lxforever

“I was looking at ‘back issues’ of your website… -Jenny
Oh so I should update. -me
Yes you should. -Jenny”

—2/6/18

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

—Flannery O’Connor

So I’ve been putting off updating because I had at least a couple epic (um, IMHO) January posts in the backlog of my mind, pertaining of course to gymnastics, USA gymnastics, the horrors that the organization has bestowed upon some of our country’s greatest athletes, the weird guilt I feel for how wonderful I had it in my own USA gymnastics career, the nostalgia over general January-meet-feelings as per usual, high school and the weird thing that I am farther away from it than my kids are to it, how cool kids are in general, etc. HOWEVER. I did not get to ANY of this, and even now I should be doing yoga, taking a shower, getting ready for the day, NOT updating, and yet…as someone who thinks Most Highly Of Themselves, one of the best motivators for me to write here in particular is when I know folks (or a folk, aka Jenny) is reading. Hah.

Soooooooo….anyway. Thanks to the hereditary insomnia I never realized fully that I inherited, I have been up since 2:30 am. Yesterday it was 4:30, which felt ‘normal’ since I’m usually up by 5, 5:30, but 2:30 is NOT normal. I would like to start a support group and also just know how many people have this problem in general, but alas, when I don’t have time to properly meditate (or whatever!) every day, I’m not starting MORE Things. My life is full (in a great way! but I am intent on prioritizing as always).

I have a great new boss for whom I have major heart eyes, and a lot of interesting work going on, which is a huge shift from earlier in the year. HOORAY! It’s kind of amazing. I could never have guessed this would happen. I’m still cautious but a LOT happier.

I can now do a press handstand (*against a wall but still) again. I’ve been working out pretty minimally (yoga every day for like 15-20 mins, then maybe a strength workout a few times a week), but I got results! I’m planning on selling my secrets everywhere. Just kidding.

I think I have a reader and a walker. And the reader apparently just woke up and wants me. Adios!

“When no one else can understand me / When everything I do is wrong / You give me hope and consolation / You give me strength to carry on / And you’re always there to lend a hand / in everything I do / That’s the wonder / the wonder of you / And when you smile the world is brighter / You touch my hand and I’m a king / Your kiss to me is worth a fortune / Your love for me is everything / I guess I’ll never know the reason why / you love me like you do / That’s the wonder / the wonder of you”

—The Wonder Of You

“For auld lang syne, my dear / for auld lang syne! / we’ll take a cup of kindness yet / for the days of auld lang syne”

—Auld Lang Syne / dance recital

“It’s Superhero LX!”

—Preschooler1, looking at a Wonder Woman costume in Target, October 2017…game changer

First of all, from Google: “This Year, More Than Ever”

That sort of sums up the world this year, albeit in a much rosier way than it should be done. I have felt pretty terrible the past few years writing about how good the year has been to me. A lot of this is due to the hyperlocal issues of family health (read: it’s been good) mattering more than anything else to me, but still. When so many have had it so terrible this year, and for so many years, and we’re being led by those who are NOT going forth, first, with compassion, then…it’s hard and basically irresponsible to flaunt your joy.

And yet.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR: Without a doubt on earth, the family trip to Duluth/Superior. Outstanding. Tomato soup in a hotel room. Somersaults in the pool outside the door. A big aquarium, beautiful skyline drives, a rich butterscotch malt outside, the wonder of a hotel room, adventures indoors and out. Time together, time as four, time relaxed in a near and beautiful place. News of my cousin’s marriage at the end. Family happiness.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR 2: Sisters trip (with babies!) to San Francisco in May for our nephew’s graduation. What an awesome adventure, so much sun and laughter and celebrating and cousin mayhem. Special little-girls time with the mommies. Just amazing.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR 3: This is probably 1, but it goes without saying, my family being who they are, and their good health. The kids both learning and growing and amazing us every day. The Wonder Of You. Being together and being well. Vanilla and caramel/snow white and rose red/etc. I am so lucky to have my little family.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR 4 (special number chosen for 40!): JEFF! He is simply the best. He has been so good to us this year, he is the only one I’d want by my side. He will read this and roll his eyes but it is 100% totally true. He was my rock through work drama, through not sleeping, through everything. I LOVE YOU JEFF! :*

HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR 5: Friends getting pregnant! Friends having babies! Friends becoming parents. Coworkers momming it up with me. The whole nine yards.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR 6: My dear coworkers. The Big Six. Checkmate(TM). Having my WorkWives to keep me sane and guide me through. What an awesome gift it is to have that. How lucky am I. AND my dear friends, from all areas. Thank you for being there for me.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR 7: Though due to some tumult, figuring out a little more about what my priorities are, what I want out of work (that it must be so, lol), and realizing…it’s OK to change your mind.

I’m going to stop there. 7 seems good for 2017.

NONHIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR 1: USA GYMNASTICS. HORRIBLE. Enough said. Truly distressing and horrifying and I can’t believe they still exist as is right now.

NONHIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR 2: All related and horrible things that have been and continue to be done to women and minorities and everyone who is less rich or less white or less whatever that means many see them as “less than”. What a horrifying time and realizations. Only plus side is we’re starting to talk about it now. Still.

NONHIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR 3 (hyperlocal): Work horribleness. There are some terrible people out there and I work with some of them. What a bummer. (But on the flip side, I work with so many GOOD people, too!)

That’s enough for now. I meant to do one of those kickass EOY updates that sort of come together coherently and writer-like, but I’m writing this on borrowed time while Jeff sets up a remote, Toddler2 crawls around looking at buttons to push, and Preschooler1 reads a book about What’s Inside Your Body.

The idea for 2017 was to lead with compassion (and move more, check, and slow down, sort-of check), which turned into go forth, first, with compassion. I can do better at this. I owe everyone more. But if we all led with compassion—went forth, first, with compassion—what a wonderful world this could be.

2018? More Natural Rest. That sounds a little weird, but I think it sums it up (and maybe it’s chosen because I am sick and tired and worn out about now). But yeah. Get more sleep, read less on the phone. Get the kids to sleep more (ha! ha! hahahhahaha!). Rest in ways closer to nature. But also, find more natural resting points. Take them when they are there. Take a breath, take a glance up and away, take a pause. It seems extra important in this year that real school begins. And given some things I’ve learned about myself this year, through the work struggles and family joys and other challenges (concussion, some PT, etc), I’ve also determined it’s time for my career to come to a natural resting point. Not to slack, or be slow, but just to….be. I’m not sure how to make it look that way just yet, but I’ll find it. Just have to watch and wait.

Kindergarten is in 2018 (I think she’ll be just fine, but will her mom?), midterms will happen (sure to disappoint), it’s a year filled with 8s, which I generally detest. But I have a lot of hope about it, and a house full of wonderful people with whom to welcome it. Well, three people, to be exact. Happy New Year!

“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.