This afternoon I found myself tending to three pots.

A roasted butternut squash bisque.

A seven-bone chuck roast.

And a pork chilli.

The house smelled amazing, and I sauntered and sautéed my way around the kitchen like a culinary conductor.

Just before the grand finale – when all of the dishes would wrap at once and I would put them all away, the bisque got rowdy.

A bit of the scalding concoction spit out of the pot, smattered across the wall, and burnt my wrist.

My critic took no time surfacing.

See, this is what happens.  You do too much and you get burned.  You’re supposed to go slow.

And, I do stop.  Breathe.  Turn down the heat.  Find the ice.

I tend to my wound, but I don’t close the kitchen.

The critic is too quick to dismiss what’s really happening.

Truth is, I WANT three pots at once.  The real me, LOVES three pots at once. Even when it means I get burned.  Because honestly, the burn is not so bad.  It’s practically already healed – because even with three pots going, the real me knew enough to tend to it right away.

And the bisque.

The roast.

And the chili.

All three dishes finish right on time.

All are very different, and equally divine.

So, tonight, that critic – she’s got nothing on me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lshpddLQicc

Last night I was given the chance to speak to about 200 youth soccer players and their families, and I ended up telling a story about softball.

Growing up I loved softball.

I started playing at nine and loved everything about it.  The uniform.  The team.  The travel.  Even the anxiety.

I played right up until freshman year of high school, when I didn’t make the cut.

I remember getting to school early that day, watching the coach hang the roster, and catching his look that said, “sorry,” before I even got to see my missing name from his paper.

It’s easy for me to judge the girl I was – to trivialize how devastated she felt over something as inconsequenctial as Conant High School softball, but judgement doesn’t help.

In that moment I felt worthless.

The principal found me hunched over, covered in snot and tears and assumed someone had died.  When he asked “who?” – I wanted to tell him apart of me, but I’d been warned enough about being melodramatic, so I worked hard to stuff it in as quickly as possible.

Later that day, the track coach noticed my half-life and without asking what happened, he simply offered an invitation.

“Come run with us.”

“I don’t run.”

“But you do.”

And I did.  I became a part of track.  I puked after nearly every race I lost.  He and they still kept cheering.  I kept running.

For the next four years, I’d play varsity field hockey in the fall, and run and swim in the off seasons.  I didn’t know it then, but the many (many) laps around town (the school didn’t actually have a track) and in the pool (that was actually across state lines) served as conditioning for the only “team” sport left in my repertoire.

Turns out, it was the only I needed.

After high school graduation, I decided to try-out as a walk-on for my college field hockey team.  I’d been accepted to Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, and their athletic program had just turned Division I.  It was a long shot.

A long shot, I (and track, and swimming, and being cut from softball) made.

On the field, I talked about how this experience helped me understand how to find the opportunities in the challenges.  The good in the stuff that feels just the opposite.

On the ride home, I thought more about it.  I thought about finding my place.  My team.  Even, my routine.  I thought about what a long strange trip it continues to be,  but how I’m getting better at feeling good about breaking down and being cut from what isn’t mine anymore.

This past Sunday I was (gulp) hired to be a featured storyteller by Fugitive Productions.

The place was fairly full, I was chosen as the night’s first teller, and was extremely warmly received.

But, the best part of the night, wasn’t what happened, it was who was with me.  My sister, Heidi.

In the most strictest terms Heidi is my sister in-law, but in truth, and in my heart, she is simply my big sister.

Growing up the oldest of four girls, I’ve always taken the big sister role pretty seriously.  When we were little and my sister Lindsey would get nervous at school, she’d come pull me out of class just to do something mundane like walk her to the bathroom.  I was always happy when she did.

I loved growing up feeling like the protector, and it only occurred to me (fairly recently), that feeling protected could feel equally as good.

Heidi has seen me at my worst.  Drunk.  Damaged.  Depressed.  And at my best. Clear.  Connected.  Composed.

And regardless of how I’ve looked, what I’ve done, or what I’ve shared, she’s still in my audience.  Proud to be there with a hug and a kiss and a, “good job.”

Because, that’s what big sisters do.

Briggs & I honored the first week of Kindergarten with a trip to the trampoline park.

His favorite part of the park is the jousting pit.

He’s always (physically) the smallest in line – and the happiest.

He’s thrilled to go up against the big kids – who knock him down effortlessly (even gently).  He’s happy to do the play-by-play while he waits his turn.  He’s got no issue asking for help.

And he doesn’t give a shit how many times he gets knocked down.

He still wants (he still loves) to play.

I watch him and feel so good that we’re made up of the same stuff.

That we all are.

Have you heard about this new book, Love Warrior?

It’s brave.

The author, Glennon Doyle Melton is a self-proclaimed “truth teller.” And she tells it.  All of it.

For years, her blog, momastery has been a sacred truth space.  Where she’s chosen limitless sharing over shameful hiding.

Addiction, depression, boredom, anxiety, gratitude, fulfillment, creativity – it’s all there.  To do whatever the reader needs to do with it.

Love Warrior is about, “infidelity, betrayal, and redemption.” It’s about running toward heartbreak, instead of away from it.

It’s about discovering someone you love dearly has been lying to you repeatedly – and figuring out what you do with that love anyway.  What you do when, as the book puts it, your dirt and divinity feel one in the same.

Truth is simple and hard.  I still hide from it, pretty regularly.

I fantasize about being smaller and quieter.  About a life where I don’t share so much, and that way won’t feel too much, either.

I start most mornings not wanting to leave my house.

But then, I remember that truth, and sharing, and taking part in the dirty divine that is our world and our life, is what love actually is.

Being a Love Warrior doesn’t mean  fighting for love – but, rather with it.

Gosh, that’s so much harder.

The exposure.  The risk.  The acceptance.  The judgement.  The fear.  The mistakes.

My word the mistakes.

But still, Love.

Love is the heavyweight champion of the world, so just for right now, just in this moment, I’m not going to be nervous about getting into the ring.

Because truth is: Love Wins.

Thank you, Glennon.

I knew from the very first tour, that our home was (is) – in fact – ours.

The layout was wrong.  There was water in the basement, and piles of dirty things in the bedrooms.  You couldn’t open the stove and the bathroom door at the same time.  It smelled, and had pests.

Nonetheless, it was ours.

The worked started the very afternoon (April 3, 2007) that we got the keys, and in a sense hasn’t stopped.

Yesterday I woke up knowing (like the way I knew that first time the realtor walked us through) that my work of the day was to give back to this place, that continues to give so much to me.

Now, I should confess that housework usually repels me.  It has, for as long as I can remember, been a chore.  Something I “had to do,” because company was expected, or I lost something, or I just couldn’t stand the mess any longer.

Organization (or rather really facing and accepting what is calling out to be organized) tends to not only dull me – but stress me out.

So, instead of acknowledging the stress, I often (choose to) ignore it.

But, yesterday something shifted.

For the first time (possibly ever?) really going for the cob-webbed corners and backs of the cabinets, willfully venturing under the beds and deep into the closets, did not feel like a chore, but rather, like a labor of love.

With every disgusting thing I confronted a sign of gratitude almost immediately followed.  Forgotten pictures of never forgotten loved ones.  Love letters from the beginning.  The very (very) tiny sweater my grandmother knit for our very (very) precious preemie.

And, after more than six hours of scrubbing and loving I was left feeling full and fueled. And happily surprised by the $45 in unused Starbucks gift cards that my husband found in a box that looked as if it’d been slowly corroding over the last three years.

So, I pampered our house, and she in return treated us to some fancy tea and coffee and organic dark chocolate peanut butter cups.  And all I could hear as we indulged was:

Our house is a very, very, very fine house.

I slept a bit later this morning.

So, there will be no time for yoga.  I heckled myself.

Until the kinder me remembered, that I own a program called 15-Minute Yoga.

And when the instructor reminded me that, “more isn’t always better,”  I allowed myself to believe her.

So far, today is not perfect.  I can’t tell yet if it’ll be easy. But, it certainly is good.

For days now I’ve been in pain.

A few nights ago, Briggs made his way into our bedroom, and I picked him up and put him between Ken and me…in my sleep.

I woke up with a throbbing left shoulder.  The pull, or strain, or whatever has left me looking stiff, angry, and distracted.

All of which I’ve felt – minus the angry.

Despite the shoulder pain, and the temptation of living in a golden age of television, I’ve continued to say “no,” to staying up late and binge watching, and “yes,” to 8-10 hours of sleep and three morning pages.

Though, as I relayed in a conversation with my sister yesterday:

What I’d actually like to say yes to is – yoga then writing in the morning.  Finding a way to wake up at four or five.  I know very few things, but I do know that I’m a morning person, so doing this at night, is just never going to really work for me.

Last night I happily volunteered to put Briggs to bed at eight o’clock.  He and I were down in no time.

At 3:45 this morning I woke up, mostly rested with an intense throbbing.  I barely could make my way out of the bed, and decided to try the couch – propped up by one of the oversized throw pillows.  A homemade Craftmatic  of sorts.

I got in another hour, and then around five woke up again feeling fully awake but not quite certain of what I wanted to do.

Try and sleep more?  Get the heating pad?  Start writing?  Take a shower?  Yoga?

I tried talking myself out of yoga.  My shoulder really hurt.  Getting off the couch hurt.  I hadn’t done it in a long time.  So, I started super slow.  Before I even touched my mat, I went for the matches.

Lit a candle and some incense.

And as soon as that little fire flickered and that peace smoke flew, I knew that I was doing exactly what I wanted.

The practice wasn’t perfect.  But it was so good.  And the pain’s not entirely gone, but it’s no longer crippling.

Maybe the pain’s not even the ultimate problem.  Maybe it’s the thing that brought me back to my mat.

Maybe, the pain has purpose.

“I got this,” that’s the belief I’m most often going for.

At the social work organization I work for, they refer to it as: internal control.  The ability to recognize, feel, focus and navigate your emotions so that you can access your clearest thoughts and best self.

For a long time I confused the calm of “I got this,” with the adrenaline of “I’ll get this.”

Settling down to understand where I was going, why I wanted to get there, and how I would arrive, felt (and at time still feels) like time wasting.

Thinking doesn’t feel like doing.  And, honestly, I can get just as lost in thought.  But, I know that doing without intention exerts more energy and drains more quickly.

Confidence, I think, is the result of acceptance.  And acceptance, I think, is the opposite of resignation.  It’s not resigning that something isn’t right, or easy, or beautiful, and then giving up, because “what is, what is.”  I think, it’s accepting, warts and all, with open arms and finding a way to love your way back.

So, you can really see whatever’s on, down, or blocking your path and say with certainty, “I got this.”

I can’t remember the exact show, but I remember my sister telling me about a segment she’d heard on public radio about subjects people shouldn’t talk about – because no one really cares – and dreams was one of them.

I’m guessing it was a humor piece on This American Life, but I could be wrong.

While dreams may be an annoying or boring topic for some, I can’t stop thinking about the one I woke up from this morning.

I was sitting next to my Mom in a traditional New England meeting house.  We were in the balcony.  The place was packed, with what I’m assuming were towns people.  While the setting and the crowd looked…dated…my Mom and I were definitely modern.  She was wearing a headset, producing the whole thing.

Someone was on stage, talking.  Loudly.  Sharply.  But I couldn’t really see or hear what was happening. I was too wrapped up in my guilt.

I was snugged close to my Mom because I’d just said something – to someone – that I wasn’t suppose to.  And now, I was scared it would mean trouble for her.

I’m not being elusive with the details.  I don’t remember them.  I can’t track down what I did, or said, or how it went, just how I felt.  Scared and sorry.

I wanted to tell my Mom, whatever trouble I felt coming (that I had caused), but somehow – couldn’t.

Then, without me saying a word, she kissed me.  Said it was fine. Whatever it was, it was fine.  She would take care of it.

And I woke up thankful for Moms, and all of their expansive caring.