—A Charlie Brown Christmas

It was madness, feeling rushed and feeling stressed. Cars angling for parking spots, keys jangling in pockets as there was hurry, hurry, hurry everywhere. I was already in a foul mood, for reasons I couldn’t fully explain, and the flaking snow on a suburban parking lot buzzing with the adrenaline of consumption surely wouldn’t help matters.

Chicago on the stereo as a palate cleanser. I parked the car by the gym. Everyone somewhere else as they were there, minds congealing over invisible to-do lists, mundane tasks real or imagined, fitting in just one more thing (or maybe that was just me). My mood clung to me, like a bad smell, wound tight around my shoulders, chasing me into the store.

The yogurt, the gift cards, the ibuprofen—check in with the pharmacy, was the prescription ready? no?—back to the aisles, the basket overflowing, back to the pharmacy, to stand in a line of now seven, to put in a dinner order on the phone while I wait. Busy busy busy. One more thing done.

“Fitzgerald or Link?” said the pharmacist, and my mood began to lift. I was back in the present, for a moment; this woman was nice, and I could be, too. I thanked her and dashed away, the basket straining my arm.

As I walked to the checkout, a man appeared behind me, a lone can of Pringles in his hand. “Okay, you have to go ahead of me,” I insisted, “because Pringles are worth it.” “Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

The checker moved the purchases ahead of us, and the gentleman got to talking. Said he wanted a snack while he waited for his girlfriend, said he’d wait for her to shop, have some chips in the car. “I can’t stand this Christmas thing,” he said. “Spending money we don’t have. I can’t wait for it to be over.” He was friendly, he wasn’t sad, he was just being honest.

“Well, just six days to go,” I told him, and he smiled as the Pringles were scanned. A small problem with the payment, I recalled my own screw-up the week before, but it all smoothed out and we bid one another goodbye. Guadalupe rang up my basket next.

Guadalupe was one of those fast checkers you don’t expect, and I complimented her speed. “It’s so amazing to me when you all know all those four-digit codes, like, beep bop beep boop!” She laughed, and she was so kind she made me laugh, too. We chatted about the day, about learning on the job, and away I went.

Lightened and brightened. Palate cleansed and ready to enjoy it all again. Thanks to a man buying Pringles and an adorable checkout girl named Guadalupe.

“Welcome to the terror zone, *%$!”

—Jeff, 11/21/17

So I am only writing this post A, so you don’t think after the flurry of activity in August this blog died but B, because that quote from Jeff was so hilarious. ALSO I should go to bed and re-install car seats (long story) but omg drinking wine and eating popcorn (POPCORN!) and writing a blog post sound so much more appealing.

Also the title of this post is meant for a different post that I wrote in my head back in October but never put to paper/page. But it’s still an important part of what this year turned out to be. Not ‘lead with compassion’ in terms of ‘be a leader who has compassion’ but, ‘go forth, first, with compassion’. This whole nonwritten entry occurred to me in a particularly intense work meeting when a particularly beloved but also somewhat new coworker of mine shed a tear. She is a gem. And she showed, and reminded me, that we should all lead with compassion—go forth, first, with compassion.

OK WHAT ELSE? It’s almost Thanksgiving. I love my work friends (not my work foe) and my other rest-of-life friends. I love my family and also good health. And also cheese/caramel popcorn. OK. Carseat time.

I was excited to enter my 30s. I had heard, and suspected, that things were a lot more settled in that decade, that there was less mysterious wandering masked as existential struggle, more clarity, more security. More fun. And besides, there was that guaranteed 3. What couldn’t 30 deliver? Other than physically (lol), the years so far have yet to disappoint.

35 was a pivotal year of mundanity. An inflection point, monumental in its ordinariness, a sign of getting to where I wished to be with a dash of extra clarity thrown in at the end. From far away, the lore of 35 seems to be one of importance, and it was for me, but not in the way you would think; nothing really happened, it was just happening all around me, all the things I wanted. Family. Job. Marriage and home and friends and life. And the feeling that you can do what you want, and that that is just fine; no approval necessary.

35 marked the full first year as a parent of two, a role I have relished and adored in every way, in spite of the chaos. Something about having the two and seeing them both and building our family is even more confidence-building and solid-feeling than anything before, and it is truly an honor and a privilege every day (nb: probably even the no-sleep-at-all-Christmas-Eve-Eve, lol). I’ve never felt more sure of my moves in this parenting ‘career’, and I can’t believe my luck to watch them together and parent them with Jeff. It’s incredibly gratifying, and I’m grateful.

35 was a year of growth and change and ultimately tectonic shifting in my professional life, only to arrive at the place I once started, with further future clarity. I’ve been grateful for the learning I’ve done, the relationships I’ve built, and the opportunities I’ve had, but right now, I’m even more glad to feel knowledgable enough about professional life to make the moves I feel I must in more sureness than I would have ever had before (note: still without 100% certainty, lol).

(Redacted: a bunch of meaningful but private rambling about relationships and marriage, but imagine it is in the same vein as the above, heh.)

And I hear it even gets better from here. 36 is twice an adult, and half of life has been in that state in some way, now. Here’s to the now-solved mystery of who ‘Superhero LX’ is, and to 36, and beyond. How lucky it is to be alive. Cheers!

Remember back when you COULDN’T schedule a ‘blog post’ or whatever it was back then to ‘go up’ at a ‘certain’ ‘time’ and ‘monetize’ ‘it’?? OK, so those last quotes were just to be ridiculous. Anyway disclaimer to say I am writing this ahead and scheduling it to go up tomorrow, which given what I expect to talk about is a definite harbinger of doom, however, I’ve been feeling extremely confident and positive lately so, there.

So, August. August has some structural problems traditionally, including the going-back-to-of-school, shortening of days, closing of pools, and general large health crises that have sprung up in the past during this time, HOWEVER, as I wrote last year, August has redeeeeeeeeeemed itself 3295397405 times over now thanks to a certain Toddler2. Shazam! She’s magic. The Legend.

In fact, it is time for a brief retrospective…
1999 / back to ‘the jail’, lol
2000 / super embarrassing shit here, including the double spaces after each period, but, whatever, I learned
2001 / also embarrassing, however I maintain that I adore all those American Pie movies and how they kept pace w/ the lives of moi + my peers
2008 / Palin. NOTE I WOULD TAKE HER IN A HEARTBEAT right now
2012 / Barry Kolbe review, also hatred of August
2015 / “August means goodbye”. Great title. Stolen from daycare email blast.

Sooooooooo yeah. What else. I turn 36 (NOTE, I first typed ’26’, lol, clearly this retrospective hath gotten to me…can you imagine??) soon, I feel pretty good about that, better than I did about 26, I think, although that was a fun year for sure! 35 has been a very gratifying, solidifying, confidence-boosting year. I have a whole entry planned about that but I doubt I’ll get to it. Suffice it to say it’s been really real and cool and full of growth. Yeah. Yeah!

OK that’s it. This is a weird entry because it will occur in THE FUTURE (and I am right now living in the past).

They’re on the sidewalks, a flash of yellow, parents holding coffee cups and children crossing streets, smiling for the camera with their backpacks full of pencils, early fall air crisp with sunlight, bright and sweet. Kindergarten, Kindergarten, too many syllables for people so very small, erasers filled with chalkdust, lockers clanging in the hall. The school supply list, the trips not taken, the commitment day to day; the hows and whos and what you do to find your brand new way. This is our last not-first day now, my first baby, eager to grow; 364 days and counting down, I’m not ready to watch you go.

Thankfully….we’ve got some time :).

Coffee brewing, clothes drying, rain raining, dishes washing, family sleeping, world turning, sublime Saturday. The whole family went back to bed not long ago; after a short and too-early stint awake we realized our error, and now after my own short snooze, I’m camped out on the couch with a smoothie and some French toast leftovers and the rain sweetly singing. Pretty good, I’d say, although of course I live in fear (lol!) of them all waking so I’ll cut this short and enjoy the solo bliss for however long it lasts.

“Stay or leave / I want you not to go / But you should / It was good as good goes / Stay or leave / I want you not to go / But you did // So what to do / with the rest of the day’s afternoon hey / Isn’t it strange how we change / everything we did / Did I do all that I should / that I could have done?”

—Dave Matthews Band

“…the whole ordiel [sic] was worth it, if only for that one moment.”

—a yearbook

“ ‘Bath / splish splash pop // Kiss / mwah! I love you’ ”

—Baby Sounds

Four family members and a fairy, the Truth Fairy? no wait the tooth fairy, just stopping by for a spell. KINDERGARTEN!, she shrieks and jumps into the air. “Why ‘sometimes’? How about we start with something simpler?!” the mystery of reading, of writing. Moving pieces around on the screen, fitting it together, vs. endless phone calls and busywork and paperwork and tears. Serve how, serve who? Why? Insistent flip of the page for that moment, for that one moment, that moment where you turn around with joy for a kiss; joy for a kiss, joy for learning how. Stay or leave? I want you not to go, but you will. You should. And you still don’t know. But that grin, that joy, that scream for kindergarten and trying to blow bubbles and the smile at the toys and the quick flip of the head for the sweetest baby kiss…some of the rest matters, but nothing as much as this, for what you waited, for how much it hurt, and you made it, you made it, and it was worth it a million times over.

I hope you bitches are happy. Just kidding, that’s not at all how I meant to start this update, but the POINT is, wow I’m on a good updating streak and I shall back-pat myself for it, shall I not?!

Anyway, today was unique. I saw my old internet friend Sara (not OLD per se, but someone I met/last saw SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO—note, I probably ‘met’ her virtually MANY YEARS before that) and it was lovely and natural and great. Alas she does not actually live here. Then I saw my new internet friend Sara (not NEW per se, but new-er to my life, that is) and it was refreshing and perfect and just what the doctor ordered. I think that these two things occurring in the same day (and one quite randomly I might add) is most definitely luck in action, and also a Sign, although I’m not sure of what just yet. Maybe just a Sign that THE INTERNET and friends are great. Anyway.

Today was also unique because though I am not a Doctor (I Just Play One On Google[TM]), I very well could be. Those mom instincts, they are powerful. It’s not nothing.

Today was ALSO unique in that when I mentioned to Preschooler1 that this may be our last chance to go to the pool, for it was almost Fall, she SCREAMED with delight and said “it is almost Halloween!!!” then I had to count out loud for her the number of naps/nights until the blessed Hallow’s Eve event. This was not the unique part. The unique part is that once we arrived at said (just for you, SVEN!) pool, it was DECORATED FOR HALLOWEEN!!!! O.M.G. my mind (and Preschooler1’s mind) was BLOWN. They had decorations, costumes, trick-or-treat, etc. Halloween in August, on this VERY DAY. What a freakishly awesome coincidence. Or is Preschooler1 telepathic?!

What a day!

“Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes!” -TEOTH, which was on all day today

I saw the Eclipse, but I didn’t see it, because you can’t look at it, I just stood on a roof and took pictures of clouds. I saw change, but I didn’t see it, because you can’t look at it, you can just feel (or not) it happening around you. I saw the time to make a move, but I didn’t see it, because it’s not here yet.

ECLIPSE!