There Are Still Peeps

A little more than a year ago, my daughter and I took our first real college exploring trip. A highlight, as it turned out, was the discovery of a store with 75% off Easter candy, including one of my personal favorites, marshmallow Peeps. Despite a certain amount of restraint, we came home with not just notes (some scribbled, some mental) about colleges, but with a bag full of candy (and a Peeps headband!) to boot.

Now, almost a year later, as we wait for the results of the college search that was just beginning then, I am struck by the fact that so much has happened, so many things have changed, but there are still Peeps.

We have managed a college list that has grown and shrunk and grown again, only to shrink before our eyes. But there are still Peeps.

We are older, and maybe wiser, steps closer to some places and miles farther from others. But there are still Peeps.

We have eaten more ice cream and less ice cream, and discovered that more can taste even better after a while of having less. And there are still Peeps.

We have felt defeated and triumphant, and battered and exhilarated, and we still come out swinging. Is it because there are still Peeps?

We have made good choices and not so good ones. And ones we’re not sure how to rate. But there are still Peeps.

We have guessed right sometimes, and not so right others. And, yet, there are still Peeps.

We began on one path and have wandered a lot, and are still not sure of our destination. But there are still Peeps.

Both our little world and the big world look a lot different than they did a year ago. And yet, I walk out into both of those worlds, and at every drug store and discount store and candy store, there are still Peeps.

A lot of things in life change in a year. But just when I think things have changed beyond recognition, and I just can’t handle it, I look around me and realize—thankfully—there are still Peeps.

Pajamas In The Daytime

I pad downstairs to the mailbox, and the package room, hair wet from a shower, in my afternoon uniform of fleece lounge pants, a giant t-shirt, and slippers. Mostly, I am self-contained, oblivious to others’ opinions on my appearance. Yes, I am walking around, in semi-public, essentially in my pajamas, in the middle of the afternoon. Who does that?

Well, I do. For me, 4pm might as well be 10, since at midnight, I will be at work.

But today, in my post-shower, pajama-clad state, I am reminded of a very different time when I was home all day. Then, I was self-conscious about my appearance—in fact, about my whole presence. Then, I was longing desperately to find new work that would deliver me from being home all day. Then, my trips to the mailbox were full of hope that there might be a check, and dread that there would almost certainly be a bill.

But now, my pajamas in the daytime fill me with a certain sense of peace. They are a part of my daily normal, part of a routine that makes my upside down schedule doable, and part of my reward each day for the previous night of work.

I suspect that there are people in my building who know my drill (“oh, she looks like she just got up because she works overnight”), and people who wonder if I’m sick or unemployed or just a little crazy. But these days, when I don my pajamas in the afternoon, I find that it doesn’t really matter to me what they think. A little fleece in the afternoon, and I am reminded of how lucky I am. And I am reminded that it is almost time for my next nap.

Fancy Footwork

My daughter dances. (She sings and acts too, but for the purpose of this metaphor, she dances). She takes classes and learns new steps and explores new styles and performs when she gets the chance.

I don’t dance. I can’t really watch a video and pick up steps, I am far from light on my feet, and “performing” tends to scare me, except when it simply means doing the job that is expected of me.

Yet, at the moment, I find that I am becoming adept at a lot of fancy footwork. Truthfully, it has little to do with my actual feet. While seated, feet completely still, I am clutching on to some degree of control in this college admissions waiting month by attempting to arrange and rearrange all our info. If X college is a “no,” what does that mean for colleges A, B, F, and Q? And is the “no” from X a complete no (either in their minds or ours), or is it a redirection to another program? And is that program one we (I know it’s “she,” but it feels like “we”) can live with? 

In some ways, her dances and mine are the same—based on fairly constant movement, built from a million tiny pieces, designed to create a smooth flow. But while she dances in front of an audience, my footwork is strictly behind the scenes—in minutes and hours when others are busy or asleep, in my mind or on many pieces of scrap paper or in assorted Word docs and emails, for situations and results that may not end up requiring the practiced steps. I am hopeful that my fancy footwork will, in some way, help her to continue hers. And, in the meantime, the fancy footwork is making me feel as though I am taking steps. Even if some of those steps are simply walking in circles.

I’ve Fallen And I Can Get Up

I am headed home from work—at 8am, because that is when I head home from work—and in an instant, I have gone from barreling across the street, backpack, shopping bag, and all, to being flat, face down, looking at a stranger’s shoes. “Are you ok?!” I hear, the speaker of those words sounding even more surprised than I at my trajectory. Thanks to multiple layers of thermal clothing, an enormous coat, and the gloves I usually forget to put on, I am virtually unscathed. And when, later, I feel bruises in places that surprise me, what strikes me the most is how very fast I went from being literally flat on my stomach on the ground to up and walking to catch my bus. The “are you ok?” man didn’t even have time to help me up, as I was on my feet—on the move, even—within seconds.

I am still a little shocked at my good fortune—to have fallen on a sidewalk, rather than in the street, to have caught the sidewalk edge in the light of day, rather than in the darkness, to have been so padded that I barely felt a thing, to have encountered multiple strangers willing to help if I needed. And more than anything, I am struck, and warmed, by the fact that, both physically and mentally, I am still quite full of the instinct to get up. I was on my feet without actually thinking “you have to get up.” I was walking without even pausing to consider any other scenario.

So, as I face what feel like challenges, in work, in parenting, in life, I can’t help but go back to that moment of falling and getting up. For, as long as I know that I can, and will, get up, it’s not nearly as scary to fall.

Too Many Stories

I’ve been spending a lot of time on social media recently. Which sounds a little funny, as I am just resuming writing this blog after so much time away. The thing is, I haven’t been writing on social media, beyond assorted “congratulations” and “happy birthday” posts. I have been reading. Those several-sentence posts and one-minute stories can transport you a long way in a short time.

The problem is, those several sentence posts and one-minute stories can also convince you that your own story, in life or in print, is way short of good enough. Read an account of someone else being headhunted for a job, and you begin to wonder why no one’s looking for you. Inhale multiple posts about the exciting phone calls other people received, and you begin to wonder why your own handheld device is deafeningly silent. Skim through a tale of success, or excitement, or heroics, and you begin to wonder why you don’t feel like the hero OR the person being saved. Obviously, there are much longer stories behind the short ones. And often, our own stories are far more exciting than we give them credit for when we are reading other people’s. But sometimes, there are just too many stories. And instead of treading water in other people’s, we might do better to immerse ourselves in our own.

We can’t always compete with the “being wanted” and “being celebrated” and “being extraordinary” that social media stories are so good at thrusting in our face. But we can write—and live—a story for ourselves that keeps us on the edge of our seat, and, if we stick with it, has just as exciting an ending.

Never Toss The Cake

My overnight co-workers and I arrived at work one night last week to find the remnants of a cake from a farewell celebration for someone on a daytime shift. The portion of what had been a beautifully decorated sheet cake was still in fine shape—a surprise snack for us all, in a world in which we normally miss the dayside celebrations.

Yet, before I knew it, the night cleaning person was about to throw it away—the whole cake, unceremoniously dumped in the industrial size garbage can. “No, don’t!” I cried. “I’ll take care of it.” She, of course, had her job to do—instructed not to leave the messes from the day, she just wanted to restore the place to order. But throw away cake? Rather than letting us overnighters partake in a little of the daytime festivities?

And so it was that I spoke up. And so it was that I moved the cake, transferred to a smaller plate, to my work station. And so it was that all of us got to enjoy a bit of it. And so it was that I happened, that night, on to the realization that in life, you should never toss the cake—never just throw away an opportunity for color or sweetness or joy, especially when it is placed right in front of you.

I’ll admit, my waistline may not need me to defend the preservation of leftover cake. But my psyche most certainly does. When we allow ourselves to get so wrapped up in order that we forget joy, when we become so concerned with discipline that we forget fun, when we spend so much time focusing on what should be that we ignore what is, we are at risk of “tossing the cake.” And, as far as I’m concerned, that is a mistake we should never make.