Tag: life

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The Lights of Friday

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I love this time of year. The days are cooler, the leaves are beginning to blush, and my calendar notes practices and games. The Phews are playing football.

Who would have guessed I’d become so invested in football? Certainly not me. The crack of helmets, the gasps when the wind gets knocked out, the unstated fact that kiddos get hurt, it still makes me cringe.

Football.

And yet, I love it. Because somewhere between the drills and the whistles, something remarkable happens: a community gathers. No one’s on their phone, no one’s scrolling through social media. Parents and kids line the fields, coaches shout encouragement, and teammates cheer one another on. For a couple of hours, everyone is fully present.

Middle Phew plays flag football. MP is agile, fast, and strong, but still unsure if he’s ready for the contact of tackle. I get it, Middle Phew. For a while, his practices were on Friday nights, and I’d stick around to watch. Flag is lighter, more joyful, a little less pressure. The coaches will run a play against the entire team, tucking the flag into a hat or a shoe. Want to see joy? Watch a forty-year-old man with a flag in his hat giggling as a swarm of twelve-year-olds tries to catch him. It’s impossible not to smile.

After practice, Middle Phew climbs into the car, cheeks flushed, hair damp with effort and slightly stinky. I hand him a sandwich from Snarf’s. Snarf’s hands down, makes the best sub sandwich around and we head to watch one of his brothers play under the lights. The drive is filled with talk of plays, teammates, life, music, school and snacks.

By the time we reach Long Lake Stadium, the lot is packed. The air is cool, the field is buzzing, and the mountains hold the last traces of sunset. I juggle camp chairs, blankets, snacks, and drinks as we weave through the crowd to find the rest of our family.

Then, for a moment, I pause. I take a deep breath. The lights reflect off the helmets, the cheers rise, and I’m surrounded by this small, beautiful chaos we call family life.

In a few years, it will look different. The Phews will be driving themselves. Their friends will take up more of their time. Maybe they won’t need sandwiches or sideline cheering. The hectic will fade.

Maybe I cherish it more because we didn’t always have this. Or maybe I cherish it because I know how quickly it changes.

Either way, I cherish it.

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My Battle Against Wild Intensity

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On Friday, I plopped down on my therapist’s couch. It’s one of my most favorite places and after an eye-opening couple of weeks, I needed a place to process.


My recent, abrupt dismissal from my side writing gig left me a bit sideways. While I was proud of how I held my ground, calling things as I saw them and not rolling over to be ‘nice’, I still had a lot to work out in my head. Much of my self-reflection led to a dreaded question I had to ask: “Is it me?”


Is it me? Dismissed from two jobs in five months. I had to look at myself in the mirror and examine the reflection. I studied intensely, just as I look for chin hairs that are out of place. Sometimes 10x magnification just isn’t enough.


My mind can quantify a lot, but the heart and the ego don’t quantify anything well. The ego bruises, the heart breaks, and like any soft tissue, they take time to mend. And in this world of cancel culture, it is easier to yell, blame, unfriend, shame, and walk away.


I love therapy. We examined the times this has happened to me, a quick cancel. We examined patterns, including what I attract and what is attracted to me. We unpacked. And like any messy bag, unpacking can be cathartic, pulling out the items that have been festering and no longer serve us.


I have been known to come in larger than life. At times, Milley Cirus has been my spirit animal…..I came in like a wrecking ball….


Like any spark attracted to a flame, the initial fire is fabulous; it’s hot, it’s intense, commands attention, and is a tad explosive.


I remember this fire after Samantha. I was a big ol’ bottle of lighter fuel just waiting for a spark. And that spark accomplished many great things over the course of a decade. It was fueled by intensity and the need to do something amazing, and we did. But when my Miracles for Mito partner and I parted ways, it left me wondering what happened to that glorious flame and sorting through the ashes.


It was also the middle of COVID, and I needed something else. In came my writing gig. It wasn’t mine, but I was all on board with a salesperson/publisher determined to make her magazine huge. I was fueled by her fire and the love of seeing my name and my work in print.


And in my last sales job, I came in with intensity, working at a fevered pace, consuming the accolades, determined to make a difference, held together by grand, big ideas.


After my last letting go, I bought Brené Brown’s new book, Strong Ground, and joined a Pilates Studio.


Something has been missing, my core. Those muscles that hold everything together, those that lie deep in our middle and work every day to keep us upright. Those muscles that cannot be built overnight, those that require consistency and repetitive hard work.


‘Intentionality and Consistency over Wild Intensity’


Ugh- so boring! Daily mental and physical lunges and squats, and showing up at work to build a foundation, brick by brick, rather than blowing up a bouncy house.


Bouncy Houses are fabulous. And they tend to blow away in a strong wind.


We ended the hour at therapy. Yes, all of this happened in just an hour. My therapist looked at me, “I know this year has been hard, but this work? What we are doing here can be life-changing. Let’s go do some mental push-ups.”


Push-ups. So terrible, unsexy, consistent, and intentional.


1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6………

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Bouncer

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I loved this t-shirt. It was circa 1985, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. We had field seats, and the concert was amazing.

I was 14 and wore this shirt proudly, along with my 14-year-old smirk and dark eyeliner.

Bruce wasn’t my first concert. When I was in 7th grade, my mom got us tickets to the Jackson 5 at McNichols Stadium in Denver.


Tickets were $50! Sooooo expensive in the early 80s! But she bought three tickets for me, my brother, and my Mama. I also got parachute pants because it was the 80s.

I will remember Michael and Bruce for the rest of my life. So, when my SIL asked if I would take oldest Phew (OP) to a concert for his 13th birthday, I didn’t pause. “Of course. Let’s do this. Who are we seeing?”

Central Cee at the Filmore.

Central Cee is an English rapper. I had not heard his songs, but this was not about me. I made a Central Cee Spotify Channel and listened….until I couldn’t.

Concert Day! I picked up OP and his friend, and we drove to Denver. Dinner first. We went to a local diner and as we looked over the menu, I asked the boys if they ever had a Monte Cristo sandwich.

No.


“It’s a deep-fried club sandwich,” I said, “it will change your life.”

Phew’s friend ordered a Monte Cristo and a Mexican Coke, and he admitted. “My life is forever changed,” he said as he dipped a piece of fried club sandwich into the raspberry jam. Is there anything better? I think not.

My work here is done. But not quite.


The Filmore is a historic building that has been around since 1907 and lives on Colfax. It was converted into a concert hall in the 1990s. Colfax is known for many things: art, music, the homeless, and a street where you can buy almost anything you want.


I kept my boys close. OP was wearing a knitted pink cap, in line with Central Cee rapper attire. As we walked down Colfax, a grizzled man on a bicycle passed us and yelled something we all interpreted differently.

I heard, “I like your hat!”

And I turned to OP and said, “Look how hip you are! He just said I like your hat!”

OP rolled his eyes, “He said your mom is hot.”

“OH! Really? He said I was hot?” I turned to OP’s friend and asked, “What did you hear?”

They both rolled their eyes. “He said your mom is hot.”

Well, look at me! Hot Auntie Mama cruising Colfax. That’s right. Your Auntie Mama is hot.

We got into the Fillmore. Central Cee t-shirts were $50! I remembered Young Heather and her Bruce t-shirt. Yes, let’s get a shirt, 100 times yes.

At the venue, I was neither cool nor hot. I was more like a bouncer for two kids who were loving…..loving seeing this artist. At one point, two taller young men got right in front of OP and his friend. I tapped these “kids” on the shoulder and told them to move; we were here first. They looked at me, rolled their eyes, muttered a word about Karens and moved on.

That’s right! Don’t mess with the Hot Auntie Mama at OP’s first concert, I will take you down! I will take you down!

The concert ended. Phew’s friend told his Mom it was the best night of his life.

Well, that’s it, Hot Auntie Mamas work is done….I need a nap.

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Back to Write. Back to Reality

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Yes, this title should be sung with Soul II Soul in mind, and the beat of Back to Life, Back to Reality……Yes, I know this is now firmly stuck in your head for the next 12 hours.


You’re Welcome.

Side note, did you know Caron Wheeler wrote that song after she had a near-death experience? I didn’t know this, but I’m storing it away for a random trivia night.


Gosh, this week was tough, wasn’t it? And in the theme of the song, many of us are searching for what the new reality is. If we listen to the media, the reality is a little jarring.


Wednesday was terrible. It really was. No matter where you side with Charlie Kirk, his death is another tragedy and another crack in the divide of our country. Our Evergreen High School had another shooting. I went to a funeral and said goodbye to Mrs. Adams, a Mama from my childhood and caregiver for Young Heather.


And I got fired from my writing side gig.

I say fired, but when you are freelancing, you are at the mercy of a publisher. In this case, we just didn’t see eye to eye on some things. On Wednesday, after 4 years of producing content, she looked at me and said, “I think we’re done.”


And that was it. We were done. I say this knowing I wrote great stories. When I took this gig, a friend of mine said, “It’s like writing for the local newspaper. Everyone wants to be in the newspaper.”


But after years of telling others’ stories, mine suffered. The other night, I sat at my computer, unsure of what to write if I wasn’t writing for someone else.


Well, that is tragic.


And as a result, this blog of mine has suffered. But more impactful is that I stopped telling my story, the story of my family, my thoughts, my interactions with the world. As I sit down tonight without an agenda, just typing away, I am reminded of my own therapy that is my written word.


So maybe this site will get a little more love. Back to me. Back to Write.

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I’m Swimming in the Rain

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I have not posted since November 2024. My last post featured a rider on a horse being unceremoniously thrown off as I talked about my terrible day.

Looking back at the months later, I would have thought the horse was thinking, ‘HA! Hold my beer.’

I didn’t write in this space for six months because I didn’t know what to write. Sometimes, life has a way of taking up all the space.

After my post in November about the no-good, terrible, awful day, I went in for a routine mammogram. Two weeks later, I was asked to come back for another screening. That additional screening turned into a biopsy, which turned into two additional biopsies and a lumpectomy. Twelve weeks after my no good, terrible, awful day post, I was given the all-clear: stage zero cancer (that’s a thing!); continue with your life; sorry for the disruption.

To be clear, I am grateful that they care enough to disrupt. But as much as I tried to keep a stiff upper lip, it threw me for a bit of a loop.

I continued working during these 12 weeks. Working, trying to find revenue from the account we had lost. I would wake up in the middle of the night and think about where and how to find that next account.

I stopped dreaming. Nights were peppered with anxiety. Days were filled with ways to prove my worth.

On February 26th, I was given a clean bill of health and a nice two-inch scar on my left boobie.

Two months later, I was dismissed from my job.

I stopped writing here because I was so overwhelmed, which is ironic because I have gone through so much worse. I stopped writing here because I didn’t quite know who I was.

As of today, June 8th, I have been unemployed for six weeks. It has taken six weeks, but I am slowly finding my footing—I recognize the person looking back at me in the mirror. I dream again. I sleep through the night. I am carving out hours for me.

I swam outside the other day. The day was gray and overcast. Halfway through my workout, it started raining. Heavy raindrops hit my arms as the rest of me was submerged. Randomly, I started singing…….

I’m swimming in the rain. Just swimming in the rain

What a glorious feeling! I’m happy again.

I swim and I smile, I could go another mile.

Just swimming, just swimming in the rain…..

Hello me. I missed you.