Blogging Micro-Style

A moment in rural Missouri. I was in a hurry, speeding maybe just a little, and I got behind farm trucks a couple different times and a tractor or two. They were always moving so slow, and I inched my car toward them and nudged them with my laser are-you-kidding-me eyes. I hoped they would turn off on the nearest dirt road, and when the way ahead seemed clear and the solid yellow line grew dotted, I whipped around them, because, you know, I have a life. And then immediately I shook my head, because here’s what I really think. The person who’s not in a hurry? They’re probably the one with the life.

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Yesterday I broke Jake’s heart when he looked at a family picture with everyone in it but him. He asked, “Where am I?” I said you weren’t born yet, and he looked at me like everything he’d ever known had just crumbled beneath him, and he was falling. “What does that MEAN?” So I told him. We looked at pregnant pictures and then at hospital pictures and then at snuggly pictures with baby sleepers and tiny little fingers. And suddenly he wanted to be a baby again, he wanted to grow little. And the whole thing broke my heart too. I’ve had emotional moments with all of my boys like this one, always when they realize there is death. And that’s what this seemed to be, like maybe the moment he realized he used to not exist suggested that one day he wouldn’t again. It’s hard watching children discover hard things.

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The latest quote that haunts me, especially when it comes to my writing: “Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at something that doesn’t really matter.”

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I’ve rediscovered reading to my children. None of them are too young to pay attention, none of them too old to care. And, thus, I’ve taken back bedtime. No longer an exhausted battle of dragging us from life to sleep. Now it’s a happy event in which we’re real-live, actually, truly, together.

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It’s exhausting to constantly grumble. Dr. Phil likes to say to people, “How’s that working for you?” It’s such a simple solution, but really. Why do we spend so much time criticizing, assuming the worst, believing the rumors, spreading the gossip, embracing road rage, jumping to conclusions, debating, fighting, holding grudges, being jealous, and refusing to move on? Don’t we know by now that happiness leads to more of it? I dare you to answer a grouchy checkout person with genuine kindness and see how they respond. I dare you to go out of your way to make sure the person who almost backed into you knows that you know we all make mistakes. I dare you to just change that thing about which you can’t seem to stop complaining. Double. Dog.

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Perhaps Friday is a psychological myth. Maybe weekends never live up to the hype. We can’t really catch up on missed sleep. And despite what we want to believe, routine is more conducive to productivity. But here’s hoping for it anyway – the myth to be true, the rest to be possible, and for us to prove our surprising ability to be productive in the routine we create for ourselves. Happy Friday.