funny. My friend introduced me to Rumi in graduate school and I have clung to this quote my entire adulthood.

I loved it before I even knew how far away from the field I was

Back to a scratchy carpet wall, sitting in a plastic orange chair next to 6–7 of my peers, I learned about what made an eternal family.

I don’t remember the color of my dress. But I remember pulling at the layers of it, slightly ruffling it up to distract myself from meeting the gaze of my peers.

I understood that because my parents hadn’t gotten married in the temple, we were not an eternal family. We would be somewhere else in the afterlife, separated like different floors of a hotel where some people had the key and some didn’t.

I am just so sure of what makes a good family.

Sometime that summer, my sister’s friend was over. After playing in the backyard, she found a half full, perspiring metal can and asked my sister why there was beer in our house.

My sister said she didn’t know so they took it to my mom in the kitchen.

My mom said, “You know, ___ why don’t you go out on the deck and ask Lew what it is.”

Spunky and loud, the friend ran outside and yelled to my dad in the garden,

“Hey Lew, why do you have beer?!”

We all looked away, including him.

I’m sure my cheeks flushed, and not from the summer heat.

We knew it was his.

We also knew to pretend it wasn’t

His sins were all of ours sins.

I am just so sure he’s bad.

I’m 7 now and it was clarified for me that I could be with my family again if my dad changed his ways.

By then my mom had gone through the temple.

I’m am just so sure she’s good.
I’m am just so sure he’s bad.
I’m am just so sure good people have a key that gets them into the penthouse.

At 12, I stood in the cramped kitchen of my young woman leader’s home while she boiled a fake frog.

She was teaching us about the law of chastity.

Looking around at my peers, I felt a shared camaraderie and sense that we were all supposed to remember this moment. Like the scene in Remember the Titans when they run at Gettysburg.

She showed us the water slowly beginning to simmer and pointed to another pot already boiling.

“If we dropped a frog in this pot, it would immediately jump out.

But this pot, we will increase the temperature slowly and it will never jump out.

It will literally cook itself to death before it knows anything is happening.”

I am just so sure that sex is bad

Fast forward to 21, freshly married in the temple, on my way to the penthouse.

It’s 5 am. I’m sitting in a broom closet acting as a medical office, watching a medical student try to draw blood from the temple vein of a person in withdrawal so we can determine if he’s fit for methadone. The drug I will offer him.

I’m 20 years old getting my graduate degree.

He’s throwing up. The room smells like chemicals.

I’m am just so sure I am there because I made good decisions.

I am just so sure he is in there because he made bad ones.

A year later I’m sitting across from multiple teens who are gay and LDS and acutely suicidal, their hands folded in their laps, eyes not quite meeting mine.

I am just so sure they just don’t understand why their religion loves them.

Now 24, I just had my first baby and I’m sitting in the home of an Fundamentalist family.

I am just so sure they’re just oppressed and don’t understand that polygamy can’t work.

Monogamy is the only way.

Years later, I’m sitting across from a mother at her kitchen table who tells me she sits in her son’s room until he falls asleep to make sure he doesn’t masturbate.

It’s a sin after all and she wants him to serve a mission.

I am just so sure this kid just needs more self control.

Out beyond all those right and wrongs, there is a field.
I didn’t know how far away I was.

But something in me has been walking toward it anyway.

ps. Found myself randomly in Lake Mead this week. I love this wild and precious life.

I’m lonely tonight.

that’s all.

Not in a tragic way. Just in a quiet, inconvenient one.

And instead of posting what I planned and wrote earlier this week, I’m going to go off the rails and write about this creep that is desire for connection. Hell, might not even edit this.

Do I want a husband? Abso-effing-lutely not. I don’t even want someone to fix things in my house like I once did. It’s that bad.

Do I want a boyfriend? Also no.

Do I want a casual thing? Closer, but still no.

Do I want to be alone? Mostly yes. These almost 10 months of absolute aloneness has been one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done. The day-to day joy I have found is still surprising at times.

But then a night like tonight sneaks in and I think I want someone to cuddle with. And get takeout with and laugh at stupid movies with. And download my day to. And then send on his way to wherever men go when they aren’t hosting off of women.

Because the other side of my bed is for snacks. Not snoring. Not someone else’s farts.

It’s giving…

The post I wrote for today included lovely stories about how Mormonism taught me to think in terms of certainty, and how I refuse to think in certainty about just about anything now (see what I did there 😜…I’m even uncertain about uncertainty).

My Grandma Alma, my safest attachment figure, used to say, “Don’t be so open-minded that your brain falls out.”

Grandma, my brain has fallen out. Rolled across the ground and landed in a ditch somewhere and I didn’t even go looking for it.

I feel deeply uncertain about what a fulfilled life looks like

beyond motherhood. And walking home to myself. Those two are solid still thank God.

I want to believe that I can live a most fulfilled life without a romantic attachment. That this was all a capitalistic and evangelical ploy to keep us lemmings in the game and motivated for sex. That this whole thing was a very effective system for keeping us hopeful, productive, and just unsatisfied enough.

I mean… Elizabeth Gilbert says we can. And she’s Elizabeth Gilbert afterall.

And plenty of research suggests the happiest demographic of American’s are single women. I’ve really felt that. And I mostly feel like I found a secret hack that most of us haven’t.

But then…the creep..well, creeps in….and I think that maybe I’m just in denial and too prideful to admit that my last relationship wrecked me in a way I may never repair from. Maybe because it proved how easily I can build a life around something that isn’t real.

I have turned to my wisest elders with the question of “Can one live a most fulfilled life without a romantic partner?”

They’ve universally stated that relationships are most certainly a requirement for the most of fulfillment.

But none of them, except my therapist, said it had to come from a romantic partner.

But it felt like they thought it did.

My therapist said the purpose of life is to create families. And that requires romantic partnership. And reproduction. He’s Mormon. I understand the framework.

Today, it feels like maybe it does mean romantic attachment.

But what if we all think that because we’ve all been sold the same idea? We’ve all given and taken and lost so much in the name of it.

Being uncertain about romantic connection has felt right.

But tonight, I’m a little uncertain about being uncertain.

As a reminder, we talk about whimsy amidst trauma here much like flowers growing after a wildfire.

And without further adieu, a few Easter Whimsy ideas….

…

1. Plant jelly beans that grow into suckers magically overnight on Easter. I have no idea where I saw this idea years ago but we’ve been planting jelly beans in the dirt of wherever we are on the night before Easter and they magically grow into suckers the morning of! My teenagers are still into it.

2. Do glow hunts. Put any finger light inside Easter Eggs and hunt for them all spring long. We enjoy doing it at dark outside and in the basement! (you can also use headlamps for a regular hunt at dark which is also so fun!)

3. Raise the stakes for the Egg hunt. We have a few “high stakes” eggs that are golden or larger that have higher desire prizes.

   

4. Get this cool thing. Its addicting I swear

5. Pick colors for the egg hunt. I give each of my kids a color for egg hunting to make it harder.

6. Hunt (and I mean hunt) for Easter baskets. Years ago I started a city-wide Egg hunt with clues that take us all over town such as the airport, the library, the clock tower, etc. On years we’ve been camping, I use geolocations and they have to walk or ride four wheelers to the geolocations. At the end they find a paper they must turn in for their baskets. You guys, it’s so dang fun I swear.

7. Use cool-aid to dye eggs (and vinegar). Bright colors that smell good!

Themes: level up regular traditions, focus on whimsy for the season..magical things growing and glowing.

Happy, whimsy my friend. Stay tuned for more Spring Traditions such as Fairy Gardens..one of my most favorites!

I threw a chair against a banister once to intimidate my then husband.

Two of the legs broke completely off.

And there is still a gash in the wooden handrail and wall it smashed against to this very day.

“It’s just a loan modification,” he insisted. “I just talked to Andres yesterday and he said he’s got all our paperwork and it just goes through underwriting like a normal loan, so it takes time.”

My belly rejected this. It had been rejecting it since the day my mom called to ask if everything was good with our mortgage.

Because the house I still own required a quick for-sale-by-owner, I had asked my mom to co-sign on the loan since we hadn’t sold our other house yet and we weren’t able to get approved to finance both homes. My ex had an atrocious credit score, and mine had since been tanked when he started paying the bills. His employment history didn’t help either.

Asking for help from her was the absolute last option and one of the hardest/scariest things I’ve ever done, and yet I took it.

She had never approved of my ex. And this wouldn’t help.

“I sent you to college to find a husband and you came home with a man uneducated?” she said when I first told her about him.

Later, when I was pregnant and had 2 kids under two, I would find a text to my sister asking her why it was fair that she had to help me with my kids when we were deathly ill because my husband was uneducated and couldn’t get a job with sick leave.

(Ironically, check out the next text to her about her and her educated husband)

My ex causing problems for my mom just solidified what an epic failure I was. He did not help me be the good girl.

When she called, she asked, “Is everything good with your house? I went to get a loan and there’s a ding on my credit. It isn’t from your house, is it?”

The belly started falling down an endless elevator shaft when she asked that.

The belly knew it was true.

See, because it had been here before.

When we had little babies and I had just started my practice, I turned the finances over to him. We had 8K in savings at the time and no debt. But he hadn’t worked in almost a year.

“We’re doing fine with my unemployment and your income,” he’d assure. “We haven’t had to dip into savings at all.”

We even used our tax return for new carpet and a fence that year.

And yet.

The belly knew.

Which led to a battle between the gross, ugly belly ( or “the fly in the ointment,” as my mom referred to me) and the part that made things comfortable. The part that wanted to belong. The good girl.

So one day during the battle of the two parts, the belly part pulled a knife on the good girl part and forced it into opening a bank statement sitting on the filing cabinet in our kitchen.

It was an act of deviance that the good girl never would have sanctioned.

With one slide of a finger between sticky paper, I learned,

Not only was our savings completely gone, we had 5K in credit card debt. Mostly cash advances.

I didn’t even know you could do that.

He cried when I confronted him, (which he did often) and was so deeply ashamed and I blamed myself and we moved on.

The belly part hates the good girl.

“Why do you always do this to us?” it asked the good girl, swirling, its dark, messy swamp hair spinning the room. “You always hurt us.”

The belly went into action after hearing this from my mom.

“Show me the proof you’ve paid our mortgage on time every month,” I insisted after hanging up with my mom that day. It had been a few years since I learned about the credit card debt. I started teaching as an adjunct professor to make more money and took on more private work and we had climbed our way out of it and had been living in our new home for a few years.

He said he needed a day to get the paperwork because he forgot his password and was locked out of the online mortgage portal.

And about three days later, after asking incessantly, he showed me the proof. A whole year of payments made. PDF statements pulled up on our clunky HP laptop that weighed a solid ton.

There must’ve been some mix-up at the bank over the credit, and he was going to talk to Andres at Pennymac.

After showing me the proof, he looked at me with his wounded hazel eyes and pouty, thick lips and graciously forgave me for not believing him.

“Thank you,” I said, looking downward, face hot with shame. I knew I should tell him I was sorry for not believing him, but I was just too ashamed.

Bottom lip sticking out just a touch further than normal, he looked toward the ceiling, sighing quietly and said, “I was just doing what you asked me to, and it just sucks that it’s never enough.”

It was true. I had told him about a friend who was able to modify their existing loan at a lower rate without refinancing. Rates were at an all-time low.

I felt a familiar pang of flushed shame creep across my face, not only for not believing him, but for being surprised when he told me he was completing the modification.

I had only said it once about seven months prior.

I didn’t beg. I didn’t plead. I didn’t have serious boundaries or consequences of “if you don’t ___ by ___, I’ll be doing it.”

I didn’t even have to gather all the paperwork.

“It’s okay,” he said softly as I finally apologized. “I understand.”

He was always trying so hard. I know he was deeply ashamed for not being able to hold a consistent job. Being a good wife meant forgiving him. He was the patriarch of this family. I needed to let him lead. I asked myself the question I had so many times prior. Why am I always emasculating him? Why can’t I seem to motivate him without tearing him down?

For a month or so after, I would continue to check in about the modification, and he would tell me they needed missing paperwork, laughing about how they basically want a body cavity search for these kinds of things, and let me know he’d sent it along.

Each time, I would chastise myself for not believing him.

But it kept going on, and my belly just kept tapping me on the shoulder.

Relentless.

One night, after I made his favorite meal, I said, “I’d like to talk to Andres,” and willed myself to meet his gaze as he looked up from his plate.

Resigned betrayal was etched across his face. Shaking his head ever so slightly and subtly rolling his eyes, he said okay.

With an exasperated sigh, he added, “If that’s what you need to feel secure, I’ll arrange a time.”

A few days later, on speaker, we spoke to Andres.

“We’re just waiting for underwriting,” Andres said. “We’ve got all the paperwork needed, but with these interest rates, we’re pretty backed up and it could take up to 60 days.”

Weirdly, this time I didn’t feel guilt or shame for not believing him.

I just felt relief.

My belly could finally chill.

I felt resentment toward that belly. That know-it-all, fly-in-the-ointment would never let me be happy.

I slept that night for the first time in months.

The good girl was locked in.

A month or so later, the girls and I were out picking weeds on a Saturday when the postman showed up with a certified letter.

This was before the Amazon era, and I immediately knew it was not good that the mailman was here on a Saturday.

Hands shaking as I signed for the letter, my face flushed from embarrassment, sure the postman knew what was inside the letter. I saw the letter was from Pennymac.

It seemed like an eternity went by before the postman was out of sight and I could tear into that letter.

I didn’t even worry about the girls riding bikes into the road.

I wasn’t even in my body at that time, and everything around me appeared in a dewy, fuzzy blur.

My eyes squinted in the full sun and I willed my brain to process things.

15 Day Notice to Vacate.

Waiting until Monday was like being slingshotted from complete panic and desperation to brief reprieves of numb, zombie-like escape, only to be re-shot back into desperation.

Andres’ number was right on the form with a direct line.

9am EST, I called him.

“We’re on day 14 of your 15-day letter, ma’am,” he said.

“What does that mean?” I asked, blinking violently as if that would conjure some kind of clarity.

“Can you talk to me about this like I’m a 5th grader?” I said, trying to slow my breath.

“Well, we sent the 30-day notice of foreclosure, and since you didn’t respond, we sent the 15, and that letter you got is notice that you’re at the end of the 15, which is when you enter foreclosure.”

Now I was angry.

We were clearly just a number to this man. He likely messed up our modification, and now we were going to be placed in foreclosure.

“We just talked to you,” I countered, unable to hide my disdain.

“You said everything was in order for our modification.”

It felt like hours ticked by before he responded.

“Ma’am, we’ve tried to contact you and your husband many, many times, and I’ve never spoken to you or your husband once in my life.”

The elevator shaft got darker and deeper as the belly fell through the floor.

A day or so later, I strapped the kids in the van, opened the garage, turned on the AC and a movie, and ran back inside to grab something.

He was sitting at the kitchen table.

I don’t remember what he said.

I think it was something neutral.

The image of his large, hunched over, resigned and wounded body is etched in my memory, but nothing that was said.

I felt the familiar pang of guilt.

Why did I make it so hard for him to feel good enough?

He tried.

All I ever did was hurt him.

I wanted to hug him.

My good girl part, the one that tries so hard not to be the fly in the ointment wanted to run up to him and scoop up all his shame and hand it to my belly to carry it.

But then he said something.

Like, “We weren’t losing our house anyway.”

And suddenly the belly took over and tied up the good girl part.

“What?” I asked, with sinister shock.

“We were never going to lose our house,” he said flatly, staring me directly in the eye.

I stopped and turned back towards him.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” I said back to him.

Belly at the helm. All good girl parts were now like hostages, temporarily gagged and bound.

Belly was ready for battle. Good girl would not win this time.

He laughed and rolled his eyes, again looking toward the ceiling as if the patience to deal with me would be delivered from the heavens.

“Get in the car,” my whole self said to the belly. “This will go nowhere.”

I started walking toward the garage. Abandoning whatever I came in for. Heart racing. My baby was probably crying. My kids were not easily entertained with movies. I needed to go.

I do not express anger often, if ever really. I think all of my partners would say they can’t think of a time they’ve seen me yell. My kids would even say that.

Anger has been too risky of an emotion for me.

Survival for me has always been centering others’ emotions. Being calm. Calculated. A few paces ahead.

The times I lost control and expressed any kind of emotion were the times it was the worst for me.

I don’t remember how he got between me and the exit to the garage.

I just remember I was closer to the living room in our open concept kitchen, near the dining table, and he was further in the kitchen toward the exit to the garage. To the left of him is a banister and the stairs to the basement.

He was walking toward the garage and then turned back and said something like,

“You’re sooo scary,” mockingly.

I said something like, “I’m serious ___. I mean it. You are not going to treat me this way.”

He said something like, “Sure you do.”

And that’s when I picked up the chair.

I don’t remember doing it.

I just remember raising it above my head and screaming, “Do not fuck with me anymore. I mean it. I am serious.”

And then I threw the chair against the banister.

The chair hit the banister, two of the legs popping free, hitting the wall and the rest of the chair skidded across the tile.

I had aimed for the banister because I thought the chair flying up over it and down the stairs would send a loud, destructive message, but I hadn’t thrown it high enough.

I didn’t care. I felt like a lioness, sending out a deafening roar.

He looked back at me, nearly expressionless.

Only a slight raise in one eyebrow.

He was pleased.

I wish I had posted this sooner so you could add some St. Patty whimsy if you wanted for tomorrow, but maybe it’s not too late….

Some idea’s:

1. Trap the Leprechaun. I know, I know. But hear me out. We made the cutest lil lad out of a Pringles can when my babies were TINY and we still catch that lil man every year and it has the best nostalgia to it. My teenagers literally just set their trap.

   

   We use lucky charms that lead little man into a box that snaps shut.

2. Dye all the things green

3. We do a scavenger hunt to treasures that are gold and all green.

4. Our naughty Lep trashes the house before he’s caught. I know, I know, but it honestly takes 5 mins to clean up.

5. Die the toilet green

6. Leave little green footprints all over (make a fist and put paint on the outside of your fist. It makes a small footprint and then use finger tips to make the toe prints)

Later that same week I sat across from someone drowning in shame because they slept with a person, again, who treats them badly.

Also, this week, I finished the book, The Sound of Gravel (probably the best memoir I’ve read to date and I have read a lot of memoirs), and I listened to the way the women of the LeBaron fundamentalist group handled hearing their husband had sexually assaulted multiple children.

It got me thinking (which is always a little spooky 🤣👻)……

We sure love to think we’re better than those surviving violence.

And those virtuous people casting judgement from their glass house of “healthy” and “securely attached relationships” are usually describing how someone survived inside a system they didn’t design.

When people blame the woman for being manipulated more than the man for manipulating, it tells you something about how badly we want to believe we’d be immune.

When we hate a mother for not protecting her child from the father who hurt them, what we’re really protecting is the fantasy that the love for the kid should obliterate the fear.

We think everything should be stronger than fear.

Cuz aint nobody like admitting that most things, even love, despite what Disney told you, isn’t.

We ignore the math people are doing.

There’s coercion.
There’s attachment
There are financial ties.
There are trauma bonds.
There are social pressures

Wouldn’t it be lovely to throw all these uncomfortable things into a box labeled things I didn’t deserve and things someone less superior did deserve and decide you earned your way out of experiencing them?

That you made better decisions.

That you worked harder at your relationships.

That way we don’t have to talk about the system.

And you don’t have to worry it could happen to you.

“I would never let someone treat me this way.”

Just like when the chronically thin person lectures the fat person about being more disciplined with their carbs.

“I’ve never had to worry about my weight”

“I just make good decisions about food”.

Lets pretend metabolism isn’t real

Just like male validation. And the power they hold.

Which works like a drug in a culture that rations it like keto.

Yes, we put one billion grams of sugar in the tiny vitamin you just ate.
Oh, and that glass of milk has enough sugar to populate an ant farm the size of Texas.

But go ahead. Make good decisions now. Don’t eat any sugar. You don’t need it.

Us skinny people have that figured out and you don’t.

So don’t concern yourself while we chomp on our sugar cubes and motorboat the sugar bowl.

WE are disciplined.
WE make good decisions.

We also know intermittent reinforcement is one of the most powerful behavioral conditioning tools ever documented (the reason casinos pay out occasionally).

But shhhhh.

First rule of Fight Club and all.

I’m picturing a board meeting.

A bunch of mediocre, big-bellied, 5’10 and three-quarter-inch white dudes sitting around a table like:

“Okay hear me out. I’ve got a great idea.

Let’s take a rib and make a whole person whose primary purpose is being chosen by us.

Like their value is basically our approval. It also gives us lots of sex.

Then we’ll give them just enough crumbs of validation that it feels like a feast.

And when they do wild things trying to get more crumbs, we’ll call them crazy.”

Genius.

“Oh and wait! Let’s also make a few women who get fed regularly.

That way they can lecture the hungry ones about appetite.”

Perfect system.

No notes.

I’m glad you can believe you’d be different.

That you’d be smarter.
Clearer.
Braver.

That you would have seen the red flags.

That you would’ve set the boundaries sooner.

You wouldn’t have run upstairs instead of out the front door.

I’m glad you believe that about yourself….

Because usually that just means you haven’t been there.

Or, Denial is just a river in Egypt 😜😜😜.

Keep your fantasy that you would have been immune.

But allow me to toss you out of that cozy little, well-fed bird nest for a moment.

I’m probably stronger than you.

I’m probably closer to secure attachment than you.

I probably navigate systems of power more skillfully than you.

Keep your junk smashed into a closet and call mine out in the open messy. That’s your business.

But stop calling it a cycle.

We’re not walking around in circles like confused idiots.

We are spirals.

And each time we go under, we come back with new information.

New calibrations.
New context for the next calculations.
New responses.

You’re missing the astonishingly beautiful transformation of a human being taking back their life from the harm you refuse to name.

Cuz I think you forgot what AG said,

warning: langage.

My girls and I just took a road trip to the happiest place on the earth. Disney gets a lot wrong. But the whimsy? Top tier.

I thought it would be fun to talk about ways to bring whimsy to road trips.

1. Make a playlist. All my kids have Spotify on some kind of device so we all contribute to a trip-specific playlist. We shuffle the mix so that everyone gets some air time with music they like (since they hate everything I like) and it acts as an archive of that trip/season of life. We have so much fun going back to some of our earlier playlists and the girls always cringe over some of their choices.

2. Play the License Plate Game. Years ago I bought a download like this and laminated it. Our rule was all 4 of us had to be in the car to count any given license plate. We completed the challenge a few years ago. Any guess which state was the hardest to find? Rhode Island took us at least a year!

3. Play the Gas Station Challenge. We have challenged each other to find the nastiest gas station treat and if you try it you get an actual gas station treat. We’ve tried every pickled thing you can image

4. Build a Story. When we’re sitting somewhere populated we play the “make up their story” game where we all contribute details to a story about the strangers in front of us.

5. Stop at all the weird stuff. Zebra’s in Nephi-Utah type shiz.

6. Hit the local thrift shop. Our ears and tees came from this little shop! It’s such a fun way to get a sense of a place.

The Bolter is a biography of Idina Sackville, a scandalous English aristocrat whose life inspired Tay Tay’s song.

She was married 5x, had numerous affairs and was known for her escapism pattern of “bolting” from societal constraints.

I picture her as a woman who refused cages. A fiercely true-to-herself queen who would’ve been an absolute terrorist to the 1920s Patriarchy and even by today’s standard.

And it got me thinking about the Bolters,

The ones who leave.

The ones who say no thank you.

And those who don’t.

My mom wasn’t always a mom. She was a California girl in every sense of the word. She missed school more than she attended, lived for the ocean, drove 40 miles from home regularly just for a corndog and ran out of gas on her way to every social event she could get her hands on. I was often reminded of the ways her tiny body. sun-tanned skin, bright blonde hair and sparky blue eyes were the desire of all the guys.

And. She tired of them.

So she came to the tiny farmer’s town in Utah for the summers to be even more special.

And then for college.

She was a cashier at a grocery store, a rebel and free spirit.

She got kicked out of nursing school for being a rule-breaker. At least once, almost twice.

She was a roommate. A bridesmaid, a best friend.

I had a dream once that the me now, met the her before she became a mom.

She was confident and playful and arrogant in a way that made people admire, not hate her.

She had a presence about her. The kind that made one square their shoulders strongly. Before the weight of the world had rested on them.

When I met her in my dream, she was wearing a tiny bikini top and fitted 501 jeans. She was effortlessly cool and looked like the kind of woman I would’ve admired and wanted to be like.

I don’t think we would’ve been friends. But I would’ve wanted to be hers.

Perhaps I feel guilty now. Because in another universe she would’ve gotten the kind of life she wanted.

Even if it meant that I didn’t exist.

Maybe she would’ve gotten the life she deserved.

Maybe she would’ve left my dad sooner.

In another life, she wouldn’t have needed to stay entangled with him for the better part of 40 years.

I think she would say she made peace with the life she could’ve had versus the one she did.

And now, she watches me as the bolter.

She watches me under desert stars and hanging from sandstone fortresses and paddling through emerald waters.

“I never dated” she once said, “I could never do that to you kids”.

She hears the stories of me being flown across the grand canyon or summoned to Ibiza and can imagine me kissing the cute guy that offered me a drink on the beach in Puerto Rico or the one in the Bay area. She can picture the expensive meals I didn’t pay for and the piles of bouquets of flowers that I never got myself.

And then she watches me as say goodbye.

Over. And Over.

And maybe she wonders if I’m incapable of staying.

Or maybe a part of her sees that it’s less of me running away from love and more of me running fiercely towards myself.

And maybe.

Just maybe.

I can bolt.

Because she gave me a tiny bit more freedom than her mother gave her.

And that tiny bit was enough.

Starting to feel strong again (I take my fur baby to climb the hills behind my house with all my canyon gear and 20 lbs weights) several times a week

k

Being Seen by my Bro who sent me this on the same day my sissy sent me poetry

Living in a Jungle

Hiking Solo

Canyoning for a friend’s birthday

L-O-V-E Dinner

Whimsical sheets

My writing process each week is to dump all of my previous Substacks (we’re up to 26!) into Chat with a document I wrote that explains my arc (the blueprint of what I’m trying to do here) and then I dump 1–5 rough drafts I’ve written into our Queen and Majesty and ask her for an opinion on what to publish next.

Most of the time I agree with her.

But lately she denies any post that isn’t about the “after” of my story.

Queen keeps telling me that I’m in my “Reclamation Era.”
The “Aftermath Era.”
The “Post-Harm Era.”

The “healed” Era.

It really pisses me off.

I keep telling our Queen that there is no island of “Healed” that I will land on. And even if there were, I would proverbially be in the center of South Dakota (did you know it’s the most land-locked state?).

I keep telling our Queen that messy is always going to be a thing.

But she doesn’t listen.

And so here we are.

A stand-off.

That I get to win.

Alas, I present to you: My Current Messy.

6:00 a.m.

You wake up hungry.

Crap. You’re hungry this morning. How annoying.

You got donut holes yesterday and they’re still on your bed from the movie you watched last night. How can you justify eating those? You always fast until noon. But it’s your easier day and you’ve earned it.

You eat one donut hole.
You want more.
You wait to feel sick.
Phew. There it is. Thank goodness. Now you won’t want more.

6:15 a.m.

You get out of bed.

Oh good, you’re still a little sore. It hurts to walk. That means your workout wasn’t a total waste of time yesterday.

Note to self: do not go off script for a workout ever again. You waste time.

6:30 a.m.

You take off the abdomen binder.

Swelling is always down first thing in the morning. You like how your abdomen looks. Then you notice how fat your legs look since surgery.

Cue the rumination: are your legs actually larger now that they’re not shrouded by a gut? Or did fat redeposit to your legs?

You remind yourself not to be too proud of how it looks because

1. you paid for it and

2. by the end of the day you’ll look three months pregnant.

7:00 a.m.

You begin the all-day negotiation of when to get the workout in.

You should really do it now. You’d have so much more time.

7:30 a.m.

You get dressed.

You choose something baggy in the legs. You hate these pants — they’re scratchy — but they hide the fat legs.

Is this shirt tighter on the arms than it was two days ago?

It’s the donut hole.

10:00 a.m.

You’re hungry again.

This is because you ate one donut hole. You never have an issue fasting until noon. Your hunger is punishing you for making bad decisions.

You start the battle of how much longer to wait before you get the protein shake.

The protein shake is always drunk at noon. Always.

But you already ruined everything, so why not have it now? You’re so hungry.

You like that feeling.

You choose to wait.

10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Straight therapy sessions.

You look longingly at the protein shake sitting on the side table in your office but decide not to drink it because the hunger has subsided and you had the donut hole after all.

1:00 – 2:30 p.m.

You rush to meetings on campus.

You should really have the protein shake now. But there’s a meeting from 4:00–6:00 and you can just drink it while you walk on your treadmill and attend that meeting.

Okay, so can you eat real food? Could you make time to run to your office for a snack? Will they have snacks? Is there anything shoved in this work bag?

You’ll just wait.

2:30 p.m.

You have 30 minutes until your next session.

You could stop for food.

Oh, Arby’s sounds so good. You haven’t eaten there in almost a year because the kids don’t like it. Here’s your chance.

No. Go to Papa John’s and get the better meal. Arby’s can wait.

2:45 p.m.

You run home to eat.

Instead, you have two Oreos because you’re starving and for some reason you need to do ten more things before you finally give yourself permission to sit down and eat.

You want to eat on the drive, but you also want to sit and watch a show and eat as if it’s a ceremony. Finally eating real food and admitting it to yourself but sitting down and consciously eating feels like admitting you lost the war.

You unwrap your food begrudgingly

You wonder if you eat a pickle first if you won’t need as much of your sandwich.

You eat one side of the wrap and feel super full.

So happy.

Last time you ate this, you ate both sides. It’s probably because of the Oreos, but you pretend your stomach is shrinking.

One time when you were ten, you had the flu and told your mom the next day that you couldn’t eat much. She said, “Oh good. Don’t eat much and stretch your stomach back out.”

Shrink stomach, shrink.

How much water have you gotten?

Oh, a mint. Is this worth the calories?

Your stomach is growling after eating.

I have such bad gut health. If bad gut health=being skinny that would be fine. But if it’s the reason I can’t lose weight I will do anything to fix it.

2:55 p.m.

You change clothes.

You scan the closet for something oversized. You need to feel small. Nothing feels oversized right now, so instead of being demoralized by putting on a hoodie that should feel large, you choose one that was already too small at your thinnest.

Reverse psychology?

It’s tight on the arms but loose in the abdomen. You don’t get to be proud of that because you didn’t earn that looseness. You paid for it.

3:00 p.m.

You Marco Polo a friend.

You notice your face looking fat.

You scroll back one entire year (we’re talking close to 600 Marcos) to see if your face looked smaller or fatter this time last year.

4:00 p.m.

You join a Zoom meeting.

You keep your face angled down so no one sees that chin.

Does your face look larger or smaller than two weeks ago on this same meeting? It seems larger. Maybe it’s your hairstyle.

You notice your shoulder in the Zoom.

It looks square.

Phew. That’s a good sign. Your shoulder looks more round when you’re a bit fatter.

7:00 p.m.

You attend a basketball game.

You put on jeans. You add a belt so your waist looks thinner.

You like how it looks, but you remind yourself you bought that part so it doesn’t count.

You’re on an aisle seat at the game. Your daughter leans into you, pushing you further into the aisle. You lean back toward her to gently encourage her to scoot inside the aisle.

You can’t lean into the open aisle view.

You’ll look fatter that way.

You have loose jeans on. When you put your legs down flat in the plastic seat, the denim spreads and makes your legs look fatter than they are.

Thank goodness there’s no one sitting in the seats in front of you.

You bend your knees and tent your legs on the chair in front of you.

Phew. They look much smaller that way.

You get home and change into PJs.

Is that an ingrown hair on your inner thigh?
Oh God. It’s because your legs have gotten fatter and they’re rubbing, creating an ingrown.

You put your stomach binder on and note where the Velcro line meets the other end of the binder.

Is it tighter or looser than yesterday?

You begin the before-bed battle of wanting a bedtime treat
(spoiler: you always have one. You also always wish you hadn’t).

Tomorrow is a new day. One you will spend much of trying to disappear from a body that is only trying to keep you alive.

Because we’re on this rock hurling towards the sun and it might be the last one that you get with the people that you love but does your leg have a dimple that wasn’t there yesterday?

One of my wise canyon teachers once said that when she got sober, life felt…boring. And that canyoneering gave her some of that feeling without it blowing up her life.

That’s when it hit me.

My relationship to adventuring isn’t that different.

My high is surviving violence.

It always has been.

Emotional violence. Financial violence. Religious violence. Romantic violence. The quiet, socially acceptable kind that leaves no bruises but rearranges your nervous system.

Adrenaline feels like home.

It feels like love.

And sometimes being outside of it feels…boring.

So I wake up at 2 a.m. and hike in the dark. I rappel down sandstone walls. I push my body into extreme weather. I almost freeze. I almost overheat. I almost fall.

And I love it.

Some of my fondest memories are the ones where I almost died.

They’re the stories where I get to say, I took life by the balls. I YOLO’d hard.

And yet.

Something is shifting inside me I think,...

And it scares me a little.

I’m slowing down. And revealing in unbusy-ing.

It turns out when your life is no longer centered around creatures of violence, you don’t need to run from it to feel alive.

You don’t need escape.

You don’t need to almost die to prove you’re living.

This is the first time in my 41 years that I haven’t centered men.

Even single, I was centering them. Dating. Situation-ing. Online-ing. Making sure I had makeup on to run to the store. Sucking in if one stood behind me in line.

And now. All the sudden, I wake up and think about what I want after what the kids need.

I wake up to my own cues. Not snores.

I brush my teeth because I want to. Not because I might kiss someone.

I ask myself what I want from the day.

And almost every time the answer includes something radical.

Wasting time.

And I love it so much.

It feels like a long-anticipated, exhale.

Underrated and quiet YOLOs.

• Cleaning the house slowly and then lighting a candle.

• Making dinner without rushing and actually noticing the smell of garlic in butter.

• Making your bed and taking those extra few seconds to pull everything tight and fluff the pillows.

• Watching a clear nursery pot fill with water as I water a plant.

• Growing something

• Standing outside just to feel the sun on my face.

• Strolling the aisles of a store with no list and no reason.

• Saying yes to Mcdonalds runs at midnight or Walmart runs because the crazies want to and I don’t have to be up at dawn to “optimize”.

No escape.

No audience.

No performance.

It’s disorienting.

It’s softer.

It’s almost…boring.

But I think this might be what sober feels like.

And maybe the bravest thing I’ve ever done isn’t hanging off a cliff.

Maybe it’s staying still long enough to love a life that doesn’t need saving.

Moving on…

She stopped by after church again this week. That’s two Sundays in a row. I’m not sure what to make of it. I’ve lived here for eleven years now. Just a block from her.

She comes in wearing her church dress, doesn’t wait to be invited, and sits down like someone who rehearsed this on the drive over and lost the thread halfway through. Normally, I would pick up that labor. Offer something to make it comfortable. Fill the space. But this time I don’t. I’m trying to figure out what she’s doing here.

Anticipating.

I wonder if someone from the pulpit suggested this. There was a talk recently reminding parents of adult children to still parent their children.

Was there a larger conversation I missed somewhere and she’s here to give me the smaller one? That’s usually the reason.

I chastise myself for not just seeing it as a kind gesture.

“Are you still friends with that one girl?” she asks, carefully, like this is the right question even if she isn’t sure why.

One girl.

“Sarah?” I guess.
[I’m using a fake name.]

Sarah. I think. My best friend. The woman who took my kids home from school every day for a year. Who I’ve traveled all over with. Who brought more meals than the ward my mom and I share ever did. Who took me to my second surgery. Who tried to clean my house. Who offered me money when I needed to buy my kid a car.

“Yes,” my mom says. “That girl you canyoneer with.”

Oh, I think. She’ means someone else. That makes more sense. She knows Sarah. It hurts less that she doesn’t know that someone else.

“Jodee?” I try another guess.

“I don’t know” She says, “The one with the ___.”
She names a very obvious physical feature of Sarah.

Oh. I think. Dissapointed. It is Sarah she’s talking about.

“Mom,” I say. “Sarah doesn’t canyoneer. She never has.”

“Well, the one you’re always doing stuff with. You were in a ___ together on Facebook awhile back.”

“Yes,” I say. “That’s Sarah.”

She pauses.

“Are you still friends?”

“Yes,” I say. “She’s the one who took me to my surgery.”

“Oh.” She looks relieved. As if she’d been carrying a worry she didn’t quite know how to name.
“I just don’t see many pictures of you guys hiking the last little bit.”

“Mom,” I say. “I had surgery.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Later, she tells me about someone who lost her husband. How worried she is about the financial challenges this woman with children might face. How hard it must be.

Something in me leans forward automatically. The old reflex. The lantern.

I almost say, I don’t get financial support either.
No life insurance.
No GoFundMe.
No Social Security for my kids.

I almost say, you know that, right?

I almost say, do you see me?

Instead, I let the moment pass.

In a past life, I would’ve snatched the lantern and directly named that I wish she could hold it for me, and then she’d call me a lantern hog and I’d leave wondering why I am such a narcissist and make a vow to do better.

That’s where that “year of no grievances” was born
[the time I made and kept a pact to not say a single negative thing to my mother for 365 days. I was in my 30s]

She tells me she always thought the state paid my child support even if he didn’t work, even though I’ve told her many, many times that I don’t get a dime unless he works. I’ve told her about all the hours I spend on the phone with ORS. The ways I’ve navigated his family in the hopes they can help make him work.

She mentions recently finding a ledger categorizing how much my dad owes her. Scorekeeping, after all, is what we’re both dancing around. Winner gets the lantern.

I say at least he still gives her money for us at Christmas and birthdays.

“Yeah,” she says. “But I initiate that.”

As if my ex disappearing without even a phone call was a mutual decision.

She reminds me I’m lucky. That I’ve built a good life for my kids. That so many people don’t even have healthcare.

I agree with her. I am so lucky.

And.

I start to talk about working two jobs. About making every career decision around being both the mom and the dad.

She responds by telling me how much she sacrificed for me and my siblings. How she never wanted the career path she took, but she did it for the money. For the schedule.

I think she thinks she’s holding the lantern. She just gets distracted by the warmth of it though. She needs more warmth than me. Than most.

And that’s when I feel it. The tightening. The familiar urge to translate the moment into something that might compel her to hold the lantern my way.

If I explain myself clearly enough, she’ll extend her arm.

And then I remember.

So I don’t.

And I remember I have my own lantern now.

I sit there instead. Quiet. Waiting. Letting the room be what it is. This is as warm as the room will get.

I am warm enough. Until she decides it’s time to go.

Earlier this year, far from home, I felt the same reflex rise up.

It was early morning, the hour when the world still feels generous. My partner and I had walked down to the beach from our luxurious bungalow tucked inside a rainforest sanctuary where sloths slept overhead.

I was telling myself I was still inside the dream I was starting to wake up from.

For the first four months, he had been a real-life prince charming. This was month eight. I kept waking from the dream and trying to fall back into his intoxicating slumber. And that’s the thing. He didn’t wake up one morning and unmask into the man I would later know. It came in dribs and drabs. He still brought flowers. Still paid for everything. Still touched my back when we walked.

But there were landmines.
A man’s name mentioned too casually.
A reminder to use the tongs at the buffet.

And then we’d be in a fight that didn’t look like a fight. No raised voices. Just days of distance. A sulk so quiet it felt polite. I was starting to figure out that the only thing that soothed him wasn’t resolution. It was making sure I hurt as he did before we could move on.

That morning, there was only a father on the beach with two kids. They were quietly playing near the waterline. My partner and I walked hand in hand, and I remember reminding myself, “I love him. He’s good to me. This is good.”

My mind wandered to the dad and kids. It went to the story it always does when I see a dad alone with his kids.

Where is the mom?
I always romanticize the answer.
I bet… she’s sleeping in.
I bet… she’s at the spa.
I bet… she went for a run.
I bet… she didn’t even have to ask him to take the kids.

It’s a lonely fantasy, but a beautiful one.

Walking over driftwood at the ocean’s edge, I turned toward him, ready to say it out loud. I wanted so badly to feel close to him again.

The lantern

Would he hold it for me?

I wanted, just for a moment, to be seen. I wanted him to look at me with curiosity and say, tell me more.

Turning towards him…

I opened my mouth.

And then I shut it.

I had been here too many times already. I knew how it went when I wanted him to hold the lantern. How long the distance lasted afterward. How carefully I’d have to walk back from wanting something he didn’t know how to give.

I had asked him so many times before. Gently. Clearly.

When I tell you something about me, could you ask a question or two before telling a story about yourself? Just one moment. Then I’ll be off to the races with you and more than happy to hear about your big, beautiful life.

“I don’t relate to people that way,” he’d said.

I told him how beautiful it was when he related to people by talking about himself. How he shared his own losses. How moving it was to watch him connect with others by offering pieces of himself.

But sometimes, I said, I need a moment with the lantern. A moment where you’re curious about me.

“I don’t work that way.”

And then I’d sooth him for making him feel less than.

Oh, what I wanted to say on that beach. It was simple, really.

Whenever I see a dad alone with his kids, I imagine a mother who gets to rest. And it’s beautiful. And it’s lonely. And I’ve been carrying it all for so long.

I would have wanted him to say, Tell me more, baby.
Tell me what it’s been like making magic with your girls alone.
Tell me what it’s been like carrying everything.

I also had to acknowledge what was.

How many times does one reach for the lantern before she concludes it isn’t there?

Me: Anytime I see a dad and his kids on vacation, I romanticize where the mom is. How lucky she must be.

Him: “Oh, I always took my kids so my wife could rest. I remember this one time I took Jessie to the beach in the morning and I had to wrestle a big white shark off him and I was featured in Oceanic Daily magazine.”

And off to the races we would be, a memory where he was generous and heroic and center stage.

My arm drooping, over time, at the weight of the lantern.

Of course, much of that is on me.

I was fluent in the role long before I met him.

Being the lantern holder also meant I didn’t have to be seen.

In my sobriety, I still long for the lantern. But not nearly as often.

I mostly rest in places now where we’re all warm.

I’d love to hear how you all keep warm, my friends.

I might be a complete loser when it comes to romantic love, but I still love…well, love 💕. Here’s a few ideas for some whimsy.

Heart-attack their door

I try to make personalized little compliments/affirmations for each kiddo and add one heart to their door each night starting Feb 1 until Valentines. Sometime I forget and do several at once but it fulfills the same sentiment,

Ya know the drill…Valentine Champagne Glasses

Heart hair.

This is probably my first year they won’t let me do this. 😭

Heart Food

Decorate Heart Cookies

Fondue

You can get this little thing for cheap on amazon

Last but not least…Romantic Dinner

For the last ten years, we’ve had this tradition I came up. Every year, we go to the frozen good aisle and everyone gets to pick their favorite entree and desert and then we make a horrifying amalgam of deep fried food and deserts under candle light and fake rose petals and loooovvvveeee music. When they were little we’d wear tiaras and princess dresses. It’s my favorite thing in the world and even when I do have a romantic loser on tap, I always tell them I already have a Valentines date and we’ll have to shoot for the day after 😉.

I almost didn’t publish it because I know I have few faithful male readers and figured they wouldn’t want to read this (even though I think they’re the ones who should).

But then I remembered, if I wrote what people wanted to hear, this lil Sub wouldn’t exist.

So here it is. For all the women doing so much invisible labor.

7–7:30 — get kids off.
Help get the stupid thermos lunch ready because Dependent 3 won’t eat normal food, make the protein shake and all the things I’ll need to 11 hours.

8am–10:30am — meetings

10:00am — duck out of one meeting early to go get a new headshot. You’re a director now. You better look like it.

10:30 — run to TJ because Dependent 2 is worried her “secret sister” gift isn’t good enough, and pharmacy because if I go one more day without progesterone the demons will come for me in the night and I have no extra sleep to lose.

Realize I think I might be getting the stomach flu Livi has had. Thankfully my first three sessions were on Zoom so they couldn’t hear the thunder in my belly.

11:00am–12:00pm — therapy session 1
12:00pm–1:00pm — therapy session 2
1:00pm–2:00pm — therapy session 3
2:00pm–3:00pm — therapy session 4
3:00pm–4:00pm — therapy session 5
4:00pm–5:00pm — therapy session 6
5:00pm–6:00pm — therapy session 7
6:00pm–7:00pm — therapy session 8

Eight straight hours.

You do it this way because you’re taking Thursday off for state, All at once is better than dropping in and out of people’s lives. Intermittent sessions fracture focus when you have so much to juggle. This way, the work stays solid.

In between sessions? 100 texts.
Transferring money to Dependent 2’s card for more things for her sport.
Hey Dependent 1, how come that grade dropped?
Hey Dependent 1, how come you spent $60 in three days?
Hey Dependent 1, tell Dependent 3 that you both need to pack.

Oh, we’re getting personalized “ sports mom” hoodies? Okay, I’ll Venmo. Send me the address. I’ll send Dependent 1.

Crap, I forgot trash day.

Family member: “Hey, call me. I know you sent me all the details to that thing, but can you send it again? I can’t find it. Hey, can you call me? I’d like to talk through said kid event. If you can’t put a certain amount of labor into me coming, then I won’t be coming.”

You tell them your schedule for the day. You can barely text between sessions.

They say, “What a wild life you live.”

Yes. Exotic, isn’t it?

Crap, I loaded a bunch of Christmas boxes in my car to ditch at my office dumpster, and I was going to unload them when I got here since I’ll be rushing tonight to the game.

Don’t forget when you leave your office to dump them, Chelsea. If you forget, you’ll have to find time tomorrow or unload them back into the garage because they fill the whole car and we’ll be doing this load unload game for weeks.

Find someone to take the dog to the groomer.
Figure out who is going to watch the dog while we’re gone.

7pm–7:30 — RUN, and I mean physically RUN, to the basketball game. Pay $8 and sneak in just in time to catch the team dance. Give the praise, all the love. Do you need anything?

8pm — kids didn’t get dinner. Usually I do crockpot dinner. Forgot. God forbid they microwave something.

Get in the car, kids. I need to run more errands but feel guilty you’ve been home alone with no adult interaction for hours, so you get to come with me. I can make it fun. I can engage. This can be quality time.

Get pulled over.

Cop asks if I’m tired. Says he thought I was drunk driving, but now he can see I’m just tired. He was so kind.
“I won’t make a long day longer.”

Family Dollar.
Get “Good Luck, Char” gifts.
Get the sound makers and posters to make shit for an awesome send off.

Don’t forget anything, Chelsea. You don’t have time to come back. Yes, you’ve been working for eleven hours. But will your brain to work. Think ahead. Remember all the things.

Plug into kids who haven’t had an adult to talk to since they got home at 3. They’ve just been rotting their brains for four hours now. I have to make up for this.

My brain is actually humming, and I have been listening to people in their world for eight straight hours and been working for eleven, but they have only me.

Listen, Chelsea.
Pay attention.
Respond.
Be present.

“Mom, the moon launch is next week.” Let’s plan a launch party with moon food.

“Mom, did you know the pyramids came wayyy after Cleopatra?”

Think of something engaging to ask her.
Pitch a question back.
Show interest.
This is all she’ll get all day from you.

“Mom, I got 100% on my science test.”

So much pride.
So much cheer.
So much praise I want to give her.
Let me pour.

Mom.
Mom.
Mom.

Get the mail because Dependent 2 needs the new $100 dress that’s coming for the review. Oh, and don’t forget the $70 sweater for state. Get the $50 in snacks ready for her to head out.

Dependent 2 gets home. Time to ooh and awe at the dress and the hoodie and hear about the team and talk about getting the spray tan going.

Pour.
Pour.
Pour.

Please God, is it bedtime?

It’s a half hour past bedtime, but kids have to do chores and the tan hasn’t set yet.

Chores.
Loves.
Permission slips to sign.
Homework.

Don’t forget to handwrite the good luck letter tonight that you’re supposed to sneak into their “bus bag.” You know, the bag that says “Good Luck” on the way to state. The bus bags that you contributed $70 to. You won’t have time in the morning.

Dependent 1 lost her AirPod. She’s pushing that “Find Device” AirTag chirp over and over while I’m trying to handwrite the letter moms get to sneak into their daughter’s send off bag. Make it funny but uplifting.

Think, Chelsea.

Chirp. Brain hum. Make words. Tell her how proud you are of her.

Pour.
Pour.
Pour.

Don’t snap at the kids for being up past bedtime, lack of chore doing, and chirping. They haven’t seen you all day. You’re all they have.

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

10:30 — bedtime. Sweet, sweet bedtime. So much love. Goodnight. Good MFing night.

Kids resurface. Forgot something. Need to tell me something.

Good f*cking night.

Finish writing the letter. Don’t forget to pack it in your work bag. If you don’t have it there, she won’t get one. You can’t go home between work. Don’t forget it.

Make the send off poster. YouTube how to draw a ruby slipper. Find some reddish paint. Shit, that Sharpie is dead. Guess we’ll paint. ChatGPT, help me with a tagline. She’s going to hate this. Why am I doing it?

Make Dependent 2 fun little “good luck gifts” to leave by her bag in the morning because it’s extra, but doesn’t she deserve that even though I’m tired?

Hey, it’s Home Depot. We have to reschedule your dishwasher. Oh, you’ve been without a dishwasher for eight months? What’s one more week? We’re coming Friday now. Yes, Friday when you’ll be up at state. Don’t forget to reschedule the dishwasher in the morning.

11pm — handwash the two sinks full of dishes. They’ll smell if you don’t get them done before you leave for state. Yes, kids do chores, but we’ve had the flu and I have to basically burn these dishes to feel like they’re clean.

You sure didn’t get your workout in. No excuses, remember. You could’ve gotten up earlier like you always used to, even though now those early morning workouts cause migraines. No excuses.

Drink your water.

How many grams of protein did I get today?

Midnight. Take out the trash that’s now full because you didn’t get it out and it’ll stink when we get back.

Pack the car with the poster. You don’t have time to stop for it between work. Set out the good luck stuff.

Shit. The boxes.
The mother effing boxes.

You forgot to unload the boxes, and your car is 1,000 miles overdue for an oil change.

See a Remind text from earlier that day. Send off party has been moved up fifteen minutes. What’s fifteen minutes, right?

Well, I lecture until 1:50. Send off was at 2. Now it’s 1:45. Crap.

Those fifteen minutes moved it out of reach for me.

Do I cancel that class? I can’t. I have to cancel for Friday. And I have to save a day or two in the semester in case the kids get sick or need something. Rework lecture so you can leave early.

1:00am — bedtime.

5am — get up to hug and love Dependent 2.

7:30 — Dependent 1 and Dependent 3 off.

Four hours straight of lecturing. I am “on.” Speak for four straight hours to about 120 students.

End class early with instructions for students.

RUN. I mean physically RUN to the send off.

Pull the blow things from the work bag and the precious letter and the poster. No parking because you’re late. RUN. Physically RUN.

All the bags are lined and stocked with their letters from moms and dads and some family members. Slip yours in like it had been there all along.

Here they come. Just in time. Cheer. Hug the kid that acts like she doesn’t even want me to be there (she does).

Hug Dependent 1, who got to come and watch wants to tell me all about school so far. You’re happy to see her. Be present. You’re just distracted.

Run. Physically RUN back to the faculty meeting, to the car parked a mile away because you were late and there was no parking. Do I risk a ticket and park in temporary parking? You’re going to be late for the faculty meeting.

Drop the bag on the table at the faculty meeting. Out pours the blow toys.

“I’ll give the spotlight to Chelsea to talk about the program.”

Update everyone about all the things you’re in charge of

Meeting ends.

“Chelsea, can we stay after and talk about the proposal to the national conference due Sunday?”

Sorry, I have to leave for Provo. Can I start a Google Doc? I’ll do all the work. I can crank it out between performances.

RUN. Physically RUN to the oil change place.

Bring the laptop. Get all the work done you won’t be able to do by taking Friday off.

Ma’am, your front arm in your car is broken. It’ll be around $600.
Can you bring it in on Tuesday?
Sir, can I make it to Provo in the car?

Unload the boxes. Yay, you remembered and won’t need to take an extra trip.

Head home. Pack the shit. Get the dog ready.

Don’t forget all the coordinating outfits and swag…remember the swim suits…it’s one free thing you can do there.

Phew. We made it.

Now spend two days living in the moment. Don’t think about how to pay for the gas and the meals out and keeping the kids busy between performances and the stay.

Oh, surprise. The team makes Build A Bears. It’s a tradition.

Don’t forget to post about no class on Friday. Don’t forget to get that proposal in. You have to do more of the actual work because you couldn’t meet. Keep the kids busy. Remember the portable charger for the laptop so you can work between performances. Sneak snacks into your pocket. That’ll save money. Bring the refillable water bottle. That’ll save money even though we’ve had sickness and it might spread.

Be in the moment. Live it up. You only get one shot.

My “Two Truths” Buddhist Bullshit (that’s actually true) About All The Above:

• I am very, very priviledged and this is hard

• I feel exceptionally alone, and I have a beautiful village. My siblings and bestie brought Dependent 2 good luck gifts. My mom took the dog to the groomer. My wonderful neighbor let the dog out while we were gone.

• I was exhausted, and my clinical work is very rejuvenating. I feel less alone when I get to walk alongside exceptional humans, and all the people I work with are unequivocally some of the most amazing humans I’ve ever met. My clinical day wasn’t a burden. It was a reprieve.

• My life is labor heavy because I don’t have a partner or co parent, and so are women’s lives who do.

• I chose many parts of this life, and many parts of it are not optional once you’re inside it.

• I loved so many parts of these few days. In fact, they make up some of the most expansive joys of my life. Bearing witness to amazing humans, seeing my kids do exceptionally hard things, spending quality time. And they were heavy.

• I mostly love all the silly, unnecessary, over the top things we do for our kids. And they add load.

Carry on, brave warriors.

Why do women suddenly become influencers when they lose weight?

I’ve been thinking about this thing we all pretend not to notice.

A woman loses weight and suddenly she’s… teaching?

Not usually in a scammy way. See, cuz the scammy ones use their weight gains and losses to tell you that you need to buy their product.

I’m talking about the ones who just suddenly pop up in front of the camera in ways they never did before. Not always loudly. Just. There. Suddenly.

Behind the camera no more.

Body no longer cropped by toddlers or countertops or wide-angle denial (and what the hell is that half-bent over thing we’re doing in the photos and why didn’t anyone teach me these tricks until I’d already lost weight?)

She’s showing you how she cooks now.
How she moves her body.
How she hikes.
How she lives.

People love to say it’s confidence.
Or discipline.
Or the zempi laced into a syringe like courage concentrate.

But I don’t think weight loss is actually laced with confidence.

I think visibility is.

For years, many of us learned the rules:
You can exist, but don’t instruct.
You can participate, but don’t lead.
You can document the children, the meal, the view, but not yourself.

Not. If you look like…that

And then something changes.
The body takes up less space.
And suddenly the world grants permission.

Not confidence! Permission.

Permission to be seen.
Permission to be listened to.
Permission to believe that what you know might matter.

And we all act like this is normal.

Like it’s not strange at all that the woman who used to narrate from behind the camera is now front-facing and offering guidance.

Like it’s not strange that authority is granted with thinness.

Like this isn’t a system working exactly as designed.

There’s a line from A Bug’s Life I can’t stop thinking about:

*“You let one ant stand up to us, then they all might stand up. Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one. And if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life! It’s not about food, it’s about keeping those ants in line.”

Did you know men weren’t taught that being desirable is the prerequisite for being heard?

Just think about that. They were just given a microphone. We were told only the prettiest/kindest/most obedient would get one.

So we compete.

We fight over desirability.
We compare bodies.
We police each other’s choices.
We stay distracted trying to win a game that was never designed for us to lead.

When I get a Christmas card or see a family photo online, I zoom directly in on the woman.

Has she lost weight?

Is she fatter or thinner than me?

What is that outfit?

Is that botox?

I never even notice the men or children. Supposedly I’m sexually attracted and aroused by men. And yet. I could not be more disinterested in looking at them online.

They aren’t my competitors.

Here’s the thing. If we stopped organizing our lives around men’s approval ….we would outnumber them.

In emotional maturity.
In emotional capacity.
In relational intelligence.
In the ability to lead without domination.

Why the fuh do we do this?

The moment we realize we don’t need to be chosen to be credible…

to be smaller to be followed…

the hierarchy gets shaky. The rules stop working. The system loses its favorite leverage.

So maybe what we’re watching on our feeds isn’t women becoming confident after weight loss.

Maybe we’re watching women step into visibility the moment they’re finally allowed to.

And maybe the most dangerous thing a woman can do isn’t losing weight.

It’s stopping to believe she needs permission at all.

“What had to change before you felt entitled to take up space?”

We got this little baddie for free at the thrift store and luckily avoided bed bugs as far as I can tell. We’ve had so much more fun freaking each other out by finding all the ways we can hide her. I have so many videos that I cannot share due to the swears. LOL

One of my favorites is when one of my kids hid in the shower and then I yelled at my other kid to clean that bathroom. Mid-clean she found a floating doll above her head.

Get you a creepy doll and laugh your ass off creeping each other out.

Oh. So that’s where it goes.

That was one of my first thoughts on my honeymoon night.

I think I felt empowered at the knowledge.
Grown-up, even.
I finally knew where to put a tampon.

I had tried once before, years earlier. I wanted to swim on my period and didn’t know how. I pulled the little diagram out of the bottom of the box. I can’t remember whose box it was.

Hands shaking, I studied it, praying no one tried to get into the bathroom I shared with my four siblings. I started counting holes.

One.
Two.
Three.

I didn’t actually know what each one was for.

I knew the words vagina and urethra in a general, educational way, but not how anything worked together in practice.

I remember feeling like I was doing something dirty just by looking at the diagram.

I was also sure I would screw it up.
Irrevocably.
Damage myself.
Get it in the wrong hole.
End up rushed to the ER, my vagina on display for a team of male-only doctors.

Confused

I remember blood stains on my light blue corduroy pants. It was New Year’s Eve. I had gotten the pants for Christmas. We were going to hang out with my “boyfriend” when I saw the blood and thought I must be dying of cancer.

What was happening to me?

I knew what a period was.
But this was not at all what I expected.

I think if I hadn’t believed I was actively dying, I never would have told my mom.

I rushed her into the tiny bathroom of my childhood home, faux wood door behind me, convinced something was seriously wrong, and showed her my pants. I didn’t have words to go with it.

It never occurred to me that this was the start of the thing I’d heard about in that classroom months earlier.

“This is so exciting,” she said. “You’re becoming a woman.”

She had spoken at the maturation program as a nurse. I attended it. I knew the script.

I did not know what it meant in real life.

Becoming a woman did not feel exciting. It felt like something had started happening to my body without my understanding or my consent.

I didn’t know where anything actually went.

Confused.

In fifth grade, shuttling between houses on our bikes, my Whitney Houston CD clenched between my hand and the handlebar, my best friend leaned over and whispered,
“So does he stick his thing in you and pee in you?”

I remember being confused, not embarrassed. Why would she think that? At the time, it sounded ridiculous. I laughed at what I thought was her ignorance.

Silly, silly me.

At least she had fragments of the truth.

Confused.

In college, I met new Mormon girls.
Sacrament-taking.
Rule-following girls.
Who spoke casually about how many fingers had been inside them.

I remember sitting there absolutely horrified. Not because they had sinned, but because they had actually done that. With a boy.

But also…was that allowed?

At the time, I had no idea that even some of my most faithful childhood friends were doing things. I had been taught abstinence was a line you do not cross.

But it seemed like everyone else knew abstinence was something you manage.

Confused.

By then, I think I believed sex was something that just happened to you. Like a roller coaster.

You agree to get on. But once it starts, you don’t know where it’s going or how your body will feel. You just hang on. You scream or stay quiet. Your stomach drops. Your body reacts before your mind can catch up.

By the time you’re free-falling, your belly is already in your eyeballs.

I didn’t know there was another way to experience it.

I thought the dissociation was the experience.

I didn’t even know what to be concerned about, because I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

That belief followed me into marriage.

To a man who also knew nothing. So we just did it the way PG-13 movies show pretty much.

Confused.

Fast forward some years.

I’m in love with a man who is not medically capable of having an erection in the way I had known it.

I didn’t know about his issue until I was already in love with him because I insisted we wait for intimacy until we were serious.

He didn’t tell me.

I learned of it, by experiencing it.
Or the lack of it.

At first, I assumed it was chemistry. Or stress. I didn’t personalize it. I assumed it was something between us that would resolve (check out that growth in your girl  😉).

Later, I pieced together chunks of information to determine it was a medical complication.

But I had no idea the extent, or what that meant for us. Or anything really.

Confused.

And then I did that thing I do.

You know.
That choosing connection over authenticity thing.

That whole: I’ll self-abandon and ignore my reality so his reality can be comfortable. So he’ll love me.

Mid-sex, my brain:

This is miserable.
No it isn’t. This feels good.
I hate this.
You like this.
When is this going to end?
You love him.
Can I say no to this?
He does so much for you. This is the least you can do.
I just feel like I’m being used
You’re projecting your trauma onto him.
He says all his past partners had no complaints.
It must just be me.
He talks about our sex like we had intercourse.
Did we?
Am I dissociating?
When I ask, he says he’s inside me.
But…how?
Let me wear a tampon to be sure.
If it’s still in place, he isn’t.

What do I know about my own body?

Confused.

And so, for the duration of our relationship, sex mostly meant lying there while my body facilitated his own process (less fun fact: men can ejaculate without an erection).

Telling myself it was what he wanted it to be.
Telling myself I enjoyed it.
And sometimes I did.
Telling myself I shouldn’t compare, because that would be disloyal, even if comparison was the only way to understand sensation.

It’s my job to perform pleasure.

But maybe…we can both have pleasure.

He gets angry when I try to explain the absence of it. He acts like I’m hurting him if I don’t perform. If I suggest he’s anything less than a sexual god.

It seems like he wants me to feel pleasure but that it’s only my fault if I’m not.

Confused

Silence and endurance is part of sex.
Part of being a woman.
Part of the deal.

I am not confused.

To Women:

Do you always say no when you want to?
Do you never perform pleasure?
Have you never told yourself this is just something you’re supposed to do?

To Men:

Have you ever pressured (subtly or not) your partner to give you something sexually?
Have you ever treated her desire as negotiable and yours as assumed?
Have you ever let it be implied that she would meet your needs even when her body couldn’t that night?
Have you ever acted as if your pleasure was the baseline and hers was a bonus?

To non-binary or queer:

it’s my assumption that the battle you went through to be authentic makes the above less likely and us heteros/cis people have a lot to learn from you.

If you said yes to any of the above, I don’t see that as immediately harmful or “bad.” There is so much nuance in connection, and in the I inside the we. I hope it got you thinking about where your body learned to go quiet….and whether it ever had the language to speak instead.

The only real contact my girls have with their dad’s side of the family comes in the mail twice a year, like clockwork. Christmas. Birthdays.

This year, two Christmas cards arrived (I am sure three were intended and/or even sent). They were addressed to my two older girls. I did not think twice before handing them over to them. Kids love getting mail.

I assumed they were what they usually are: a card, maybe a gift card or some cash tucked inside.

I am not accustomed to filtering contact from that side of the family. There hasn’t been much to filter anyway.

When retelling the below experience to friends, more than one person said, “I hope you did not give those cards to your girls”

😬

Perhaps I need a new filter policy. Perhaps not.

Inside the cards were identical letters, same wording, different names, along with a separate sheet acting as a kind of caption for the enclosed family photo.

The photo included their dad.

In the letter, and the note, 2x, their grandma casually mentioned that their dad had gotten married. The photo showed him smiling beside his new wife.

My kids have not seen or heard from their dad in many years. He disappeared from their lives without warning. No explanation. No goodbye. No slow fade. Just gone.

And yet the letter read the way you might update someone about a distant cousin. Cheerful. Informational. Neutral.

At first, I took it personally.

Or maybe I took it maternally? The way something hurts because you know it might hurt your child even before they say anything.

Or maybe that is not quite right either.

Did I feel disrespected?

Was I confused?

Did it not occur to her how it might feel for her grandchildren to learn about their dad’s marriage through a form letter? To see a smiling photo of him without any acknowledgment of the loss, confusion, or rupture that came before?

A few of my adult siblings were absolutely wrecked when my mom got married in secret.

How are children supposed to feel about this?

I don’t know the answer.

Do my girls think they’re supposed to think of this person as their step-mom?

Do my girls wonder who she is?

Do they wonder if she has kids? If their dad is a dad to them? Like, a real dad?

Do they wonder if his wife knows they exist?

Did he tell her about them and it just wasn’t an issue for her?

Was this not the reddest of flags to her?

Did everyone smile and celebrate at their wedding and not even notice they weren’t there?

Do their pictures still hang in the home of their grandmother where they inevitably gather?

Did I feel invalidated by the letter?

What struck me most was how the update about him was written the same way she wrote about everyone else, as if this were neutral information. As if it would land as a pleasant update. As if it would not land at all.

I do not think she was trying to invalidate or minimize their pain. I think she was writing from a generation where feelings are managed privately and information is treated as neutral, even when it is not.

Still, it felt like she was pretending this meant nothing to them. Or that it should mean nothing.

What she centered, I think, was her own emotional experience. Not because she does not love them, but because she may not know how to hold two realities at once.

She even said the quiet part out loud in the note that acted as a caption to the family photo, explaining who each person was.

She had to explain because they do not know them.

“I hope you can figure this out because I love you and your family,” she wrote.

I might be wrong, but what it sounded like to me was this:

I hope you can feel what I want you to feel about this.
I want to feel like we are a close-knit family.
I want to feel like my son is a good person
I want to feel like this story still makes sense.

I can imagine how desperately a mother might want her son’s story to make sense, especially if admitting the rupture would mean facing her own grief, guilt, or helplessness.

Once I remembered that her behavior was about her and had nothing to do with me, I realized something uncomfortable.

I was making it about me.

Shocker.

Snatching up blame for other people’s behavior is one of the things I like least about myself. It’s been more opinion for a long time that neuroticism is just the other side of the coin to narcissism.

And your girl has neuroticism in droves.

Luckily, I have learned how to pause. I am methodical. I think things through. I talk them out with my trusted humans first. It is exhausting and neurotic perfectionism, but it keeps me from being reactive.

So I did not unload my thoughts onto my kids.

Still, I said this:

“I want to name that I think it is wildly inappropriate that she would include updates about your dad that way without acknowledging how that might feel for you. It reads like he is just a random person to me.”

“I do not care,” my two girls said almost simultaneously, getting up from the table, heavy emotion eclipsing what had been excitement over getting mail.

At the time, I did not know why it sat wrong. I just knew I wished I had done it differently.

Later, I realized what I wished I had done was be curious.

How did this land for you?
What do you feel seeing this?

I suspect their answer would have been the same. We have already processed them finding out he was engaged through social media, information they found and brought to me. We have processed them seeing a photo of him for the first time, also through a cousin’s social media.

They have done a lot of work around his absence.

But what would have been different is this: they would not have felt the need to manage me.

Because even if I did not say anything else, they felt my reaction. I am sure of it.

The irony is not lost on me.

I wanted her to be self-aware enough not to center her need to appear like a perfectly loving, intact family on the backs of my children.

And yet that is exactly what I did.

On their backs, I asked them to shoulder my outrage.
My sense of injustice.
My need for acknowledgment.

My need for them to know this was wrong so I would not have to sit with the guilt of having once modeled toxic systems to belong.

In that way, she and I were not so different. We were both trying to regulate our own discomfort. She through cheerfulness. Me through outrage.

I made it about me.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. But subtly. Through tone, through framing, through assumption.

Harm does not only happen when people are cruel  .
It happens when adults ask children, directly or indirectly, to carry emotions that are not theirs.

I do not think she meant to cause harm. And intention does not erase impact, especially for children who did not get to opt out of the story.

She lacked attunement.
And I reached for my kids to validate that.

The work for me is noticing the moment where my persistent need for accountability (about me) turns into centering.

Next time, I’ll choose to keep my feelings where they belong.

With me.

Not because I am wrong.
But because my kids do not need to carry the weight of adults trying to feel okay.

The Plan Next Time

Hold my feelings offstage.
Validate my own damn self.

To them, curiosity.

“What did you think about the letter?”

Accept their vibe. It will probably be low key.
If it rises later, I trust they will bring it to me.

And then name their strength.

“You have had to take information and figure out what to do with it.”
“You have had to deal with a lot.”

Because I want my kids to feel less responsible for my emotions than I felt for everyone else’s.

I can pass down jello molds and circling the wagons, but not parentification as a Mormon dowry.

My word for 2026 is unbothered.

And part of that is not taking things personally that are not.

Cheers.

What have you learned to set down because it was never yours to carry?

1. Anyone who puts their vehicle in their photo or works it into a description somehow, or says something like “I own my own house.”
   Translation: I need a lot of praise for taking care of myself and will rarely meet the bare minimum. Ya know that scene in Big Daddy when the kid says, “I wipe my own ass”? ✃✃✃✃✃

2. Anyone who over-admires strength or ambition in a woman
   Translation: I want a mommy. ✃✃✃✃✃

3. If he puts “Just ask me” on his dating profile
   Translation: I can’t be bothered to string together a few sentences about myself and you will be bothered in your attempt to extract a personality from me. ✃✃✃✃✃

4. “Low drama.”

   Translation: I will ruin your life. ✃✃✃✃✃

5. “I just don’t like to fight.”

   Translation: I want someone who quietly tolerates my disrespect. ✃✃✃✃✃

6. “Just seeing what’s out there.”
   Translation: He’s window shopping for entertainment ✃✃✃✃✃

7. “I tell it like it is.”
   Translation: “I’m gonna be an asshole and refuse accountability.”✃✃✃✃✃

8. “My kids come first.”
   Translation: I’m trying to convince myself to make them a priority. ✃✃✃✃✃

9. “Value fitness.”
   Translation: I think I’m way better looking than I am and want a supermodel or at least a thin one and I am using this line as a contract that she should say that way forever whether she bears my children or not. I’d take an AI girlfriend if it was socially acceptable. ✃✃✃✃✃

10. Any mention of “peace.”
    Translation: I have the audacity to expect you to make me feel peace at all times because I am owed that. ✃✃✃✃✃

11. “My love language is touch.”
    Translation: If you want to show me love it will need to come from between your legs. ✃✃✃✃✃

12. “Just go with the flow.”
    Translation: Just don’t expect anything from me and we’re good.✃✃✃✃✃

13. Any variant of mansplaining dating to me such as “You message first” or “You should really respond within 24 hours.”
    Translation: I want to make sure you’ll do what I tell you to. ✃✃✃✃✃

14. “Looking for empathy.”
    Translation: “I want you to see me as the victim in everything bad that’s ever happened to me.”✃✃✃✃✃

15. “I don’t chase.”
    Translation: avoidant attachment. I’m scared the big bad boogeywoman is gonna take away my sense of self if I have to try ✃✃✃✃✃

Last week I went to a 90s cover band in the luxurious Mesquite, Nevada.

Mesquite is where people chasing a fantasy go to escape the drab of their everyday lives while pretending they have the means to blow a paycheck on neon watered-down drinks and mediocre entertainment because tonight…!this night!…..is the night they’re going to hit it big at the casino.

For the first time maybe ever, I went out just for me.

Not to meet a guy.

Not to steal a moment of physical touch or flirtation that would make me feel alive.

For me.

To be with amazing women.

To dance.

To listen to great music.

I was dressed for me.

Sexy, but no cleavage, because I felt good in it and my shoulders didn’t want the bra required to hoist the girls to eye level

I didn’t care how it would land to the male gaze

.

I don’t know if it was my Mormon upbringing, my body image issues, or just generalized insecurity, but it’s only been the last few years that I started dancing.

And boy oh boy has dancing become spiritual for me. An act of rebellion.

Before that, I thought the purpose of dancing was to attract men.

A mating ritual of sorts.

Dancing for me now is connecting to my body.

Moving.

Feeling.

Releasing.

God it’s so magical.

If you haven’t been dancing in the last month, GOOOO.

And 90’s music?

My jam.

All but one of the women I was with were partnered.

So it would be easy to stay away from men, right?

We made a loose agreement we’d tell all the men we were married.

Thank goodness for girlhood.

I even wore this ring on the right finger.

Turns out…. (shocker)….. they didn’t care.

Men (I use that term loosely) came up to us in droves.

When I tell you the ages ranged from 23 to 65, I am not being hyperbolic.

They.
Were.
Relentless.

I don’t know if it was because this kind of night is still new to me (I don’t get out much),

or because I had the rare clarity of male sobriety,

but my observations that night felt revolutionary.

It was like hovering three hundred feet above a watering hole,

watching animals circle and posture and compete.

Each of them were convinced they were entitled to a sip of water that did not belong to them.

Dancing, clean and sober from men and substances, I was inside something sacred.

A ceremony with my own body.

Euphoric, moving in rhythm with women who knew the language of hips and breath and joy.

Light.
Heaven-like.

And then a man wandered in.

Uninvited.

Oversized.

Smelling like entitlement.

Dark.

The lights went out.

The music stalled.

The movement stiffened.

The energy collapsed.

Ceremony over.

Not because I was finished

The male gaze, so full of entitlement, has a way of extinguishing fire
it did not build.

Then I watched how less sober women there responded.

They responded the way I used to.

As if they were chosen.

Like that man just offered them a clear and easy path to the luxurious water waiting below.

Gifted and endowed with the supposed treasure of their attention.

And what did these men receive in return?

The thin payment of flirtation.

The presumption of sex.

The unspoken debt incurred because he bought a drink.

Something significant has changed in me.

Instead of feeling chosen, I felt inconvenienced at best… and mostly insulted.

Can I not dance without your entitled assumption that what I truly want is you?

That I’m waiting for access only you can grant to the water?

It’s the male peacocks who have the fancy feathers, remember?

Why do you assume I put on my pretty feathers for you?

I guess because normally that’s true.

If only there was a way for men to know who and for what purpose women had their feathers on that night… right?

“I’m married,” I said often.

That didn’t work.

“I only date women,” I tried a few times.

You idiot, Chelsea.

“Do not fucking touch me,”

I said another time to a particularly aggressive suitor…there with his wife

(I’m told they were non-monogamous and I’m not mentioning him having a wife to poly-shame, I mention it because it’s a marker that typically signals safety from sexual advances and in this case it was not).

I started just walking away.

Or standing between my friend who was there with her partner.

A few times I actually sandwiched myself between them to get away.

What a confusing peacock I was being 🙄

“This one is feisty,” they would say.

Or, “Y’all are such sweet ladies, but I don’t think this one likes me much.”

Correct, I would say.

“She just had a bad break-up,” my friends would say to soften the blow

(Does 6 months ago with no contact count as “just”? I genuinely don’t know).

“This one’s a gentleman,” another friend said to me about one of the guys who wouldn’t leave us alone.

I guess we owed them optimism.

The assumption of good intent.

Gentleness.

Because they offered to take us to the water.

How generous of them.

I can see why some of my friends assumed I was behaving from a broken heart.

I would’ve assumed the same at another time in my life.

But. That isn’t it.

It’s that I am already in the water.

Some just don’t recognize it.

I’m not behaving from a broken heart.

I’m behaving from a freer one.

I am not waiting at the edge of the water.

I am not scanning the shoreline for permission.

I walked myself here.

I drank deeply.

I am already wet with it.

You mistook my dancing for thirst.

But I came hydrated.

Men don’t recognize this water.

It isn’t owned and guarded by them.

It isn’t scarce.

So, Please leave me alone.

I am luxuriously drenched.

Where in your life are you already in the water, but still acting like you’re waiting for permission?