Domestic Goddess?

I don’t own an apron, I think a “dash of salt” is a ridiculous and confusing measurement, and fancy ass pots and pans are wasted on me. Martha Stewart I am not. However, early on in the relationship with my husband, Kevin, I decided to fry him a steak. I tend to only cook meat in the oven because cooking on the stove top makes the smoke alarm go off but we all do crazy things when we first fall in love.

I arrived at Kevin’s place with the steak and he provided me with cooking instructions, a fancy ass pan, and a splatter screen. The recipe seemed simple enough. Oil and warm fancy ass pan, rub meat spices on the steak (gross!), and cook each side in 5-minute increments until done. Cool, I could do this. 

About 15 minutes later I went to find Kevin and told him the steak didn’t appear to be frying properly. He walked into the kitchen, froze, and then covered his mouth to try and hide his laughter. “Oh, honey”, was all he could get out.

Everything had started off fine. I had oiled and warmed the fancy ass pan correctly and rubbed the meat as needed but that’s where I fell off the correct cooking path. Sitting on the stove was the fancy ass pan, splatter screen, and steak but in the wrong order. For some reason it seemed reasonable to me that the correct order was fancy ass pan on the stove top, splatter screen sitting on top of said pan, and the steak sitting on top of the splatter screen. Basically, I was steaming the steak with oil.

I am actually quite intelligent but in some areas of life it’s like I’m new to the party. I once knew this guy who was incredibly intelligent. He read Nietzsche and studied Latin and Greek but sometimes went to his university classes with his shirt on backwards and inside out. That’s me in the kitchen. All backwards and inside out.

It's Not Really About the Milk

FADE IN:

SUBURBAN HOME – NIGHT

 

WE OPEN on a modern suburban kitchen. We see Molly (partner 1) stirring a pot on the stove with a toddler in a highchair and infant bouncing in her arms and Sylvia (partner 2) comes in wearing a dishevelled shirt carrying a briefcase.

 

Molly

Did you get the milk I asked you to pick up?

 

Sylvia

I forgot.

 

 What do you think an effective response to this would be:

 

a)Molly: What do you mean you forgot the milk? I rushed home from work to get dinner ready and you couldn’t even pick up milk?!

 

b)Molly: You never do anything I ask you to do. Remember last week when you said you’d fold the clothes and I found them 2 days later still in the dryer?

 

c)Molly: Ok. Is there a reason you couldn’t pick it up?

 

(Hint, it’s not a or b.)

 

I get it. It’s the end of a long day and both of you are exhausted trying to be the employee, partner, and parent so it’s easy to fall into the habit of anger and defensiveness. But honestly that’s a needlessly exhausting way to deal with conflict that usually ends up with no one feeling heard and everyone cranky as f*ck.

In my experience being able to answer with choice C is a lot easier if you come into conflict, or possible conflict, trusting that your partner is not trying to hurt you or make your life harder. (And if they truly are trying to do those things, the issue is much bigger than forgotten milk.)

 

For me it’s all about intent. My husband and I both share the belief that neither of us would intentionally try and hurt the other person so there’s a lot of leeway given. When you start to show up to murky emotional situations with empathy and curiosity instead of judgement and accusations an interesting thing may happen. You may realize that a lot of their emotions and behaviour aren't really about you. It’s about how they were in traffic for an hour, had a disagreement with their boss, and they’re worried about how to keep paying the mortgage.  A lot of conflict seems to be about wanting to really feel seen, heard, and cared for. 

15 Years...

    His love feels like a calico purring on my chest in the late afternoon and tastes like chocolates wrapped in gold foil. He is soft with his words and firm with his forgiveness. Slow with judgement and quick with compassion. His hugs make me feel heard and his kisses can make everything blurry. He taught me to soften my gaze when looking inward and has helped me rewrite so many of the painful stories I’ve built my life around.

        

    My love looks like true north on his internal compass and sounds like the soulful rendering of an R&B ballad. I am soft with my guidance and firm with my honesty. Slow with disapproval and quick with tenderness. My hugs make him feel safe and my kisses make him unravel. I taught him how to create a safe place for vulnerability and inspired him with my strength.

    Our love sometimes feels like the moment between the end of an amazing performance and a standing ovation and once in awhile it feels more like the sporadic clapping after an awkward performance but mostly it feels like home. The best and worst parts of us fumbling together trying to create a life that is more than we thought it could be. We’ve created a love with the space to fall apart and rebuild over and over, each time coming out a truer version of ourselves. 

 

         Happy anniversary, my love.

A Love Letter To My Female Posse

About once a month I get together with some lovely ladies for dinner. Sometimes we’re with our spouses but more often it’s just us. There’s something almost magical about having a posse of ladies behind you no matter what. When we’re together we don’t need to be the caretaker or organizer. We don’t need to be mom or wife or daughter. More and more I’m seeing the enormous mental and emotional load woman carry around and how heavy and lonely it can be. The responsibility we’ve taken on to keep those we love as happy and comfortable as possible, no matter the cost to us, can seem enormous at times. I feel like a bit of a fan girl to be honest. So, this is a love letter to all the amazing ladies that fill my life.

 

I cherish your ability to create genuine connection. Whether it’s over coffee or cocktails there’s no moments of awkward silence. Often there’s laughter and silliness but sometimes there’s tears and angry rants. There’s no competition, jealousy, or pettiness. Just a warm space to be raw, honest, and ourselves.

 

I’m amazed by how much sh*t you can fit into one day. Your color-coded iPhone calendars with everyone's (EVERYONE’S) activities filling up the days looks daunting. Dropping off kids at school, dance, band, hockey, all the doctors and dentist appointments plus work schedules. There are literally no days without a dot to remind you which roles you need to fulfill that day. Wife, mom, daughter, employee, sister, friend and sometimes all of the above. Even my calendar has a lot of dots without any kids so I can’t even imagine how utterly exhausted you must get and yet you keep going because the sh*t needs to get done.

 

I’m honored to be a witness to your messiness. The imperfections you may try and hide from most of the world provides the richness and flavor to our relationship. I’m humbled when you share all that makes you feel broken knowing that we’ve created a space safe enough to hold all that shame, pain, and heaviness. 

 

What I wish for those ladies I love, and those I don’t know, is that you can see how spectacular you are. How you are often the foundation of your families, sometimes even the extended ones, and how you carry that with grace, patience, and even a little humor. If I could come to each of your houses and celebrate how wonderful you are I would, but honestly there’s just not enough days in our calendars without dots. 

Greetings From a "Selfish", Child-Free Woman

 

    Controversial topic I know. Let me add some more formula to that reproductive fire. I’m not really a kid person. I know, I know. How could I, someone with ovaries and a uterus, not enjoy being around children?! It’s not that I find anything inherently wrong with children. I happen to care a lot about a select number of children. It’s that for a number of reasons I just didn’t want to spend my life surrounded by kids and for that reason some parts of society have deemed me as selfish. Talk about a loaded description for a woman. We’ve been socialized to see selfish as one of the worst judgments that can flung upon us. Martyrdom seems to be the gold standard.

     

    I’m going to share a few reasons I chose not to have kids. And yes, to some people they’ll seem selfish and trivial and maybe, just maybe that’s ok. Perhaps other people’s judgements aren’t my business because in the end they’re not really about me.

 

1)I find a lot of children to be very overstimulating and exhausting. These are two of the biggest triggers for my bipolar disorder, which is not particularly well controlled even with meds, meditation, yoga, walking…all the things. So, not being triggered in the first place is the best way for me to manage my bipolar symptoms. 

 

2)I spend a large chunk of my time focused on what I want and need and I’m not ashamed of that. Because of this I’ve done a lot of things that I may not have had time or space to do if I had children. So far, I’ve birthed a brewery with my husband, self-published a book, and learned so very much about myself. It’s 1pm on a Thursday and I’m in a café drinking a caramel frappe, listening to 90’s hip hop, and writing about why I don't want kids. Tonight I'll spend an hour or so practicing piano which is my newest creative focus. I love the freedom to focus on myself and what I want to accomplish in life.

 

3)My husband and I are my top priority. Because we don’t have children there is a lot of space for us to explore ourselves and all aspects of our relationship. Space for growth, change, and creative endeavours are important parts of who we are. 

 

I am by no means saying that not having kids is somehow better than having them but for some of us what we need and want in life just doesn’t jive with prams and playdates.  

3 Things I've Learned From Being Married To A Sensitive Man

                 You know those fairy tales that present the optimal male partner as a man who can cry, hold intense eye contact, and make you feel really seen and understood? Well, what those movies don’t talk about is the emotional healing and growth you need to do on yourself to be able to hold space for all of that raw emotion, sensitivity, and vulnerability. 

 

                  My husband and I have had many conversations about how people say they want a man who is sensitive and vulnerable but we’re not so sure that they would enjoy, or even be able to handle, the reality of a partner like that. I think it’s important that society has a conversation about this. If we keep telling men that we want them to show up a certain way and then for whatever reason we reject them because of that, that’s unfair and could shut those wonderful parts of them down.  

 

                  So, my small contribution is sharing my reality of living with and loving an emotional, sensitive, and vulnerable man. Here are 3 things that may shed some light on what it can take to create a safe space for a sensitive man.

 

1)Can you sit with your partner while they sob and not feel scared or out of control? Can you watch them fall apart and just hold space without trying to fix it? My husband, just like me, doesn’t always have convenient, tempered, and beautiful feelings. Sometimes he feels hopelessness, despair, and rage. In order for me to be able to sit calmly and in a supportive role while my husband shows up extremely vulnerable I need to be ok with my own hopelessness, despair, and rage. If I hadn’t dealt with a lot of my own sh*t then I would probably either reject his vulnerability because I’m uncomfortable or always end up making his pain about me.

 

2)Open and honest communication is key. Luckily I love talking, but some of our conversations are super uncomfortable because he’s able to show up quite emotionally exposed. It can hard to watch someone I love so deeply hurt so much and feel helpless to make anything better or knowing that I have hurt him in some way. I need to be able to stay open and vulnerable even in the hard moments when all I want to do is shut down because he deserves a safe space to fall apart just like I do. This, again, is about doing my own healing and growth work.

 

3)Maybe this is just me but I actually find it harder to stay in an emotional and vulnerable moment if my husband is expressing how much he cares about me. Especially when paired with intense eye contact.  I’m not sure I really believe in unconditional love but if it’s real my husband is the closest person I’ve ever personally known to reach it. I’ve had to do some deep healing around my abandonment issues to be able to stay at least somewhat open to a type of love that I still have a hard time recognizing. A love that is deep, grounded, and unselfish. I would say this area still needs work on my part. 

 

I can’t imagine being with someone who wasn’t as sensitive, emotional, and vulnerable as my husband because it has been the most amazing gift but I also know that some people probably couldn’t (or wouldn’t want to) create a relationship that could safely hold all that raw emotion. And that’s perfectly fine because we all need and want different things from a partner. What’s important is understanding what that is and how you want it to present itself so that you aren’t sending mixed messages about wanting a Disney prince but when they show up needing Kleenex you shut them down.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You...

  

  I understand that the end of this saying is supposed to be stronger. However, I highly disagree that this is always the outcome of long and/or extreme struggles. I think what doesn’t kill you can make you too exhausted to live the life you want, shut you down, make you resentful and sarcastic, and a whole host of other not so positive consequences.

 

            From my experience, and what I’ve witnessed in others, there is a point at which pain does lead to strength but once the struggle becomes too intense or lasts too long it’s not strength and resilience that are the prominent outcomes. It can be much more destructive and change the person at a fundamental level.

 

            My hardest struggle, bipolar disorder, has not killed me but it has made me resentful and exhausted. I’m resentful that no matter how hard I try to make forward momentum in my career and finances I’m always being pulled back into bipolar’s seemingly endless and horrible symptoms. It’s exhausting to constantly be starting all over again.

 

            But I think the worst outcome of my bipolar struggle is how much time I spend hating myself because of how broken I feel. Is it as bad as it was twenty years or even five years ago? Probably not, but I spend too much time feeling like I’m a failure and worthless. 

 

            So, why is this saying so popular and why can it be problematic? Perhaps because people are trying to come up with reasons for why they are facing certain challenges in life but I think that sometimes horrible things just happen and trying to convince ourselves or other people that our only choice is to become stronger can make everything harder and heavier. Maybe for your harder struggles, you can allow yourself the space and grace to feel all the negative feelings without the expectation that you also need to somehow create more strength and resiliance within yourself.