Happy Friday! I think when the days feel short, the weeks feel long–and when the days feel long, the weeks feel short. This was a looong day, short week kind of week in our house! Older tot had morning camp, we had plenty of doctor’s checkups and house projects among other things. I’m tired and time has flown.
I’m still thinking on actual content for the fall that isn’t random chatter, so let me know if there’s anything in particular you like to read about. I always have plenty to say (on the blog anyways; in real life I’m pretty quiet) 😛 But onto this week’s random chatter!
Outings lately: A cookout last Friday at my dad’s house because my aunt was in town. Camp for older tot. The zoo last Sunday! (The above photo is of the coolest giant robotic dinosaur exhibit they have outside right now–I was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid so my toddler paleontologist heart rejoices, haha.)
We also went out for a spontaneous ice cream at Sebastian Joe’s and a leisurely walk after Eric’s workday ended today, and I wondered why we don’t do that more. It was really lovely.
Music lately: This new relaxing viking music track by Adrian von Ziegler. I love a lot of his viking and Celtic stuff but this is my new favorite.
Habits lately: Still enjoying my nightly yoga routines. Kendra Tolbert is my current favorite channel. I’ve also started incorporating a cup of bone broth into my evening snacks. I know that is, like, the most cliched crunchy person thing ever 😛 it’s very soothing though and yes, I drink it straight. I think it’s tasty! I’m all about maintaining healthy hormones and peak fertility in general–I mistreated my feminine body for a looong time when I was younger, so I do everything I can to treat it right now.
Planning lately: A 4th birthday party! With altogether too many presents. I don’t go all out but he has many grandparents who spoil him. It’s insane to me that my oldest child will start kindergarten next year. The years are so, SO short.
Random thoughts lately: I wrote a post earlier this week that I didn’t end up posting (surprise, surprise…). It was about my relationship with traveling and the idea of a “greener pasture.” Here’s a chunk of it:
I remember writing an essay that I did not use for a college application. It was about how I thought my life would go like this: go to college, graduate, become a teacher, get married and then–with great relief–quit the job I didn’t really like to have kids and stay at home with them. My essay was about how I realized I wanted “so much more” than that for myself after some eye-opening experiences in high school.
Sometimes that pressure still rests on my shoulders like it’s chained to me. Why don’t I make $300k working at some tech company? Why don’t I have a PhD? Why didn’t I travel the world, have fleeting romances with handsome foreigners, hike mountains, try exotic dishes–isn’t that how we’re supposed to find ourselves?
Maybe that enlightened version of me is still living abroad, in some Italian piazza or under the northern lights in Lapland, waiting for me to come find her.
What if I never meet her, that hypothetical self that’s so much more experienced and suntanned, so much wiser, more well-connected and charismatic than I will ever be?
At some time in my 20s that I can’t exactly pinpoint, that question turned into: what if I don’t care about her anymore?
Why did I stop caring?
I stopped caring because I realized that she–that better version of myself–doesn’t live Europe, or on a homestead in Idaho, or in an airplane over the Pacific. She’s not waiting for me to discover her at the top of the Eiffel tower, or in the moment my breath is taken away by the midnight sun in Sweden.
She introduced herself on the first night little E came home from the hospital, as I lay awake in bed watching his sleepy breaths in the glow of a nightlight. She met me in the moments I delivered two more babies without anesthesia. She dragged me out of bed during the pandemic as I parented two young children, one medically complex, nearly alone with no end in sight. She offers her hand in the moments I want to scream from frustration, but paused and choose to love instead.
I see her in my children’s eyes and their kind words to each other. I feel her in the quiet sunshine of afternoon nap time. In the cozy minimalism of our home, in my husband’s calm and grateful embrace, in the lines around my eyes and my one grey hair.
Someday I’ll enjoy traveling again, but I won’t do it to find myself. Unpopular opinion, but I didn’t need to leave home for that.”
Happy weekend!
xx Claire