Another Halloween

For as long as I can remember, Halloween has made me uneasy.

The end of a Michigan October was generally dark and cold; fallen leaves rotted in wet clumps and the trees looked skeletal. And as born-again Christians, when the pumpkins began to show up on front porches, we pulled out our own favorite "ghost stories" every year. When I was little, there were scary rumors about tainted candy and pets being stolen for Satanic rituals (yeah, I actually looked those up on Snopes.com last fall). As I've written before, Dad picked me up early from school on Halloween so I would not have to participate in a costume parade with my classmates.

One year in our attempt to be "salt and light", I seem to remember Mom handing out healthy snacks (raisins, perhaps?) and religious coloring books. Another year we substituted a harvest-themed costume party. Then came more tales about the Druids making bonfires, and demons living in jack-o-lanterns, and of course we knew that God commanded the execution of all witches and wizards which was why we couldn't read fairy tales. For years after that, we kept our front door dark and pretended not to be home on Halloween night. In our fervor to avoid contamination from occult associations, we were as superstitious as the ancient pagans!

Later, after Frank Peretti's novels gained popularity, we imagined we could sense stronger "warfare" between supernatural armies at that time of year. (Especially when we spent the week fighting past fake spiderwebs and graveyard displays to leave pre-election flyers on people's porches.) We boycotted an October church party that included a hayride at a pumpkin patch. Later still, Reformation parties became popular Halloween alternatives among our friends, some even dressing up as the leaders of the Protestant church in 16th-century Europe.

Last year's "Creeper" jack-o'-lantern

After Chris and I got engaged, I remember a conversation we had about holidays. I wanted to know what to expect from this man I was going to spend the rest of my life celebrating with. So I quizzed him, over AOL Instant Messenger, about his family traditions. How did he feel about Santa Claus? Halloween?

He told me he'd grown up going trick-or-treating, and expected our future children would do the same. The thought made me a little panicky. But he was to be the spiritual head of our household, so I tried to mentally adapt.

In the early years of our marriage, I bought candy and tried to get into the holiday spirit, but mostly failed. Sugar, darkness, and spooky stuff just weren't doing much for me. My toddlers were disturbed by the ghoulish displays at the grocery store, and I didn't blame them a bit! When pint-size ghosts showed up at our door, I tried not to cringe. I still associated Halloween so strongly with evil that I found church Halloween parties disorienting. "Christian" witches and mummies really confused me!

Even after concluding that supernatural evil was a myth, I shied away from the gore and the pervasive theme of death and decay. I read Dracula and Neil Gaiman novels in a gentle attempt to build up my tolerance for horror. Yard displays of gravestones or spiders or body parts no longer seemed evil to me, but I still couldn't see what attracted otherwise normal people to such things!

I tried to ignore the icky stuff and concentrate on the costume angle, but my imagination never took me very far from reality. After all, I'd spent most of two decades wearing outfits that would pass for costumerie in mainstream society! All I had to do was pull together a few stronger pieces from my real-life wardrobe and I could have stepped out of Leave It To Beaver, or Little House on the Prairie.

Last year was the first time I actually stepped beyond what I thought of as my real self.

The thought of a costume party was way too much for me to handle--I stayed home rather than venture outside my shell or risk seeing anything scary.

But, on a whim the morning of Halloween, I bought a witch's hat and assembled an all-black outfit out of my closet. I played with different facial expressions for the camera and posted this selfie to Facebook.

When the kids walked through the neighborhood that evening, I went along, wearing the hat. Strangely, it was kind of fun! And stranger still, friends shared how the costume reflected a side of me that they recognized even though I didn't.

As I've been exploring less familiar sides of myself this year, I find myself appreciating the fun of costumes in a new way. Most of us have enough facets that we can identify a little with healers and helpers at the same time that we identify with witches, warriors, and waifs. We may have a little bit of sexy waitress inside, as well as a silly hot dog.

My kids knew exactly what they wanted to be this year. They see Halloween is their chance to identify with a favorite character or to create one of their own. I like the idea of Halloween giving us an opportunity to embrace a part of ourselves that we may not actually even accept or understand. Perhaps one that contradicts the way we live the rest of the year, or an ideal we aspire to.

This month, we took our first family trip to the Halloween costume store. I'd always been too intimidated by the window displays to venture in, but this time I was feeling brave. And once inside, my imagination began to stretch! Chris kept losing me in the store as I moved down aisle after aisle trying on masks, gawking at costumes, picturing myself with assorted accessories, and perusing the dozens of exotic make-up options.

And this year, to my great surprise, the spooky Halloween displays have not troubled me. I still have no need to decorate my own yard with corpses or giant spiders, but I understand how it can be fun, and even a little empowering, to wear our insecurities on the outside for a change, to reveal our darker sides, to make light of the horrible fears that have haunted our species through the ages.

So bring on Halloween, with its ghosts and candy and costume parties and traditions passed down since the celebration of Samhain. :) I won't be hiding in the basement anymore.

Living From the Heart: My Other Side

On our drive to school one morning, my daughter pointed to the toys dangling from her backpack: a plush pink pony and a devilish red Lego cat. "These are the two sides of me," she observed matter-of-factly. "This one is my good self, and this one is my dark side."

I looked up from following the road to stare at the mini-me in the passenger seat. Two sides, yes! What a profound thought!

Of course I always knew that I had a "dark side", but from an early age I was taught to "crucify" that part of myself. There was black and there was white. Sin and righteousness, good and evil. And we sorted them out the same way we sorted the characters in the Proverbs into categories of foolish or wise.

Numerous homeschool assignments rated our "virtue" according to Bill Gothard's preferred character traits. A perfect score meant an absence of those characteristics Gothard found unsavory: tardiness, slothfulness, fairness, extravagance, restlessness, loneliness, anger, and resistance, to name a few! (Looking back over the list today makes me shudder! It was a steaming load of bullshit, but for ten years, we took it very, very seriously.)

And so, as a teenager, I obediently discarded those "illegitimate" parts of my personality, or stuffed them down deep. A poster mounted outside my bedroom charted--in pink and blue print according to gender--acceptable aspirations. The sorts of things I might choose to become? A faithful scholar, an excellent home manager, an obedient daughter, a teacher of good things, a wise mother, a virtuous wife.

Subconsciously, I think those ideals were still defining me until last year.

But this year... I am intentionally exploring the rest of myself...

My less-than-wholesome side!
The facets of my personality that have no place in the Proverbs 31 model.
The parts that had to be squelched to be a "godly" woman. 

So far I have liberated:

...a bold risk-taking heroine,
...a flirtatious and sensual "harlot",
...an inner bitch who swears and speaks her mind,
...a scared little orphan who misses her mom and longs to belong,
...a provocative artist yearning to create...

And I'm sure there are other aspects of me still hiding. I rather hope there is an actress in there somewhere!

Frankly, some facets of my personality intimidate or embarrass me and I feel like I ought to apologize for them. But at the same time, they are helping me grow as an individual. They are coming to my defense when I would otherwise cower in fear. They are broadening my horizons, offering new adventures and experiences. They are helping me discover my passions and showing me how to have fun. They are leading the way as I learn how to live from my heart instead of merely from my head.

And oh, the conversations I have with myself these days!

My sexy self has gotten me into so much "trouble", in the best sense. My heart got cracked open. More on that later.

The familiar "mom" voice: "It's not like you weren't warned! You knew the odds going in and you accepted the risk."

Drama queen: "I feel like I'm going to die!"

Passionate poet: "But you're not dying, are you? That feeling you feel? That's being alive. Sometimes it hurts like hell, sometimes it feels like heaven. Sometimes it's both at the same time, or all over in between. Isn't it amazing to feel alive?!" [begins humming song from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood]

Feminine feminist, interrupting: "I guess so. Remember how excited you were to have your own birth story? Not that pregnancy was so fun, but afterward... I finally felt like part of the sisterhood of adult women. And I'm proud to have finally gotten to share this human experience, too. Most people have a breakup story, after all. This is my experience and I'm grateful to be having it. It shows that I'm living my own life!"

Bitch: "[censored]!"
(I have journal pages devoted to the things she says, in hopes that they won't actually come out of my mouth without warning--ahem!)

Journalist: "Don't forget that someday your kids are going to have their hearts broken. You need to lean into this experience and etch it into your memory so you can pull it out and relate to them when they need you to understand. Just like you used to imagine having a teenage daughter when you wrote in your journals as a fifteen-year-old. You never wanted to forget what that age felt like, and how misunderstood you felt."

And speaking of teenagers, I've felt like one this year, in so many ways! This delights me, because the ATI cult robbed me of a normal adolescence. I had believed that phase of emotional development gone forever, but this year I was given the greatest of gifts—the chance to experience some traditional rites of passage as if I were a teenager for the first time. One of those was exploring my own sexual and emotional autonomy. I went on my first "date"!

Of course, like a teenager, I was unprepared and didn't know what to do with all the wild new sensations, but the adventure was a gift all the same. It felt as if I'd unlocked a new level in the game of life, with access to powers and even weapons I'd never tried before. I tapped into my feelings in a new way and found them a regular cataract of contradictory emotions that threatened to overwhelm me, just as I used to feel torn apart by emotion when I was much, much younger. And yet, somehow listening to my feelings feels far healthier than attempting to dam up the "bad" ones or use reason to shut them off.

Living from my heart rather than my head has had a cost. I've been forced to confront my deepest insecurities, evaluate my values, scrutinize my motives. It was messy and I saw some ugly things. My "dark" side was sometimes clumsy and graceless.

In the parlance of the courtship cult, I "gave away" a bit of my heart--and it got predictably hurt. It has scrapes and bruises it didn't have before, but it also has stretch marks, because it grew. I learned a lot about the nature of love. About my own resilience. That friends keep on caring. That there can never be too many hugs. That many humans are kinder than I imagined, the world a safer place.

2015 will go in the annals as a year of intense feeling and exquisitely painful growth--and every bit has been worth it. It's been a year of active transition as I discover how I want to live and who I want to be.

This is a season to rest quietly, to look inward and ponder. To absorb the many lessons learned from an independent relationship with an incredibly brave and generous individual. To process the changes and ask what they mean, even as the ripples continue to slowly spread.

Most days, I like this newer, updated version of my self! She feels less "right" but more real. More open, less rigid, and therefore less fragile. My anxieties have receded this year, in both number and potency. I spent so many years fearing the shadowy places of my own heart, having been warned that following my heart would ruin my life. Now that I've embraced my less decorous traits, I realize they are part of my strength, not a threat to it.

On Missing My Mom

One weekend a while back, I felt like calling my mother. I sat on the floor and typed this instead, wiping away the tears before they could drip on the keys.

[My mother],


I wanted to go dancing tonight but I have a cold and my chest aches. My period started today. And I’ve been crying a lot because I had my first breakup this month. (I know, right? You had how many breakups as a teenager? No wonder you didn't want me to date.)

So we ordered pizza. We watched cartoons on Netflix and B--- and I did one of the sticker mosaic pictures you sent her. The two of us enjoy doing art projects together. Art rests my mind and soothes my feelings when the ends get frayed. And you’ve found so many easy crafts that are fun for us to work on together.

I wish it was fun for me to do things with you. I wish we could hang out together and make pretty things while we talk about life. I wish I could trade the mom role for the daughter one, and show you the things I do and have you smile and tell me how impressed you are and hang them up to display to everyone.

I wish you could be proud of how brave I’ve been this week.

• I went back to the Spanish class—the one I had to drop two years ago before I knew I had PTSD—and I think I’m going to make it this time! The professor seems smart and kind and calls us her sweet pumpkins. I love her for that. 

• I had a pap smear, and got blood drawn for my first ever STD tests, and even asked my doctor to look at ____. I’ve wanted to ask a doctor about that since I was 17 and I only just got up the nerve. I may even have surgery! I remember how much hospitals and doctors used to frighten you. Don’t you think I’m brave?!

• And I spent a whole morning at the abortion clinic. The same clinic where Dr. Tiller used to work before some religious terrorist murdered him in his church. I had to drive past some male terrorists to get into the parking lot. They were trying to intimidate me with Bible verses and gruesome pictures, and I so wanted to give them the finger. But I knew that wouldn’t do the women I was there to help any good, so I restrained my feelings and ignored the ignorant haters. I watched the security guard inspect my purse, even the zipper pocket still full of condoms from the relationship that isn't anymore. 

 I was compassionate and non-judgmental and a little scared and still very emotional. But I tried to be professional and mostly I was just there with those women on a very difficult day of their lives. And I was there because of you. You and your fifteen (sixteen? more?) pregnancies. I know you can’t appreciate that, but how I wish you could. After all, you taught me how to do things you believe in even if no one else gets it.

It felt like autumn today. My roses are still blooming but I saw a golden tree branch amongst the green this week so I know crisper days are around the corner. Today felt like the sort of Sunday to go pick apples and drink cider. I miss the Michigan colors. And the sandy trails. If it wasn’t uncomfortable to see you, I would want to drive up and eat pasties and go hiking and roast marshmallows and look at the stars. But it wouldn’t be any fun if you had to hold your nose to notice the things you like about me. :(

I’m so proud of my girls. I learn so much from them, and I love that they are their own people. They think and feel differently from me and in some ways I can’t even relate to them. But they know I love them and care about them and am there for them. They can ask me about anything and come get a hug whenever they need one. From here on, I am just winging it, for there is almost nothing from my girlhood beyond eight years old that I desire to repeat in their experience.

Did you know that I’ve taken up coloring? I even draw pictures once in a while—usually to calm myself. And I just crocheted a scarf—wrong season, I know, but there’s nothing like the repetitive movements of hook and yarn to work out tangled emotions.

I have realized this year just how emotional a person I am. It’s as if my feelings were stuffed deep down below my reasoning for years and have just been tumbling out lately. There are so many and they are so strong! Some days it’s a wonder they don’t tear me apart!

I miss you, Mom. Maybe I've always missed you.

Jeri

Middle School, Memories, and More Healing

My son started middle school in August. I knew he would face an adjustment period, what with lockers and classes all over the building and having to make new friends. What I did not expect was how his year would affect me. His sister went through sixth grade two years ago, after all. His teachers' names are familiar, their email addresses in my contacts list. I know his schedule, the pickup routine, the homework expectations. It's old hat by now, right?

But for weeks it's all I can do not to burst into tears when he comes home and begins telling me about the challenges of his day. My throat constricts and I silently pull his head in to my chest, squeezing my eyes tight to keep them from spilling over his hair. Then one day I realize that my tears are not only for him, my brave and sensitive boy who's growing up fast. As I watch him navigate the mysterious and labyrinthine corridors of his new school, my inner child is reliving what should have been my first year of Jr. High at his age--the year we joined ATI and became truly isolated from the influence of the outside world.

Every time we drove by the Jr. High school when I was a kid, I used to imagine what it would be like to attend. To get off the bus and walk those halls, surrounded by other young teenagers in denim jackets. It was a frightening fantasy, but an exciting one. I didn't know that I would be allowed to experience Jr. High, but I pictured it just the same.

And then, the summer before I turned twelve, we moved to the country on the other side of town. Ever since kindergarten, there had been friends next door to play with. Now we could see only one other house from our yard, but no children lived there and the adults were gone all day. We had fields and woods and a barn to play in, but it was just the five of us kids, ages two to eleven, playing together every day. We didn't have television, stayed away from the cinema, and the old radio with a spoon for an antenna was kept tuned to the network from Chicago's Moody Bible Institute.

Dad quit his job after the move and started his own business from our house. No more trips to see his office or stories about the other engineers he worked with through the week. Sundays became our primary social event: though we went to church, the handful of other children were all younger than me, and we didn't have Sunday School. (When we changed churches later, we were only allowed to go to Sunday School or youth group on special occasions.)

Our jovial dentist patted us on the shoulder once a year; we saw our Catholic doctor even more rarely. I never saw a counselor or took a test to assess my educational progress. Our family friends were all other homeschoolers. The most worldly people I knew were my uncle, whom my mother taught me to wary of, and my grandparents, who drank coffee, watched PBS, and accepted evolution as science.We saw them about twice a year and they were always careful not to criticize my parents. 

The summer of 1987 my parents also enrolled in Gothard's ATI program. We had been homeschooling pioneers, and I'd adjusted to that. Mostly I taught myself math and English and science from textbooks and read all the history I could get my hands on. Now, though, everything changed.

Acquiring good character, rather than knowledge, became the educational priority. Gothard's Wisdom Booklets, with their confusing questions and loosely-connected propaganda, took center stage. Dad switched our grading system to adapt to the weekly report forms we had to fill in and mail to Headquarters. I studied Greek vocabulary and Puritan sermons alongside my elementary-age siblings. Washing dishes, vacuuming carpets, and Bible memorization counted as school time.

For the next eight years, my academic progress was neglected, and with neither peers nor professionals who could instruct me better, I lacked long-term achievement goals and any standard to which I could compare my work.

Middle school is a tough place to be almost twelve. My kids have days when they wish they could stay home and study with just me. They've come home and cried when the stress of holding it all together seemed unbearable. But they have already developed social and learning skills that took me decades longer to acquire. In some subjects, they have already surpassed the work I was doing in "high school". And tackling hard assignments and facing their anxieties has made them stronger people than I was at twice their age!

Some days I envy my kids' educational opportunities. Other times I mourn the schooling that was kept from me in the name of my parents' god. I'm constantly grateful for the circumstances and people that led us to schools where our kids can learn and grow so much.

Most mornings I wrap my arms around my son and squeeze him tight before he hoists his backpack. I am supporting and reassuring him, to be sure, but I am also understanding my wistful younger self, telling her that I see her and love her, that her need to explore and understand her world will not be neglected again. That while her story had some sad parts, it turns out okay. And that from here on, she gets to write her story.

It's a choose-your-own-adventure!

On Healing and Managing Triggers

Three years ago I didn't know what "triggers" were. I thought PTSD was something that affected soldiers. I never used terms like grounding, self-care, inner child, or trauma. I'd never done a yoga stretch and I owned but a single coloring book. I've learned a lot since then!

A couple months ago, I ran smack into a multi-pronged trigger that nearly took my breath away. This time, though, I had a whole toolbox of resources to help me stay afloat through the swirling emotions that threatened to overwhelm me.

I got out of the house right away and spent time looking at art. At trees. At the sky. I went walking multiple times a day. I talked with my therapist. I leaned heavily on my support network of friends around the world. No need to pretend I was okay. I let them comfort and heal me, receiving their gifts of soothing words and music. As we shared our secrets and heartaches, we strengthened one another.

At home, I did a jigsaw puzzle, crocheted a scarf, baked cookies, cleaned cabinets. I drew pictures, painted, colored in my coloring books, wrote in my journal. I danced. I did yoga. I swam and went ice skating. I sang loudly in my car. I pounded out my feelings on a poor pillow. I chopped up a tree! I sought solace and guidance and escape in stories--stories about grief, about love, about growth and change. I watched new movies and old favorites.

I kept offering my body nourishing foods, even when everything tasted like cardboard and nibbling a sandwich took an hour or more. When I found a dish that tempted my appetite, I allowed myself to indulge, thankful that I could appreciate the experience. I cared for my body by seeing doctors. I loved it by buying clothes that express who I am now. Clothing can carry so many emotional associations that a new outfit can feel like a baptism!

I smelled flowers, touched tree bark, listened to birds, watched squirrels and butterflies in my backyard. I gave long hugs and asked for them, too. Chris and I spent hours and hours talking on the porch in the twilight (and drank many glasses of wine!).

In the past, major triggers have wrapped me in a cloud of foggy numbness. This year, though, I've felt an array of conflicting emotions simultaneously, each one distinct and insistent. The intensity of feeling has been overwhelming at times--but I found it helped preserve my sanity to assign my varied emotions to different inner voices: The child within, for example, is lonely and scared, the bitch always sarcastic. The big sister in me is bossy, the mom often anxious or driven by guilt. The drama queen thinks she's going to die, while the journalist believes each human experience, however painful, will be invaluable in the future. And the sexy tart, oh, goodness me!

And instead of being stuck in hyperarousal, my nervous system is responding to all strong stimuli--however happy or upsetting--with tears. I have not cried so much (or in front of so many people) in years, yet it feels...cleansing. I have felt more alive this year, even with the triggers, than I have in a long time. More human. As if a long-sealed part of my heart has cracked open and is finally healing from the inside out. 

Other times, I've only managed to survive the immediate trigger. But this time around, I've been able to go far deeper into the emotional flashbacks. One sense of anxiety and loss has called up so many others from across the years and I've found myself weeping over decades of unacknowledged sadness, separations and stresses I still might not have fully mourned had it not been for this summer's jolting trigger.

I could have protected myself better. I could have guarded against being hurt or reminded of the past. I could have made myself less vulnerable. But I took the risk of living my life instead. And as upsetting as triggers can be, I'm convinced that working through them can make us stronger. None of the time I invested in recovery and managing past triggers was wasted, and this time won't be, either!

I'm still using my coping strategies as needed. Still crying and growing and leaning into the feelings that arise. Still learning new things and being patient with myself.

But what a fabulous year it has been!

The Feminist Homemaker

"And what do you do?"

It's an innocent question, neither nosy nor rude. One that pops up in the most casual of introductions all the time. And yet it can haunt some of us for hours afterward.

Why am I a stay-at-home mom?

I found myself mulling uneasily over this question after a conversation this summer exposed my own doubts and I got defensive. When I am uncertain, I tend to flounder and feel guilty. Should I want a career? Should I want to stay home?

When I was homeschooling, the justification was simple. I was already doing a "job". (In hindsight, it's apparent I wasn't aware I had other options.) I have no regrets about those early years of pottytraining and naptimes and going to the park and teaching my little bookworms to read. Still, now that they're older and in school all day, I've felt the need to rethink my reasons for not earning a paycheck.

My feminist values tell me that I need to be pulling my weight, that I should have the resources to support myself instead of being financially dependent on a relationship. I'm also afraid of perpetuating an outmoded patriarchal family model or unhealthy expectations of what a mom should look like.

However… not working does not automatically put me in the same category as Michelle Duggar. :) And I'm privileged to know other ardent feminists who are unemployed, by choice, for various personal reasons. And so, I ponder.

As for expectations, my children see me pursuing knowledge and new skills. They see me involved in the community. They see me actively promoting equal rights for women. They see that Chris and I have independent interests and relationships. They know women working in a variety of fields. And they know every family operates by its own rules.

Chris and I have shed patriarchy gradually and embraced gender equality together. While there has been some shading and blending as we've adapted to these values, he remains our household's breadwinner. And yet, we are a symbiotic team. We eat better food less expensively because I stay home and cook (our meals average $1.25/person!). He can focus on his career from eight to five and college classes on weekends because I can run the errands, take the cars for service, schedule appointments, shop, and sign the field trip forms. I can take classes, volunteer, exercise, help kids with homework, and cultivate supportive friendships because he brings in the income. And since he currently works at home, we get all kinds of extra moments during the day to connect as friends, freeing us to better focus on the kids when they are at home.

While extra income could ease some stresses, we are financially comfortable enough. If I worked part-time, my earnings would quickly diminish in higher food, fuel, and insurance bills. If I worked full-time, we would have more stress around daily school pick-ups and drop-offs. I would have much less time for the self-care that helps me manage my mental health. And instead of relaxed evenings together, we would have to pack all the laundry, shopping, organizing, and meal prep into that time slot.

To us, that time to just "be" after dinner and homework is worth more than we would gain if I went to work. It is a matter of what we value most this year. Our schedule and priorities are always evolving and we are open to change. But for now, we are savoring that closeness and flexibility.

On a personal level, overcoming years of emotional trauma and cult mind-control has been a long journey and there are still days when the demands of motherhood on top of that seem overwhelming. I'm grateful that I've had the option of concentrating on those aims without trying to hold a job at the same time.

Reflection on my domestic role has been time well-spent. These days I find myself prouder than ever of what I do and of the ways I contribute to our family's well-being. I am a feminist homemaker: a cookie-baking, jelly-making, youngster-shuttling thriving woman who thinks for herself while advocating for the right of every woman in our community to make her own choices.

Living Life: An Update

Some of you have kindly inquired about my absence from this blog.

With Bill Gothard now publicly exposed for the predatory mountebank he is, the Duggar family under media scrutiny, and groups like Homeschoolers Anonymous championing every child's right to a non-abusive education, my compulsion to write has greatly diminished.

With boundaries protecting me from toxic relationships and much old emotional trauma finally expressed in a coherent fashion, my health, physical and mental, has dramatically improved. The past feels far more distant than it ever did before. For months, I was afraid to say this aloud in case everything fell apart again, but now that the year is half over, I'm feeling more confident. :)

So, while other able communicators have been blogging about the toxicity of ATI and fundamentalist Christianity, about abusive homeschooling and cult recovery and gender equality and raising kids without religion, I have been off having adventures and new experiences!

I had my ears pierced in March--a milestone made even more special because Chris and my little brother were there to celebrate it with me.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt came out on Netflix and we watched the entire series in just a few days.
I had my first martini.
I made a new friend.

Dancing together on "prom night" last mont

Chris and I kept taking dance lessons in April. He has now passed me in his understanding of the lindy hop steps. Dancing continues to be both challenging and fun. I'm glad my therapist prescribed it. :)

We're learning new steps in the dance of our relationship, too. Changing the pattern, adapting to one another, feeling our connection, moving apart and coming back together.

In May, Chris and and I drove across the country to see my little sister graduate with high honors--the first female in my family to earn a bachelor's degree. I was so proud of her, and a little envious, too. And I am so grateful to the dear friends who supported me through that very emotional week!

Then school let out. We went on a beach vacation and had more family adventures:

At our house, summer break means picnics, swimming, board games, playdates and parties, trips to the library, handwriting and typing practice, cooking lessons, and sometimes even ice cream for dinner. I'm helping my tweens find the volunteer opportunities they need for school credit. So far they've helped paint a theater set, sorted donated infant clothing, and made blankets for a special needs early education center.

Having three kids home all day is sometimes exhausting. How did I ever homeschool??

And speaking of school, I've dusted off my Spanish textbook. Next semester I return to complete the college course I had to withdraw from three years ago. I knew the term PTSD back then, but thought it was something that affected soldiers. What an educational journey it has been!

I do intend to finish writing our courtship story, eventually. But lately it's been more important to me to enjoy my relationships, or even a large glass of wine. To savor good feelings and allow myself to experience less comfortable ones. To risk disappointment. To practice being human and encourage my kids to do the same.

There are probably more words inside. They will come out when they are ready.

In the meantime, there is life to be lived.

         There are cuisines to try, drinks to taste, and music to hear.
           
                                   People to love.

                      Dances to learn.

                                        Places to explore!