So. Recently I’ve been trying really hard to understand my own feelings and why some things work the way they do. It is extremely rare these days that I find myself in a quiet setting alone with my thoughts. Usually it’s on my way home from work and I turn the radio off and I put my rosaries in my lap and I travel back in time to when I was a catholic school girl and I recite some Hail Marys and a few Our Fathers and round it out with a Glory Be. It’s therapeutic to just give up all my stress, anxiety and worry, if only for a short multitasking 30 minute ride home. Ya know only 3x a week. But I give it up to God. I’ve realized recently that there is no building a foundation in a flood. If I had no faith I’d be nowhere right now. I’d be at rock bottom searching for Jesus. Or driving to the nearest looney bin and checking myself in. Or drinking or smoking some good stuff. But I’m a mother and there will be none of that. So, I pray. And I ponder. And I analyze and worry and google search and over stimulate my brain into complete and utter exhaustion. I know you mamas out there FEEL ME. And damn I wish I could tell you it’s all gonna be ok, because I do genuinely feel like I’m in the storm of a lifetime some days, but somehow, a good nights’ sleep and the dawn of a new day always seems to make things… okay. Even okay is better than bad so we take what we can get. So here’s the thing. When you sit on the shore of your feelings, and feel all of the sadness and happiness too, you can really learn a lot about why you’re feeling a certain way. (WHY I WRITE!) So, for example’s sake – let’s say, someone has this amazing plan coming up for themselves, be it a vacation, a cooking class, or a trip to target alone. You don’t really know why you’re feeling any kind of way until you stop the 10-25 other tasks you’re doing in a days’ time and focus on the feeling. Maybe you maybe you feel left out, unthought of, forgotten, isolated, simple, alone. Maybe you even feel a bit jealous. As a mom it’s extremely easy to fall into the rabbit hole that is comparison, also, longing, wanting and just that feeling of what once was. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my life. I love keeping a house up, mopping floors and waxing hardwoods have become one of my favorite things to do to keep my brain sane. I love having two little butts to wipe and preparing 3-4 breakfasts before 8am some days, I enjoy buying any birthday presents, household needs, planning parties etc. I’m thankful I have all of these busy things to keep me going. It’s when I stop that I realize there’s a lot of empty parts inside the busy. And that it’s ok to feel empty when you’re constantly pouring out love, attention, creativity, detail, and every last bit of brain power and patience most days. Explaining why a drain sounds the way it does/why we have more trees than our neighbor/and figuring out that wanting rice krispy treats really means he wants a rice cake to a spongey 4 year old brain, telling the never end story before bed time, answering but why a thousand all day, all while having the sorest nipples because you committed to 12 months of breast feeding, is sometimes really f’ing exhausting. I’d love to simplify but if you have kids you know there’s a very skinny window of opportunity to donate toys, jeans you’ll never fit in again and decor from your first home. I mean. Can I just feel miserable some days? Isn’t that ok!? Isn’t it all ok??? I haven’t yet made it into a therapist because though everyone was bringing the heat with the suggestions – all the therapists are booked! So I’m wait-listed for 2 of them, and waiting for one to return back from her winter vacation. Sigh. I guess my main point is. It’s ok to be real. It’s ok to say no, because you’re (not so) secretly falling apart today. It’s ok to leave the damn mess, not make the damn dinner, and to not feel bad when you don’t. Truth is, I haven’t slept through the night in about a year. I’m a part time working mom and a part time SAHM, and I am certainly hanging haggardly in the balance of the two. I’m tired, I’m sad, I’m happy, I’m stressed and I am SO blessed. I know one day I’ll miss all of this beautiful craziness I myself prayed for. Life is not a pretty picture posted on Facebook. It’s not a constant upswing. It’s a lot of other things and it’s all gonna be OKAY.

I blindly started hot yoga with a girlfriend recently and was instantly hooked. I’m planning to do it every week until it gets too hot around these parts and then I’ll know some pretty rad moves so I can do it outside somewhere on my own. I’m hooked and I’m making time for me myself and I. I’m in charge of a lot of things but those things are also in control of themselves. A wonderful friend once told me “I’m always up, but if I ever fall down I’m gonna be there for a while” no truer words have ever been spoken. So I guess what I’m here to say today is it’s ok to lay down periodically, catch your breath, calm your mind, put your hand over your heart and say something nice to yourself. It’s ok to fall apart. It’s ok to have a bad day, it’s ok to say no. It’s ok to admit you need some help.

I hope for sunshine in my life and for all the people I love to be healthy happy and loved. Especially my children. I hope for clean kitchen sinks before bedtime and all your food to be organic. I hope for your husbands to cherish the ground you walk on, and I hope that deep inside your heart you feel love. But most of all, I hope a damn therapist calls me back this week so I can get back to feeling myself again. Oh, and C’MON SPRING ☀️

Sia’s “I’m still breathin’ IM STILL BREATHIN” is stuck in my head because her new song is my new anthem. So guess who had herself a little meltdown last week?! ….ME. It’s high time for some therapy and for some truth. Mama doesn’t have it all together. I’ve got a lot going on in my mind to the point where my scary thoughts wake me up at night and it is just TIME for someone to come in from the outside and help a sis out. I’ve wanted to shop, cut my hair, color my hair, get a tattoo and go on a diet all in the last week so that’s ya know all the tell tale warning signs that my brain needs a little order and my heart needs a little love. On the professional level. My goodness, if the highlight reel were the only reel we’d all be a lot less stressed and way more happy. But this thingity thang called life is a roller coaster of emotions that picks you up and then drops you; and I’m just over here holding on and pretending I like heights. Lots of things are mine and belong to me and are made from my loins. My husband is a wonderful loving strong and steady man who I chose and who chooses me every damn day, and he chooses me twice when I don’t wanna choose myself. He loves me harder than I even realize most days and he is a true fucking saint to deal with the emotions that are his wife. He’s amazing and my hero and my saving grace. My children are the very beating of my heart and they keep the wind in my sails, they understand my language of love and they are fluent in speaking it back to me. Acey baby’s tiny little soft baby hands in my hair and on my face and Mavericks all knowing how to put a smile inside my heart when I need it exactly are truly the most magnificent treasures to be found in my world. These children fill me up in ways I’m not worthy of and I say it out loud all day how thankful I am to God for making me their mother. For making me a mother at all, and then blessing me with two perfect healthy children who feel me in all my love and all my pain and the goodness in them makes me want to be better. My sister and my brother. Two of the only people who have my back no questions asked and love me when I’m ugly inside. My in-laws who inside them I have found the most beautiful support system where we look out for one another without even knowing it and we are loving each other’s kids and bringing them up together. For all of these connections I am deeply rooted in gratitude and thanks. I am blown away some days where I have to strip it all away, fall down in a heap on my knees and silently weep for the blessings I am lucky enough to count. It has been a theme in my life that I understand LOVE is all we have. It is given when it’s least deserved, best received when it’s unexpected, and feels unlike any other emotion on this earth. It’s a feeling of otherness. It’s the smell of your favorite city in the summer time. It’s the sound of your children belly laughing. It’s your husband smiling proudly while listening to you speak and help grow your children up. It’s the purest, most sincere, most binding emotion and I am thankful every day for the abundance of different loves I get to give and the loves I get to receive. Today, if you have time – listen to the song “I’m Alive” by Sia. And at the very end of the song when her voice is desperately breaking as she’s singing, she says “I’m alive” four times. As you’re listening think of four different ways YOU are alive. I did this and it was awesome. First I’m alive and I’m thankful for my life and the very mighty lessons I’ve learned to be able to comprehend how very special and short this life is. And how happy I am to be….. Alive. Second and third I thought of Maverick and Ace, respectively as I’m alive to mother these sweet sweet children. To take pride in every millisecond I have with them while they are BABIES, to raise them up to know they will move mountains, smash world records and glass ceilings and become the most loving, supreme, and kindest humans they can be. Fourth, I’m alive for my marriage and for the responsibility that is mine to love this man in bad times and in good. I’m alive because he loves me and our life is a beautiful work of art that continues to be tested by the outside things we have zero control over. After taking this different spin on listening to the song I had a feeling like, wow. I’m alive. My my mother is not. I’m alive for a short time in the grand scheme of things. I only have so much time to walk this earth but here I am, showing up every day living out loud, loving my people and hoping to make an impact on this earth. It’s my most divine duty to utilize this time to experience all that life has to offer, and as long as I’m looking at life and what it has happening before me, me and the people I hold closest are all gonna be ok. We’re gonna be better than ok, we’re all gonna be great. So go ahead and listen. And then listen to yourself. Listen to the tiny seeds of intuition and reality connecting. You and the people who love you have planted these inside your deepest thoughts, and these exact thoughts need to be manifested. We can all manifest more good. It’s amazing to do this especially if you’ve never heard this song – prepare for chills.

This weather sucks. It’s miserable and cold and our hearts are ready for the good times, the sunshine, the warmth after a cold hard winter. I’m not in my best mood myself and I’d like to blame it on the retrograde because I’m not as crazy as I feel most days but shit this has been a wild month to say the least and I think every day I’ve said out loud “I just want my mom” and guess what, she came through, she’ll be coming through again, and she’ll always be here even though she can’t. If you can’t understand that, be happy you don’t 🙂 As for meeeee, on the days that hurt the most, I like to touch dirt. Plant something. Ground myself again. Plant a little seed, feel me? love y’all, happy f’n spring 🌸

How in the world was it you? Of all the people in my little universe, how was it you. That had to be sick. That had to leave? How is it possible the only way I see you smiling anymore is behind a piece of glass. An image on a piece of paper is literally all I have left of you. Your death. Your very. Terrible. death. A death you suffered through. Still haunts me. I’m still processing. Did it hurt? Were you hurting anymore? Do you remember crying? Do you remember us crying? Could you feel our pain? It’s still brutal to think about and most of the things are too much to bare. It was hard when we had the shock to protect us but now that that shock is gone, wow. It is heavy. It’s heavy in the way that your shoulders scrunch up around your neck and you don’t realize why you feel so tense until you actually feel the sad stiffness in your body and it’s then that you can relax a bit. But then your focus goes to the lump in your throat that you didn’t notice because everything else still hurts when you think about it. Envisioning it is too hard. Talking about it and remembering details I’ve pushed away from the ever spinning wheels in my head, those details reappear, but again without any protection. This all really happened. You are really. Gone.

We took Mav to The Whiteface Lodge for his birthday. It was awesome. We had the best time as a family and tears definitely flowed. From my eyes, from Dan’s eyes. It was a true gift we executed perfectly, and in your honor. I hope you know we do a lot to honor you. On the night of Maverick’s 4th birthday, there was no cake, there wasn’t one present, just a full blown experience. I gotta tell ya, it was hard to not invite anyone else. It was hard to not pack presents to have him open up in the hotel room. It was weird not having a cake and I almost left 3 different times to go buy one because it felt WEIRD to not even so much as have a candle topped cake for my little kid!!! (You bet your ass when we got home Wednesday I went to Fresh Market and let him pick out whichever cake he wanted and invited Nance and Al over to sing and celebrate!) In our defense we had all plans to get the waiter to bring a nice dessert with a candle in it and we planned on singing and all that, but whiteface got the best of Mav and he passed out before his dinner even came out to the big cozy leather couch in front of our own personal fire we were eating our dinner at. (Whiteface is dreamy and magical and everything you ever need and want and MORE. So spend the money and GO. I promise you won’t regret it!)

So after both our kids fell asleep, it was Dan spending time convincing me we need a weekend away just the two of us, my mood turned melancholy and he could tell right away why. All morning my phone rang and Dan’s phone rang and FaceTimes came in one after another to wish my little love a happy birthday. And all day we were busy. Laughing, running, swimming, skating, theatering, game rooming, sledding and s’moring it up. But at the end of a very special day it hit me like a ton of bricks.

My mom never called. She never called. And it’s these realizations that come out of thin air that really cut my heart open. Mav had a birthday, and he didn’t get a call from his Gaga, because Gaga doesn’t have cell service in heaven. And she never will. And this is just something I have to accept. And it sucks and I could write for days on end about how bad it sucks for me and for my siblings and for our kids. But you know what? You know what’s kind of awesome? We planned this entire memory making three days away BECAUSE of Mav’s Gaga. We didn’t want to spend money on something that really added no value. We wanted to give Maverick and Ace the experience which created feelings and memories we won’t forget. We had a blast and we spent time together as a family and there is just no other feeling on earth that is more completing than being together with people you love.

It is not lost on me that my mother was just a pebble in this great wide world. But when that pebble took the plunge into the ocean of eternity, that small pebble made a gigantic splash, and that splash created ripples and those ripples are vibrating through time and space and earth and air. Those ripples are everlasting. Those ripples are her legacy, and the lessons she left behind for me. To pick up the slack and to give the gift of experience. To give the gift of my love. To give the gift of living life out loud.

I will never forget the final moments with my mother. I wish I could say it was peaceful or beautiful or honestly any other words than the ones that actually come to mind when describing the way she had to go. It was excruciating, it was brutal, and it kills me every day to remember how it all went down. But what I can take away from the absolute horror of her leaving is the lessons she taught me in her death. She is the reason I keep my head up. She’s the reason I hide my cries from my children. She’s the reason I know how to ask for a hug when I need one. She’s the reason I do, the reason I don’t, the reason I love the way I love, and the reason I stay up. My mother was a force, a beacon of light and the very beat of my heart. When I write about her I can feel her and she helps me understand, every day, what I get by giving. Especially to my kids.

T I M E waits for no one. Your laundry can wait. Your clients can wait, your house can. wait. There is actually no use in crying over spilled milk and most battles are not worth fighting. But at the end of the day, (I know I have said this one million times in this blog but I MEAN IT!) all we have are the people we love, loving us right back. Take your time on this very sacred day to look your people in the eye and tell them exactly what they mean to you. Write it in a card. Date it. Do too much, fuss too much, love out loud, and love til you can’t love no mo’. Because at the end, after all is said and done, the only thing that remains, is love. Please take this from me, because I KNOW. And even on the days i miss my mom’s love the most, she bends time and space and she shows up. Because that’s what love does.

Happy Easter. I hope you enjoy your family. I wish blessings and miracles for everyone. I hope for health and happiness and all the new energy and rebirth that spring brings. I hope you make the best memories today. And I hope your heart is light.