I’ve been trying to write every week, every other if I can’t muster weekly so two Mondays ago was my deadline…but…
On that particular Monday I got home at 2:30 am and into bed at 3:30 so…needless to say, it didn’t go as planned.
What was I doing until all hours of the night on a Sunday turned Monday morning? Turns out, this lady can still party.
And by party I mean pull a double red-eye and still be at least somewhat on point for the week ahead.
Onward, trusty steed!
You see, we sent ourselves to The Vortex and now I find myself forever changed.
The weekend was a celebration of love and partnership and honesty. It brought together a family and solidified their bond but it also did something I didn’t expect: it brought together my family.
Staring down the upcoming two red eye flights, I was optimistic in the sense that I told myself “This may suck, but you can do it”.
Positivity embodied.
By “this” I meant the risky flight times (hello, 10 pm takeoff!), not the weekend itself but I was a little wary for how the “this” might trickle into the rest of the weekend. How would a (likely) mostly sleepless night set us up for a whirlwind weekend? We would see.
Falling asleep mid-bite? Check.
The travel gods smiled upon us that weekend. Ollie slept most of the flight which was – thank all the gods – a direct flight. The Chief and I somehow both found humor in the seemingly endless search for our rental car at 4 am as well as the epic journey required to find a bathroom down the mile long hallways of the Phoenix airport rental area. We took turns being overwhelmed by the city things we still aren’t used to like parking and many-laned freeways and supported the other in their moments of panic. It was a give and take, unlike some of our past travels.
Those proved to be a bit more prickly
Ollie did amazingly (that truth deserves its own line).
Shhhh…it’s secret.
The weekend was spent surrounded by friends from all across the states, friends we don’t often get to see. There was delicious food, wonderful music, heartfelt healing moments, beauty and dramatic landscapes everywhere, and
so
much
laughter.
My boys
It was such a dang treat.
But the sweetest part was the afterglow.
After the dust of another red eye (where Ollie took off his seatbelt once the sign had said he was allowed to and simply plopped himself down on the floor and fell asleep) and arriving at 2:30, getting hyped up by being welcomed home by a northern lights show and finally falling back to sleep around 3:30 settled, the weekend sunk in.
Weddings always give me the feels but this one was something else. I left feeling so incredibly grateful. For my partner. For our son. For our friends. For life.
Our wild bunch ❤️
Being around our friends and their younger and older children reminded me of how tender the baby years were and how fast approaching the kid years are.
Cuddle puddle cuteness
Even a year ago, our Ollie looked so much more like a babe and now, he’s on his way to big kid status. It took me out of the haze that can be the constant boundary setting of being the parent of a 3-year old and into the fun of it.
Always forward.
Look at how he views the world! How he named the trampoline park the “jumpoline park”, how he always asks his girl friends if they would like to hold hands (and respects when they say “no”).
How tender he is when a friend gets hurt. How much he loves to dance.
“Mama! Dance with me like Rocky Rae’s Mama and Dada” **Photo Credit to the fabulous Victoria from White Desert Photography
This soul before me is magic, if I can simply be here to witness it and join it and remember…I’m magic too.
So are you.
I am so grateful for the reset the Vortex (named as such because two red eyes does feel like a vortex and Sedona, where we were, is known for her vortex effect) provided. For the perspective. For the examples I saw watching my beautiful friends as marvelous and inspiring parents. For the beauty I saw. For the moments shared. And for the reset in perspective.
I say it calls for a night on the town (and some really, really good eats – I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist the rhyme).
This weekend, The Chief and I celebrated six years of marriage.
Six?!
How is that even possible?
It feels as if both a millennia and a moment have gone past, as if time stood still and rushed further past where we stand now, all at once.
Six.
Six Septembers ago I started counting Saturdays, celebrating each week’s passing, blessing the babe of a marriage it was with weekly cheer. Six years later, I realize I don’t toast to it as often as that younger me might have hoped. I don’t stop to marvel at the beauty and the madness of tying together two lives.
So today, I stop and thank every force that brought us together.
Thank you to that long and dusty road that sent me to you.
Thank you for that feeling of home I knew instantly when I saw your face.
Thank you for the trust in that knowing, the following of that knowing, that ignorance of reason in the pursuit of my heart’s path.
Thank you for friends and strangers who told me what a wonderful man I’d found.
Thank you for neighbors who supported us every step of the way (and married us).
Thank you to the heartaches we shared that brought us in closer.
Thank you to the quiet of the woods for a gentle place to recuperate.
Thank you to all of you who joined us to make our celebration unbelievably beautiful on the outside and the inside.
Thank you, Alaska for finding my home in the most unexpected of places.
Thank you to our love for allowing us to bring this beautiful being onto earth.
Thank you to The Chief for knowing me and learning me as I change. I love you dearly.
This weekend, I was dead tired. So we headed to the Fair for some R&R.
Everything you need to know is in the name. Fun Slide.
Just kidding.
I was dead tired but I wasn’t delusional enough to expect R&R from the fair. I also didn’t expect a cheerleader.
While unloading our family and the miscellaneous odds and ends we might need throughout the day (ear pro for Ollie? Mama might borrow those for crowd control. Snacks? For all! Stroller? For me, I mean Ollie) I felt a tap on the shoulder.
“Excuse me” I heard a voice say while placing a piece of paper in my hand. As soon as I’d heard her, she was gone and I was left looking at what she’d left in my grasp.
“You’re doing an amazing job! Keep it up!” the index card read.
I teared up on the spot.
If there’s anything I needed in the moment, it was that. Honestly, in any moment.
Validation.
Feeling seen.
Feeling like someone is rooting for you.
I couldn’t point this young woman out in a crowd if I had to but I am grateful to her and for her nonetheless. The next morning, when I felt altogether less than cheer-worthy, I looked at the card (my new bookmark) to remind myself that I am doing a great job, the best job I can do. And all I can do is to keep it up.
The cheerleaders help us move forward.
One day at a time…
Cheers to all of the cheerleaders, known and unknown. To the friends who tell you how fabulous you are when you feel funky. To the random compliment you get from a stranger. For the love notes we leave.
Today marks the end of what I will always remember as the Solo Parenting Summer of 2025. In case I haven’t told you in person (which, if I know you, I have because I needed you to understand why I felt and acted like a zombie every time we interacted), this summer was a struggle. It had highs, it had lows and I’ll always look back on it fondly because time apparently provides amnesia that gives past events a certain glow but the general takeaway?
That shit was hard. How so? Let’s look:
Sleep: Our little sleeping angel went from snoozing a solid 11 hours through the night to taking 1-2 hours to fall to sleep (for naps and for bedtime) and sleeping fitfully for 9-10 hours. Picture, if you will multiple wakings each night taking anywhere from 5-90 minutes to get back to sleep, after which I would struggle to get back to sleep myself, only to wake a few hours later to do it all over again.
Separation: Our independent toddler who went from walking up to ANYONE and starting a conversation suddenly had super separation anxiety making drop-offs and pick-ups a total nightmare for us both.
Sanity: It turns out that one (at least this particular one) needs more sleep than I was getting (around 6 hours a night) and more alone time other than the 27 minute drive twice daily Monday to Thursday to pick up Ollie that I achieved in order to feel sane. Bedtime battles felt hopeless, weekends felt endless and not because I don’t love the everloving heck out of my kid but because my brain was not even close to firing on all cylinders (and perhaps had lost a few along the bumpy way). I needed space, time, a sacred moment to tend to my base needs. But no matter how I gamed the system (I’d wake up early to journal and “get myself right”, he’d wake up right after me. I’d stay up later to get some alone time, he’d wake up extra early).
The cards just didn’t lay well and it was no one’s fault (although, of course, looking back I see a few areas I could have cut myself some slack and given us all an easier time but that’s useless wishing and wondering about a past past-tense). The Chief and I tried to smooth things as best we could by having as much family time together as possible but journeying 16 hours round-trip to see one another every weekend simply wasn’t possible and then ups and downs of reunions and goodbyes sometimes just made things worse.
Finally, finally, things fell into place and we ended up spending the bulk of the end of summer all together in the home that we built, the first home Ollie ever knew. It was pretty dreamy overall.
As the season came to a close, there was just one last stint of the Solo Parenting Summer of 2025 to get through: 10 days while The Chief finished work and closed down the house for winter. What could go wrong?
Two weeks before we left, Ollie got a lovely little diddy called Hand Foot and Mouth disease (which I’ve always mistakenly called “Hand Foot in Mouth” disease which is even grosser). If you don’t know what it is, just think OWWWW. Blisters across your…you guessed it! Hands, Feet and in your Mouth! Plus, bonus if you get them alllllllll over your body. High fever? Check! Pain? You got it! It looks miserable and we all felt terrible that week but undoubtedly, Ollie felt worse. So, needless to say, it was a bit of a messy week with me trying to work while feeling ill myself and simultaneously caring for sweet sick Ollie.
But…
We made it through.
The next week, we narrowly dodged another sickness. I kept repeating to myself “Just stay healthy so you can have all your capacity for this last stretch of solo parenting” and we did…
Until we got to Anchorage.
Within an hour I was sneezing uncontrollably, my eyes were watering, I was coughing and wheezing. It was dope. My allergies were on fire and my meds simply couldn’t stand up to whatever new pollens I was experiencing. Still, Ollie was fine so we were only 50% down. I’d take it. He started a new school the following Monday and…
jumped right in! No separation anxiety, just pure joy AND he had slept pretty well the night before. Things were looking up.
Apparently, opposites attract because up was swiftly followed by down. By Wednesday, Ollie’s school was closed due to a…you guessed it! Hand Foot and Mouth outbreak. No, Ollie was not the Patient Zero,it had arrived before him but since he’d just had it, his doctor figured it was highly unlikely he’d contract it again.
Highly unlikely.
We waited. Nothing. The weekend came and with it, nothing. We’d avoided it!
Saturday night, after a night of pampering myself to congratulate me on not losing my shit through another week of being sick, having my kiddo home from school and just generally trying to piece together life, I went down to the laundry room to flip the clothes and found…
A shitstorm.
The floor was flooded with water but not just any water, it was…sewage! By 11:30 pm, the floors were mopped to the best of my ability and I was finally in bed. Then started the wakeups. Two that night with the final one being before 6 am. I was EXHAUSTED and Ollie was…sick. “Mama, my mouth hurts.”
Fack!
I spent the morning checking to see where the backup was happening and figured it out by flooding the room twice more (call me an overachiever). After every single towel in our house that I was willing to sacrifice was used and I’d called every plumber open on the weekends (none of whom were apparently open on the weekends or whose service lines simply hung up on me), I gave up and gave in. Things were as tidy as could be for now and so…
We went to find mushrooms.
Hey ChickieChickie!
Did we find any? Nope (not that were still edible). Did we stay at home and stew? Nope. Was Ollie a total trooper? Yep.
This morning, I finally got ahold of a plumber. Ollie busied himself while I went to my necessary work meetings and talked with the plumber and…things came together. The clog was fixed. We had water again.
As I drove my little dude for a nap along the Turnagain Arm, I took in the views and listened to a podcast with Esther Perel (loooooooove her!) to calm my mind. I was still completely exhausted and in need of a break, overstimulated and under-nourished but I hadn’t “lost it”. I’d been frustrated, sure, but something felt different in the way I was reacting to the shitstorm. Then the podcast talked about something I’d never thought about. It talked about how we can come through trauma alive or we can come through trauma living. It struck me. I’m not comparing a plumbing problem to trauma, but I have definitely lived through my fair share of true trauma and it left me questioning: was I alive or just living? The shitstorm was small potatoes but it had to start somewhere. Instead of lingering in the hard, I could relish the good on the other side. I could dance through the shitstorm, smile as I came out better and be grateful every time I used the washing machine and didn’t find our floor flooded.
The Solo Parenting Summer of 2025 was good overall, it’s not just the amnesia of passing time. Yes, it was hard. It was trying but I also got to spend the most time I have with our nugget since he was still in diapers and that was beautiful. And yes, I did learn things I don’t like about myself (patience when overstimulated? NOT my strong suit) but I also learned new ways to deal with these things and today I think was the biggest learning:
Come alive in the hard, don’t just live.
Thank you to everyone who listened to me complain this summer and thank you, to The Chief for coming home. This concludes the Solo Parenting Summer of 2025.
With love,
from Alaska
P.S. I write this to you as The Chief puts sweet Ollie to bed and a little afterwards which is why you’ll see few pictures and probably a lot of typos in an effort to balance my need for writing with my need for cuddles. Thank you for reading.
Five or so years ago now I said something I’ve always looked back on:
“I mop my floor every day.”
Wow, profound, right?
Maybe not exactly but…the reason it’s resonated in my head for years is that it’s not true. Well, not now it isn’t. At the time I said it (thankfully, lest I be a liar), it certainly was. Back then, I had one tiny little haven of flooring in my house, a sweet, easily cleanable relief from the shredding OSB and crumbling concrete board that dressed the rest of the house. That little part of flooring was the area I knew I could keep clean, the one area of control I could find amongst dog hair, dirty paws, and boots filled with project remnants (hello, sawdust!) and so when a friend came over one day and admired my sparkling clean floor I noted with pride that I mopped it.
Every
single
day.
And twice a day in moments like this…No idea what that spill was but it was noteworthy enough to forever memorialize, apparently.
Every single day? Yep. Which, I’d bet was true for about another month or so. After that, I think we started to stop dirt before it entered the house (genius! How had no one ever thought of this?! Oh wait..) via no-shoe policies and a quick paw scrub down and also, ignore dirt by following the saying of my favorite pin: “Let that shit go”. Nowadays, my floor is cleaned about ten times a day as Leto and I tag team chasing down bits and pieces of catapulted carrots and missile-like melon bits but it’s properly mopped maybe once a week.
Maaaaayyyyybe.
Let
That
Shit
Go.
Right?
Yet I often think back to where I was then, mopping daily, a snapshot in time and wonder if that friend, who I haven’t discussed the pros and cons of a daily mop with since, still sees me in that Suzy Homemaker-esque snapshot. Did she even remember it? And if she did, did she feel that she too should be mopping her floors daily? Did I unknowingly plant a bullsh*t seed in her brain?
The other night, I left another snapshot that again had me thinking about what we plant, what we put out into the world, and how I often see others as a steady state since our last interaction despite knowing that our natural state is one of constant flux. In a gathering of women, I shared an at times teary, at times comical commentary on where I was at. There’s a lot going on for us right now: moving, school, new job, new neighborhood, new schedules…and if there’s one thing I know about myself it’s that I am amazing at change (cue the laughter sign for the audience, please).
It’s not that the changes are bad. I’m truly excited, it’s amazing, and still, it’s a lot. The Chief and I felt that a lot-ness this weekend and tensions built and then boiled over. And so, there it lay, our snapshot for the group to see. ‘Twas neither our prettiest nor our worst, nor our forever snapshot but if I had to give it a representation, it probably looked a little something like this:
Mayhem!
I know it wasn’t our forever snapshot but…will it be in the minds of those I presented it to until I see each person again? And will I too hold them to each of the snapshots they gave to me that night?
Slowly, as the days passed, our snapshots brightened. The stress lifted. Suddenly, there we were a few days later, motivated and team-like enough to start packing up after dinner and chores (this is not an easy thing to motivate to do for us) for our move with smiles on our faces. And then finally settling in a few hours later as the summer sun began to fade, reading and cuddling ourselves to sleep.
Another snapshot.
Snapshots in time. Life is chock full of them. Some last just a moment, and some last a lot longer. If anyone has taught me to savor my way through a good snap and know we’ll pass through a rough one, it’s Ollie. Everything changes from one day to the next, a shifting tide tied to no moon. Example? At six months old, Ollie decided that he wasn’t going to take diaper changes lying down.
Literally.
For the last 8 months, I have had to wrangle him into diapers and clothing for every diaper change. People are constantly remarking “Oh! I’ve never seen someone change a babe’s diaper while they are standing up!”. At a minimum, I’m chasing this little one around 6 (often 8) times a day to do a standing, knee, or in-flight diaper change (plus cleaning up more accidents than I ever imagined when I haven’t been able to keep up). It became our new normal, our perma-snapshot. In my mind, there he was: the kiddo who wouldn’t lie down for diaper changes. And then…yesterday, I thought I’d see if I could set that snapshot in a frame, hang it up as a memory, try something new, and…
Just like that, the snapshot changed. He let me lay him down to change his diaper. I’ve even reproduced the miracle multiple times now. He stares up at me as I stare back in disbelief, my hands moving through the motions with gratitude for the ease of a lie-down diaper change.
It’s a tough life for a pirate.Thanks, L&J for the endless tissue box entertainment!
Everything changes (even your face, but that’s another story).
Being a mom to a wild one has undoubtedly taught me that. One week he wakes every day at 4 am for the day and a month later, he sleeps till a blessed 5:15 (cue the “Hallelujah!”). Ups and downs and in-betweens come so fast there’s barely a signal before we are changing lanes yet again and still, sometimes I forget in the hard that the easy/ier is coming. Sometimes, I forget another snapshot is on the way.
The other night, made me again think back to my mopping declaration mishap, to the reality that who we say we are and the circumstances we find ourselves in may change as fast as the words come out of our mouths. I realized that I forget to apply that same knowing to those around me. I know I change but I forget others do too, especially when the snapshot is good. A mom friend will send me a picture of her family and an update that’s happiness embodied one day and I assume it’s allllllllllll sunshine and allllllllllll roses allllllllllll the time.
I can hardly handle how gorgeous these Glories are.
Then, a month later, the update will be harder, with less sun, a little more rain.
Oh, right. Duh.
Seeing all the women gathered together this past weekend, I realized I’d snapped them all the last time I’d seen them and held that past freeze frame as their current truth. Their shared stories showed me that good or bad or in between, they too were fluid beings, shifted and shaped since our last interactions.
Shifting river, bye-bye beach.
It’s obvious, right? Yet I think in our age of shiny selfies and made-for-TV moments, it’s really easy to forget. We are ever-changing, we are movement and stagnation and everything in between. We are exactly as we are at this moment, and nothing more.
Cheers to the snapshots, the beautiful and the broken hearted, the shiny and the sullen. May we meet one another as we are. Right now.
With love,
From Alaska (and floors in need of a good mopping)
Smoothie bowls. The best idea
**Update: What’s “hilarious” I kept telling myself over and over again as I scrubbed away last night (which now was one week ago) was just that: I was scrubbing my floors. At 10 pm. You must be thinking: “Why, Julia, would you even be up at 10 pm when your child awakes a mere 6-7 hours later?! And scrubbing your floors, no less?!” Because, dear friend, I didn’t mop my floors after finishing this post, despite their being in dire need of such a show of affection, and so, my floors insisted, nay, commanded that I do so.
As I was emptying the last bit of a massive container of dish soap into the dish soap dispenser, both fell onto the floor and oozed out of their containers faster than you can say:
“Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! That’s all we had left for the next two weeks until we move!”.
Shoulda just bailedwhen I saw it.
Our kitchen became a skating rink. As I slip/slid my way to clean floors 40 minutes later (it turns out that soap, when applied like a frosting rather than a whisper on your floors, is incredibly hard to get off in one fell swoop), suds finally tucked in for the eve, I laughed over and over again. “I just wrote a post ALL about mopping my floors. Today!” I laughed to The Chief.
Instead of a Slip-A-Thon/Mop-A-Thon (where my Walk-A-Thon/Jog-A-Thon peeps at?!) I had planned to tidy up the blog that night and send it on its way to you but alas, other plans had already been destined for the night. And so, today, (nope, two days later, and then three days later than hoped and then, after a 3:45 am curtain call from Ollie and a publishing snafu where this post didn’t save, a whole week later) it’s making its way to you.
I hope you’re in a happy snap and if not, just know one’s coming soon.
Years ago now, I wrote a post called Home is Where the Hard Is. In it, I wrote about the hard that is our home, about the struggle it takes to do even the simplest home project, and about how that hard is what made it all the more worthwhile.
I was new to our house and we were in the honeymoon mood of making it our home.
My favorite addition: ceiling storage jars
The hard thrilled me, it revived me. It held up a mirror to life as I’d known it and asked if what I knew was what I wanted or, if instead, I wanted something different.
I was deeply in love, not just with The Chief but with all that he and this new life embodied. Yet as I was falling in love with my new home, a new friend who has now become a dear friend confessed to me that she was falling out. Reading my post, however, set to the tone of a starry-eyed, love-drunk newbie, a bit of the romance returned for her. She looked a little more fondly at the hard, she’d just needed a break At the time I remember being shocked that anyone could possibly fall out of love with the beauty of all that is our tiny hamlet in Alaska. She pulls you in, how could you ever let go?
Stop showing off, you beauty you.
The romance of the hard held me close for years. The thrill of an unexpected storm, the creative meals due to dwindling supplies, the discomfort of far beyond freezing temps truly testing my abilities to survive. All of it, every day of it felt like an adventure until…
We spent two years in the hard and a fissure formed. Timing isn’t everything but it can sure make a difference and after spending the entire year before COVID at home in order to finally settle after years of constant packing and unpacking, the non-stop hard started to chip away at the joy. No worries, we’d take a trip and all would be rosy again. Except, we couldn’t. Two years after our intended year-long staycation we went on our first vacation since our honeymoon and for the first time ever we both weren’t ready to come home. I’m fact, had Leto been with us, we might not have.
Where were we?
Hawaii.
For the first time ever, The Chief said to me “I don’t want to leave. I could even see living here.”
And so, we have.
The little crack those two years formed has grown since it’s inception but when Ollie came, the crack gave way to a rushing tide of wonderings.
Would the hard work with him?
More bluntly: Would the hard with him work for me? Was I up for the challenge?
There are countless women who have raised their babes in the wild and I was certain for years I’d be among them. It felt like a badge of honor and I hoped it’d be bestowed upon me but that’s not how badges work. Truth be told, I know my ego played a part in hoping I could live this life and ride the homestead-ish mountain mama wave all the way in.
Gearing up to go outside!
The truth?
Maybe I could, maybe we will, but right now, I’m just not up for it. This summer, with a new babe in the woods where systems constantly break down and medical care 8 hours away, where there’s one road in and one road out and sometimes no road at all, I finally admitted to myself that I am not up for this year-round anymore. OK, I had done it. I had said the scary thing to myself but the scariest part of that admission was what would happen when I uttered it aloud.
Why?
The Chief.
Love rock
Since our start we’ve always spent some time apart but it’s gotten smaller in quantity every year. We love being together. He also loves being in Alaska. The two years had cracked him but not in the same chasm-creating way it had me. I wanted to be near healthcare and grocery stores, and activities and opportunities for Ollie and, truth be told, for myself. Yet I wanted to be with my husband. I wanted our family together.
So, what’s a family in transition to do?
Move to Hawaii, of course.
Cutie clones
Ever since that first trip, Hawaii had been our starting point for hard conversations. Did we want to live in Alaska year round? If we didn’t, where would we live? In a time where some of our dearest friends have been gone from Alaska, it’s been both harder and easier to think outside of the AK box. Our base has shifted. So, we returned to the place where that shift began, this time with our Leto and our Ollie, never to return.
Just kidding.
In the past few months, the hard conversations have continued. We spent Thanksgiving morning in tears when we came to the realization that things would indeed be changing but the questions of “How? To where? When?” were still unanswered. That doesn’t rest easy on the soul.
Since then, some big plans have evolved and come this fall, The Chief, Ollie, Leto, and I are doing the last thing we ever thought we would: we are moving away from the woods for more than just a season and heading to Anchorage because…
The Chief is going back to school!
Time to get curious again
I can’t express the happiness I feel in typing those last three words. I am so incredibly proud of him for choosing a path he desperately wanted but was unsure he’d ever see. I am completely aware that Anchorage is still Alaska, where the grey skies have been getting me down but, that’s the beauty of years of debate: compromise. We’ve agreed I’ll spend some time away every few months to up my vitamin D intake and we will both spend time out in the woods, just not all of our time. It’s the best (that we could come up with anyways) of all worlds. Time in the wilderness and time away and overall, most of our time together.
Almost eight years later, I completely understand where my friend was coming from. I love our home and I also needed a break from the hard. A real break. These past few months have been just what we needed: time in the sun, time with ease, and time to think.
Have I missed the 14-hour shopping days followed by the late-night 8-hour drives home? The unpacking of the truck in waist-deep snow at 3am? Honestly, in some ways, yes. The old me does st least. The mom me? In some ways still yes but in the ways that are a no, I’ve been grateful to be here, at home wherever my heart is.
Landing
In just a little over a month we fly home and for the first time ever, we won’t be rushing back out to the woods. Will we be there again? Certainly, but not immediately. Does this new norm feel weird? Indeed. Yet I know it’s right because when I remove what I feel I should do, coupled with what I said I’d do and look at what I feel I need to do for us, this is the answer.
With love,
From our hearts to yours (via Hawaii and a half n’ half sunset)
**Where is your heart taking you these days? Are you branching out from your idea of home or rooting down? Let us know in the comments below**
Oh boy, you guys…I made a boo-boo. You see, apparently, I forgot where I was. We’ve added on and spruced up and I had myself fooled that this place was foolproof and needed to be (wait for it…) perfect.
Perfectly unfinished.
Perfection has haunted me most of my life but when I first moved here, our relationship changed a bit. I had to try things I wasn’t sure I’d be good at (hello chopping wood, skiing, snowmachining, etc…) and (GASP!) work at them until I got better. Imagine my horror! Everything was new and as I attempted each newbie I would oftentimes literally or figuratively fall on my ass. It was a bit belittling, a lot overwhelming and…overall? I think it was really good for me.
Yet as the years went by and things that were once foreign became familiar, I fell out of step with perfection and again we became nemeses. Which is why, when I was doing laundry the other day (INSIDE!) in our new addition on a sunny-ish day (I tell you this just to emphasize just how idyllic the situation was) and suddenly everything came to a standstill I was floored.
The washing machine stopped.
The water stopped flowing.
The power stopped well, powering.
What the…?! I wasn’t as mad as I was stunned. How could this be happening in our new house? I mean, in the old house, sure! Things were constantly not working but not now. I mean, we have a bathtub, for goodness sake.
We are miles away from where we started.
Right?
In so many ways yes. This bachelor pad has become a home to us, to our dogs, and now to our son. We have so many more amenities than I ever even dared to dream of and…we are still in the middle of the woods where everything is prone to breaking down. Damn…I forgot.
As I stood in the middle of our beautiful addition perfectionism reared it’s ugly head and the sunny day got a bit dark and stormy in my head. Why were things breaking?! Why wasn’t everything just working?! Why…
Oh, wait. I’d like to say that in that moment I had my perfectionism epiphany and realized that it was silly to ask why and instead to see what we could learn from the situation but…that took a couple of days and a couple of long walks. I didn’t look for a lesson, I wanted it to be perfect.
Long walk # 2,897,341
Things aren’t perfect out here. Things break constantly. Systems change (I can’t even remember what our power system started as and in 5 years I probably won’t remember what it is today). What worked last year won’t work this year. I know all of this but I forgot it. I think bringing home a babe, you want everything to be perfect for them so much so that it’s easy to forget what’s real. Yet I can either teach him to be frustrated, to look down on the breakdown or…we can learn.
Today, the system still isn’t back to what it once was. We’ve created a new system that circumvents the problem area (a busted pump) and I learned all about GFCI outlets. Instead of focusing on the problem, we found a workaround that is perfectly fine for now, even if it’s not perfect. As it turns out, nothing is.
Nothing is perfect?! Ohhhh no!
So, I tip my hat to you perfection, my friendly foe and greet you again. Perhaps I’ll soon learn that trying to attain you is futile. Perhaps I’ll forget again. You are, indeed, my favorite mistake.
Until then, I’ll try to hold the lesson of the washing machine: learn from your mistakes instead of belittling yourself for them. Enjoy the wonder of finding a new solution. And let perfection go.
Seven years in the woods. Seven years in love. Seven years I just realized we forgot to celebrate.
Sure, when you get married there’s the debate of “should we really celebrate our dating anniversary still?” to which I have always responded, “Um…heeeeccck yes!”. I love a good celebration and…why not? There’s enough craziness in this world, we should make sure to stop and appreciate the good.
In addition to our 7 years together, this year also holds with it the gift of Saturn. Saturn returns. Every 7 or so years, life just seems to get realllllly real. People get married, divorced, babies are born, houses are bought, moves are made. Big things. Life things.
This round of Return has obviously brought with it a huge, beautiful change and it has me feeling extra nostalgic.
Reading goes a little differently now…Great book, by the way.
Since coming home with our little, it’s as if I’m simultaneously seeing this place with old and new eyes. The magic of this place feels renewed. As I look around our consistently improving house, I see where this brand new life began. I look to the corner that used to house a mess of a desk in the middle of the kitchen that now holds a real refrigerator (that’s even stocked with vegetables!).
Where it began…
Where it stands today…(see, I told you I like to celebrate!)
I look at our bedroom, now downstairs so we can all be together as a family. I look out to our porch and almost miss for a moment the Ramp of Doom.
Really, Mom?!
Almost. I think back to my first night at this bachelor pad and marvel at how far we’ve come and how unlikely it was that we ever came together in the first place.
As I enjoy this summer from more of the sidelines than ever before, I see how so many things have come full circle and this view brings with it a lot of gratitude and a little bit of disbelief. Is this real life? Did the perma-bachelor and the determined to be single traveler really make it work? Not without trials and troubles but…my answer is resoundingly “yes”. Sure, this (non-existent) anniversary looks a lot different from years past but it’s beautiful in its own right. Life has been busier than ever and so I take a moment to pause and give thanks.
From one Saturn Returns to the next and to many, many more together. I choose you. Happy very belated anniversary.
Thanks for the photo, JH!
With love, always,
From Alaska
P.S. 7 year anniversaries also mean this blog has existed that long. Whether you’ve just joined or have been there since the start, thank you. I am so honored to have you come along on this journey.
As I type this, I have one hand holding our babe and one hunting and pecking her way through the QWERTY-verse. Coming from a Mavis Beacon graduate (where my elder Millennials at?!) this is a sorry excuse for the flying fingers I’d unleash upon the keyboard just 30 days ago. Still, it’s a drastic improvement from my previous postpartum post. In this last month, I’ve come to learn about this little human I’ve spent the better part of a year growing as well as a few other lessons like…
I’ve spent the entire day trying to open my computer to write to you. Our child has had other plans.
Our child.
The two words I’ve hoped to utter for so very long. He has finally arrived. All 7 pounds, 11.5 ounces of him came into this world 11 days ago tonight. His birth was so fast we almost greeted him at home but luckily made it to the center just in time. Up he came out of the tub and into our arms, wailing immediately until we locked eyes. Curious and kind right from the start. We are head over heels for our little Oliver, Ollie for short. I can’t wait to share more with you.
Beneath the Borealis 