Texts with Dad

Sums up my work life, and my relationship with my (can't say enough good things about) father.

Home

This has been a tough month. I've been working crazy long hours, have been traveling around from big towns to small ones (I was flying into Mobile at 8pm, watching the darkness below and I thought --Shit, are there even cabs here?) I am home for a good long time. Fall softball starts on Tuesday. Time to get myself back for a minute.

I've been ready to leave, lately. Thinking thoughts of what's next. I'm ready to buy a home, settle down, get a patch of dirt. In DC, that's just not possible. Especially not in the area I'm in now -- trust me when I say I'm practically stealing my apartment from my landlords who are happily coupled up in Cape Cod owning a B&B and basically being the biggest gay stereotypes there are. I love them like crazy, and vice versa, and so they let me stay. I take care of the place, and they are happy because their history is here. Their life as a couple, their first ten years together.

And now, my own history is here. New Years Eve will mark four years here. Almost 7 years total of being in the DC area. When I was being introduced on Tuesday before I spoke, I heard "Stephanie has over ten years experience in...." I have been in a stage of life longer than ten years! Jesus! I haven't done anything for ten years other than attend my county school system.

It's been a tough September, and here are a few pictures of my neighborhood tonight. I took a walk to remember exactly what I'd miss, so that I can enjoy it now. I'm weird like that.

Debating

For a little while now, I've debated pulling the plug on this whole blog. Something always stops me, but something these days also stops me from writing too. I don't know if I could call it "writer's block" since it's not as if I usually say anything profound enough to be considered a real "writer" -but, it's there, just the same.

So much has happened this summer to make me very grateful for the people in my life. I wish sometimes I could write out each day as it happens, but I just don't have time. I don't have time to blog at work and at night, I often want to leave the heavy thinking to tomorrow after a full day of often very intense work.

The thing that would make me saddest to shut down would be to feel like I was losing each of you - you wonderful women, who came along during these years, and always read and encourage me to keep going, keep pushing. Those that I have now known for years, those that I have grown close to and become friends with offline and into real life.

One of the biggest things I'm glad about after observing the blogging world from afar, is that I am so, so glad I never tried to monetize or expand this blog. I'm glad I never advertised; I'm glad I never wrote for "an audience." I'm glad I never decided to become a brand; I'm glad I never wanted to fill a niche. I never shared this space with my family or others close to me, save a very precious few. I never wanted to guard my words; I never wanted to think about how my thoughts would be perceived.

I wrote authentically for me, and I am so glad for our small community -each of you that found me, one by one, and said "you." Yes, I will become invested in you.

This summer, I went to the Jersey Shore. My first time ever going to Jersey, and I went with friends. How did I meet these friends, you ask? Well, my friend Denise who lives in Knoxville is a kick-ass doctor, a yogi, a woman with struggles that she is brutally honest about. A woman who has a funny husband and a cute daughter, and I would never have known her without this blog. I would have never have found myself on the Jersey Shore in July 2013, because I never would have found Mary Moon, who connected me to Maggie May, who connected me to Katie Allison Granju, who connected me to her sister Betsy, who connected me into her entire tribe of friends, including Denise.

Betsy's kids sometimes slip and call me "Aunt Stephanie" and each of them are special to me now. And it would have never been if it hadn't been for these women. These women! You, women. I am in awe of all the people my blog has brought to me in "real life" with a readership of what -- 10, total? 15?

I guess 1 is all you really need.

1 becomes 2 which becomes 5 which becomes bigger than I knew could be possible.

If you hang with me, I'll hang with you.

(Summer 2013, Avalon, New Jersey)

 Beach Yoga -- I'm in the red shirt.

June visit -meeting my childhood best friend's son for the first time. Being his first babysitter. I think he digs me.

July 2013 -My softball team (scrapes and stitches for almost everyone) took second place in the summer tournament. Fall ball begins Sept 10.

Thanks for being here.

So much

More to say -it's been one heck of a summer so far. And it's only just beginning.

I'll leave you with these images of last night, at the wedding of a best friend I've had since we were 6 years old. My first memory of school is of her, and we're holding our trapper keepers up against the wall and talking about them.

I was a ball of emotions during the entire stint, mostly thanks to my friend with the initials PMS. I was also the only childless, single bridesmaid which helped matters not one bit. I could write a book on that experience at some point.

More to come tomorrow or this week...for now, here we are.

Our song since high school has been Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" -- and became far more fitting when, almost two years ago, she was with me when I fell on a cruise ship and broke my ankle during our vacation together.

She was wonderful.

I fell, she caught me.

I stood beside her this weekend as she married a man whom, I feel sure, will always catch her.

The last one was taken quickly in the car to send to my sister as a 'thank you' for doing my hair. She rocks. I didn't notice until uploading here that half my eyeliner on one eye is smudged off. See the word "emotional" earlier.

What a weekend, what a week, what a summer, what a life.

You Make Us Work Better

I'm bone tired, but I want to get this all out because I want to remember this weekend. My oldest niece graduated high school this past Saturday, and I flew in for it. I don't usually fly in for weekends (maybe once per year) and definitely not for individual occasions of each of my 10 nieces and nephews. But this one -this one was a biggie.

I whispered upon arrival, to her younger sister, that that high school gym packed with people was the most white people I've seen in a clump since we went to Disney World in 2004. She laughed and laughed at that one -- they came up to visit me over Thanksgiving, so they've all gotten a good front-row seat to my life and its differences to the small rural town in which we were raised.

I spent alot of time with Shelby, this niece of mine, as she grew. She was born when I was 14 to my 18 year old step-sister. This step-sister was fairly recently acquired as even though our parents had been dating since I was about 8 years old, Mom wouldn't marry him for several years. So, our family changed awfully dramatically in that short timespan and we all lived together too for most of the time. On the weekends, her crib was wheeled into my room.

I would wake in the middle of the night and bounce her up and down to popular country songs I'd hum under my breath. She particularly loved this song and I'd sing and dance little motions along with the lyrics "I know what love (bounce) is, WHATS it (dip) to you?"

'Time's up, train's a-moving baby.'

And so, it is her time to move on down the tracks. I made her a video for graduation that had everyone in the room sobbing  ugly tears. I was truly not intending that to happen, and I felt guilty. Especially for her younger siblings, who I didn't expect to look like they'd been smacked across the face. It was like it truly hit them that she's leaving. They've been such a tight unit of 3 since they were all born in within a few years of each other.

The video was a trip to make, watching them all grow up again - and me, an awkward teenager, grow up along with them.

She's going to college on a full cheerleading and academic scholarship. She got 'er done, and Aunt Steph is pretty dang proud.

All in one day...

My emotions are zig zagging all over the place tonight, as the adrenaline from the weekend slows down and leaves me out of sorts.

My mom was here for a week, and left early yesterday morning. That whole visit could be a post in itself -maybe sometime. I put her in a cab at 730, then came home to fall back asleep and wake to find that one of my best college friends had given birth to a boy.

I walked to the store. Bought a $2 bag of day-old bagels from the local place that keeps them back for the locals. I baked a taco/tex mex....thing. I vacuumed.

I went to a reception down the street -the place I used to work in Kentucky was in town having a conference. I smiled and shook hands and did the "do you remember me/oh you look SO great!" bit.

Then, I walked home while talking to my dad. He wouldn't let me off the phone until I was safe in my apartment, then I hung up to learn that my very best childhood friend had given birth to a boy.

Two people, whose lives I used to be so intertwined with that I knew everything about them, down to what they ate every day. Two girls that I watched grow into women, and now watched grow into mothers. Mothers of sons. I am happy -- so incredibly happy, truly -- but I can't ignore the niggling feeling of "what about me?" Can it be my turn yet?

I've been trying out the phrase "I doubt I'll have children" to see how it tastes in my mouth. It tastes wrong and bitter, but I'll grow to acquire a taste for it. It's something I'm learning to accept, and realize that the traditional way of doing things just may not be for my path. The alternatives of adoption or other means of giving birth may well be my reality. It's daunting, as I age. My life has always taken a strange path -and perhaps that will just continue.

In the meantime, I keep trying to transform healthcare in America. Ya know, that easy-peasy thing. We're working so so hard. That's pretty much all I can say. I pulled off a successful event last week on the hill (meaning congressional hill visits and a press briefing) and it was a huge load off my mind when I finally stood up to close us out.

My mom came with me, and I sat her in the very back. I told her she could come along -- it was very strange to see my mother alongside my boss, my clients, my coworkers, all my professional colleagues that dominate my landscape here. I stood up to give everyone a job-well-done pep talk. And then, there was my mom, snapping pictures.

Some things never change.

On we grow.

Me, Russell Senate Building, April 2013

Just writing

I've probably started 10 or 20 blog posts by now. I either delete them or save them and never look at them again, and then another day starts and it's a blur from there.

Sometimes this blog is like a friend that I lose touch with -I don't want to lose touch, but it's close enough to me that it's either all or nothing. We need to talk everyday, about everything, or we can't talk at all. There's no in between with us, and when there's a gap, it's noticeable and I'm a little shy about approaching again.

So, hello. I've been okay. Working my ASS off, and finally went home last weekend for a quick break and some baby/kid niece and nephew time. I hugged each of them to me time and time again. They center me, each of their blonde heads pressing into my chest and sneezing in my face and arms thrown over me at night when I sleep in the middle. 

I'm always ready to get back home though, to my DC home. I spent the day in Lexington (where I lived for four years, and where I lived when I started this blog) and I noticed how uncomfortable I am there. I almost feel a panic attack coming on when I look out the window and see the sights of a few years ago sliding past my window. That town never fit me, and I can't breathe there. 

I didn't cry when I flew away this time. I usually don't, anymore. I am always glad to get back, and I always miss my family, and I feel like I'm always going to be destined to be missing someone, somewhere. It's how I grew up, lugging my duffle bag from county to county to one house from another. I will always feel torn, and always feel like there's something I'm missing.

In February, I met Bill Clinton. I met a few other folks that are pretty important to my industry but aren't famous, all at our annual conference, and I felt like I was doing something. All the crowded metro rides and the snowy slush that cars rain on my pants, all the late nights and wordsmithing was for something. Clinton, before he closed his remarks to us, said "I pray for your success." 

I'm not sentimental much anymore, about anything really. But for a minute, I felt that was genuine. That we were being counted on to do something amazing. And then now, back again, slogging through the day-to-day "who is going to order the water bottles and dish detergent" and budget battles and things out of my control just wipe all that out. I'm feeling discouraged and like it's all just taking so damn long to count. My brother in law this weekend asked me "Is Obamacare stupid?" I hesitated and he asked "Or, do you not know much about it?" I said "I know too much about it, which is why I can't answer things like that so simply."

Anyway. 

I dated someone, and I think it may be over. More about that another time. Another blip on the ever-ending radar screen cycle of things-that-don't-work-out. It makes me so tired to even write about, because I've been writing about this for years. I've been writing about how I'm working on accepting that things just might not turn out in the way that I had thought. And yet I'm not accepting it, and forging on, and dabbling in the heartbreak and hope again and again, and it's just getting so very old.

I turn 32 next week. I've been writing here since I was 26, and I feel paralyzed sometimes when I think of how little has changed even though so MUCH of course has. I am a completely different person in so many ways. 32.

32, and what have I done? What does it matter?

I'll leave you all with some pictures of some absolutely beautiful kids that I adore, and thank all of you very few (and very treasured) readers for hanging with me all these years. Keep writing.

Me and my teenage nieces

 Little guys, Easter morning

 Brooklyn with our found baby rabbit

 My dad, and his grandkids. I love how much they love each other.

 Me and my sister that keeps me sane.

 All five of our babies, a moment totally unposed and captured on the sly

Niece with baby bunny

 Nephew, being a dreamer.

 Nephew that holds my heart.

Thanks all.