In The Oddest Places

I wake up from my morning nap to a text from one of my kids asking the same question as I was asked the night before. And several hours later, there is another text, just reminding me that the question still needs an answer. 

Nagging? Maybe. Relentless? Perhaps. My kids can certainly be those. But today, I choose to call it inspiring.

Why inspiring, when the asking and re-asking threatens to undermine my precious sleep and interrupt the work of daily life? And could be considered annoying and self-involved and completely oblivious to anything else I might have going on?

Why inspiring? Because in that moment, they are single-minded and determined. They are so intent upon accomplishing whatever it is that they want that they make sure they get their questions answered. They make sure they continue to move forward.

Too many times, I step back before getting all my questions answered. I defer too much to someone being busy or otherwise involved. I stay polite instead of fighting the fight. So, when I see my kids fight for what they are trying to accomplish, I am inspired. Results take action, and action often takes follow up. Often a LOT of follow up.

Sometimes it takes a kid (nagging or otherwise) to show us the ropes we thought we already knew. To remind us not to stop short of success. And sometimes, the greatest inspiration for what we do out in the world can be found awfully close to home.

Owning It

I added my newest work adventure to my LinkedIn profile. Because it is a part of me now. And certainly should be when people look me up.

And then, in a heartbeat, that adventure ended. Promotion? Kind of…or not…

But as awkward as it may be to be fielding warm wishes on my “promotion,” when I’m basically back to being the same person I was before, I remind myself of the nights of learning all sorts of new equipment and routines. I remind myself of the wee hours when a piece of machinery malfunctioned and I went from needing to call a support person to simply figuring it out myself. I remind myself that what started as “filling a hole” ended with my sitting in the chair, doing the job, taking responsibility for the pace and the elements and the look. Not as a seat filler. But because  it was now my job to do that.

It’s often easy, even natural, to play down the jobs that we do, and the things that we accomplish. If they aren’t accompanied by a title or more money or people’s recognition, did they really happen? Do they really matter, or mean anything?

But as I ponder what to do next with my LinkedIn, and my life, I remind myself that— 

I own the way I learned to troubleshoot machinery issues.

I own the fact that I trained my hands to hit the necessary buttons, and my eyes to look in the necessary places, when at first glance, I wasn’t sure I would ever have that coordination.

I own the confidence I developed in knowing how to do, how to fix, and how to teach.

I own my journey from trainee to teammate and leader.

Because in the end, who we are is about more than just what the world labels us. It’s about letting ourselves take the credit for what we have accomplished. Not simply by putting it on a resume or a LinkedIn profile. But by owning it.

Keep The Change

Full disclosure—the title came first. And as I looked at it on the page, I wasn’t quite sure where I would go with it….

I’ve gotten used to the ground shifting. Perhaps most of us have these last few years. And as we are emerging (are we?) from it all, nothing is really quite the same. Our relationships with family, and work, and even with ourselves can’t help but be different. But when the change is about more than masking or unmasking, standing close to people or not, or deciding what form of transportation to take, how do we handle it? How much are we able—and willing—to accept? To keep?

Over the last year, the makeup of my workplace has changed. People have left—on their own, or not so much so. Schedules have changed, policies have changed. And every change, whether large or small, makes a difference. Perhaps a friendly face you’ve been used to—even counted on—seeing is now gone. The flow of the work or the path that you take to get there is just a little different. The ground shifts, just a little. Or maybe a lot.

Some days, my reaction is “Stop!” Stop the ground from moving, stop the people from leaving, stop the rules from changing. Just please, please, keep all your changes. Don’t make me take them.

But where, in truth, would I be now, if nothing had ever changed? Would I have worked in sitcoms and classical music and news? Unlikely. Would I have learned some of the genuinely cool things I know now? Probably not. And would I ever have met many of the people who have profoundly changed, and continue to change, and improve, my life every day? No way.

So, when I find myself thinking “keep the change,” I remind myself that actually keeping—and embracing—the changes, whatever they are, helps me to move forward, and to fill my life in ways that I could never even imagine if everything stayed the same.

The title came first. But what I choose to do with it—that’s up to me…

Revolving Doors

I live in a New York City apartment building, complete with a revolving lobby door—both an entertainment and a danger for my kids when they were little. It is a daily part of my life, and has been for so long that I hardly think about it. Except for the fact that these days, I am beginning to see my whole life as a revolving door.

Strictly literally, the members of my household use that lobby revolving door at all hours of the day. When others are off to sleep, I am off to work. As I nap, others head off or arrive home. Around and around, day to day, who will be home, or eating, or sleeping at any given time is anyone’s guess.

There are days when life outside my home is no different. Who will be at work with me? With a shift-based schedule, it’s hard to predict from day to day. What will I do at work? With a job in news, it’s similarly hard to predict. And with a work force that changes daily from the pandemic, from company policies, from people’s life changes, all I can really do is keep my balance as that door goes ‘round.

Do I feel as though I’ve been spun through that door a little too fast? Some days. But somehow, a revolving door always gets you to the other side. So, as I juggle work tasks and home tasks and the movement of the people in my life, all I can really do is go with the turn. I will come out on the other side. It just might take more than one time around to do it.

Re:Connection

As an editor, I tend to spend a lot of time in a room by myself (except, of course, at the start of the pandemic, when I edited at home in a room with sometimes awake, sometimes sleeping children). It can be a peaceful little life. I interact with the machine, and the material. And for a short time, the producer who hands me the script and video, and the producer who approves the piece. It requires neither a lot of makeup nor a lot of baggage (literal or psychological). And that’s okay with me.

These last few months, however, I have been less of an editor and more of a director. I am no longer alone in a room. And while I am still interacting with a script and video, and with producers, I now also communicate with talent and other technicians and with anyone else who happens to be in the room or on headset.

I was nervous about the change. About learning the equipment and the routine. And about having that much connection. Yet, while my nerves continue to be at a slightly elevated level, the connection has turned out to be a good thing. I talk through, and I talk to, and I learn. I engage with people more, rather than just executing their vision. I connect.

And re: connection, I realize each day that this is an opportunity that came about because I allowed myself to connect. Allowed myself to believe the people who believed I could do it. Allowed myself to have some pieces of my past connect me to taking steps in my present.

So, re: connection may often be about who you know. But it is also about who and what you allow yourself to know. It’s taking that step from what’s comfortable because you do it by yourself, largely on your own terms, to what’s less comfortable because you are reaching and stretching and learning the rules of others.

Today I know more about more tasks and more people than I did before. Because I allowed myself a little more connection.

Re: connection—I re:commend it.

It’s Time

A few weeks ago, in response to my social media “happy birthday” to a former co-worker, he wrote “thank you” (because people do), and that he hoped I was still writing.

The truth is, most of my writing of late has been in the form of helping kids edit cover letters and college essays. And drafting forceful emails to accomplish things. Or simply “writing” in my head. But his comment stuck with me—through the daily chaos, and the overnight work shifts, and the noise of the world, and the revolving door of family and friends and coworkers. So, maybe that means it’s time….

Time…to allow myself to put out into the world what I’m thinking.

Time…to stop worrying that each phrase I put to paper and to the internet won’t be politic enough, or interesting enough, or good enough.

Time…to think deeper thoughts than how much sleep I will get this morning and what I will make for dinner tonight.

Time…to let everything and everyone go, for just long enough each day to write the few hundred words that I wrote, day in and day out, for five-plus years.

Time…to remind myself that while I may be a mother and a wife and a director and an editor and a technician and a short-order cook, I am also a writer. As most of us are, in fact, more than the two or things that people see.

So, with thanks to that friend who just had a birthday, here we go.

Because it’s time.

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.