Extraordinary things

I find myself falling into familiar patterns all too often these days. I stumble upon a guy who quickly becomes a good friend, I sometimes develop feelings (sometimes not), and I play it by ear. We talk about everything, laugh a lot, get close, and I think things are great.

Then there's the ghosting (or at least extreme pullback). Reciprocal communication becomes fewer and farther in between. Eventually I realize I'm the only one talking. Then for a brief moment, I hit the bottom of this weird, emotional pit before bouncing back.

I think this a single mom pattern/weakness: happening upon someone who is a good listener, getting wrapped up in that feeling and talking a lot, and then realizing retrospectively that you've shared too much and been too real, and the guy couldn't handle it. This solo parenting thing is a lonely gig. It feels so good to have someone to share thoughts with. But based on my [very limited] experience, I think guys just get confused and scared.

Single parents have lots of thoughts, limited sounding boards, a super high level of stress and responsibility, and like no free time. Oh, and the list of things to do never, ever ends. There is always something, and we are the only ones there to do it. Life never stops, and peaceful pauses are rare. That responsibility feeling rubs off, and I'm sure it's an unpleasant taste for a non-parent guy. I get it. I really do.

I guess the part of all this I need to continue to drill into my brain is what while Kimmy is a normal part of my life, she's not a normal part of any one of these guy's lives. They don't get it--or at least if they get it logically, they don't get it practically because they don't live it. They can't separate her from me and just take me for what I am. I can see how it's all a bit intimidating.

I'm just SO BUMMED about it.

I'm not daddy shopping for my daughter. I don't want to talk about my child all the time. (But let's be real: she's a part of my life, and she's going to come up from time to time.) I just want to feel like a normal 27-year-old woman sometimes. I want a person just for me when I'm entering into a fun, maybe-more-than-friends-one-day dialogue.

I just wish that guys wouldn't assume the worst and be so quick to slam that door. I'm worth the stress and the drama that follows me and the time it takes to get some face time with me. I'm worth it all. The man who takes the effort to discover that will be one lucky son of a gun.

--

Guys everywhere, take heed:

Do not ghost a woman. She can literally see that you saw that message. It has a time stamp. Say something. If you're not interested, if you're scared, if you're on different pages, if you're going away on vacation for 5 months, if you're just looking for a hook-up, whatever the reason is...

Be real. Be honest. Speak up and break things off.

That's what it means to be a man.

That's the respectful choice.

Sure, you may not feel you owe a woman anything, and, sure, that may even be true, depending on many factors. But at least cowboy up and give her some damn closure. Even if she reacts like a fool, she'll still respect your honesty a hell of a lot more than never hearing from you again, as if she's not worth the ounce of effort it takes to text a 1-sentence goodbye.

When women say all men are the same, this is the type of BS we're talking about--because y'all prove it time and time again. Quit being so damn disappointing and prove us wrong for once!

--

So this is where "extraordinary things" comes into play. When I land in this emotional pit, I think to myself, "How did I find myself here again?" Then I realize it. My story isn't over--not even close. I am fine. I'm alive and healthy. I still have my friends and my family and my passions. I still have my mind, full of art and depth and dreams and plans. I'm still me. I'm intact. I'm standing. I'm better off.

I will do, see, and experience extraordinary things in this lifetime, regardless of who comes in and out of my story. And I'm actually never more motivated to dive deeply into my passions than when I find myself here over and over and over.

Maybe one great love isn't for me in this life. Maybe these small glimpses of it are enough. I have my daughter through it all, so where has love really gone off to? Nowhere. It's present and constant.

Being in this place makes words flow out of me. It makes me spend more time with my daughter. I'm a better friend. I travel more. I appreciate all the real people in my life even more. I toughen the parts of me that need toughening and settle deeper into the parts of me that need to remain soft. I take a good, hard look at myself and deliberately examine my headspace. So thanks for that. You're actually doing me a favor.

Take me or leave me, but if you're going to ghost me, leave me the hell alone.

-Kels

P.S. this post has been a draft for months. (I'm not happy with my first drafts lately, so I do a lot of slow crafting before I publish.) It's a culmination of experiences, not a passive-aggressive swing at any one dude. I'm in a really good place right now. If you're in my life, I hope you know we're good, too.

Fearless or nah?

I hear a lot that I don't seem to be afraid of anything and that it's cool that I fearlessly tackle life. While that's an incredible compliment, I'd like to keep things humble and human with a list of my deepest fears:

1. Getting my teeth knocked out on a clothing rack in a store. (Yes, I'm serious. This is fear #1. Clothes racks are at the exact height of my mouth, and I've had several near-toothless experiences. I even have nightmares about it. If I'm in a clothing section, my hand is over my mouth more often than not.)

2. Being 95 years old and not having done every single thing I want to do in this lifetime--but I tackle that fear head on every time I get outside and go adventuring.

3. Eye surgery and dental surgery. Terrified. Absolutely terrified. If I ever have to have either, I will most certainly have a massive panicky meltdown.

4. Finding a tick on my head. Being bitten by a tick? Not so much. The threat of Lyme Disease? Nope. But touching my scalp and finding that there's a tick on there the size of a big, bulgy gray-green grape sucking out my blood and whose head I may never extrude, thus forcing my body to absorb its ticky cranium? HORRIFIED. FRIGHTENED BEYOND BELIEF. If this ever happens, I will go straight to an urgent care clinic to get it handled, not even kidding. It would be the only thing keeping me from burning a hole in my own scalp to make sure that sucker died!

5. Being in another car accident. Ever since Kimmy and I got hit by that drugged-up driver in June, I have had some pretty intense anxiety issues. The sound of the crunching metal and the smell of the leaking radiator and airbag-deployment explosives haunt me day and night. I don't ever want to experience anything like that again.

6. Not death (because I know where I'm going), but the thought of me dying early and leaving all sorts of unfinished business in my daughter's/family's hands. I have a will, but that only does so much to settle the nerves, you know?

Annnnnd, that's all, folks!

-Kels

I want to be better

A lot of my thoughts lately have centered around my goals. What do I want in life? Where am I headed? How can I get there?

In an effort to not be as hard on myself, yet still uphold all my standards and values, I have boiled all my goals down to one goal:

I want to be better.

I want to be a better mother, daughter, friend, listener, achiever, dreamer, student, believer, writer, artist, learner, and adventurer. I never want to stop being better at those things. I will base decisions on that goal, and that will pave my way.

--

After 2 weeks away from my daughter and a weekend of her time being divided between other family and pet doggies, I felt overwhelmingly disconnected, both from my daughter and just from motherhood in general. Yesterday afternoon, I just thought to myself, "There was just an entire chunk of time where I have no clue how my daughter's life was. There was an entire chunk of time where I didn't get to be her mother." I vowed to be a better mother in our time together and really spend more quality time connecting with her.

Last night, I only used my phone to take a few photos and videos of Kimmy and to look up some silly prairie dog, elephant, and owl videos that she wanted to watch. Other than that, we just talked. It was the best evening I've had in a very long time.

I watched a little girl--who is almost a not-so-little girl about to turn 4--blossom from feeling uneasy about being back home and knowing she has a brand new pre-school routine coming up into my happy little talkative girl full of silly ideas, tons of jokes, and loads of creativity. She was so happy to be home and so happy to have my full attention.

We talked all about my travels while she was at her daddy's house. We went out and looked at the garden together. She had a fashion show and tried on her new school clothes for me. I showed her my trip pictures and surprised her with a few souvenirs. I bought myself a harmonica a few weeks ago and have been teaching myself the basics. She was deeply envious of my purchase and wanted to play it all the time, so what did I do when I saw a harmonica in a pretty blue case at the Biltmore toy store? I bought a harmonica!

We've started a Kimmy-Mommy harmonica band. Kimmy took right to it. She made up a song and consistently plays it over and over. I know anyone can pick up a harmonica and blow into it, but it's actually a tricky little instrument (you can't see where you're blowing and have to rely on muscle memory) that makes replicating a tune pretty hard unless you have a good feel for which of the 10 holes is which note. She's a natural.

After a very long and exhausting day and lots of evening playing, Kimmy got to sleep in Mommy's bed. We slept 10+ hours and woke up feeling wonderful.

I have actually not seen Kimmy so calm or happy in the morning in quite some time. I know the sleep had a lot to do with it, but I also think I was a better mother to her last night than I sometimes am.

It's so easy to get caught up in all the trillion things I need to do in a day that by the time I make it home after work, there's very little of me left to give. My daughter, as my only other household member, takes the brunt of that and sees the worst of me more than anyone, simply because she is there to witness it. It's one of many unfairnesses of single parenting: my child needs me most, but circumstance dictates that I have to be spread out thinly elsewhere before I can get back to her.

So, I want to be better for her. She deserves to see the best of me more than anyone in my life. She is my constant. Friends and dudes may come and go in the years to come, but I will always have my Kimmy. She deserves to always have me, too.

I will be better.

-Kels

Bucket list

I'm totally wanderlust. Everyone knows it. I can't help it. I think I was born with the need to roam. There's so much I want to do and see!

"What, specifically?" you ask. Well, lucky for you, I give you my bucket list:

Places (domestic)
All 50 states
Especially Alaska and Hawaii
Entire Pacific coast, especially Seattle
All the national parks I can possibly visit in one lifetime
Especially Yosemite and Yellowstone
Mackinac Island
Anywhere in Maine

Places (abroad)
Europe: Greece, France (again), Germany (again), Austria (again), Italy, Turkey, Russia, Iceland
Asia: Cambodia (again), India, China, Thailand, Japan, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam
Africa/Middle East: South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Israel
South America: Brazil, Chile, Peru
North America/Central America/Caribbean: Canada (BC), Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba
Australia/New Zealand
Anywhere else I ever have the opportunity to go

Experiences
Prairie dog observation with Kimmy at Devil's Tower in Wyoming
Stay at Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, Kenya
Skydive
Walk the entire Appalachian Trail (not necessarily in one stretch)
Kentucky Bourbon Trail
Concert at Red Rocks
Kiss in the rain
Biltmore Estate tour (happening in less than 2 weeks!)
Cruise
Run a 5K
Get a really fancy haircut
Impact another human life in a significantly profound way (because I have to throw in a super abstract one)
Buy another painting at Montmartre
Play slots at a casino
Re-learn German and eventually become fluent
Witness a child being born (not my own)

Foods
Sea urchin
Quail eggs
Kobe beef
Every tropical fruit I've never tried
Tons of varieties of pasta (preferrably in Italy)

To be continued...

I'm a catch

My generation has severe Disney-movie syndrome.

There, I said it.

We want whirlwind romance, love that sweeps us off our feet, a soulmate, a perfect match, and effortless, everlasting bliss.

But that's not love, and that's not real.

Yet what do we do? (Girls especially.) We flail. We chase. We think that if we shine brightly enough and grab all the attention and be enough, that the perfect guy will notice us and not be able to get enough.

I'm so done with that! It's exhausting. If a man can't notice me dancing beautifully over here all by myself and simply being me, he's not the man for me.

I'm a catch, and the right man will know it. He'll be magnetized by my personality. I'll make him laugh so much. All my exuberance and over-the-top emotions and spontaneity will be right up his alley. I won't talk too much or feel too much or think too much: I'll be fine just as I am without censoring that. My depth will not intimidate him. I'll be the keeper of his secrets, fears, hopes, dreams, and every silly thought-in-passing because he'll know I'm a good listener and someone he can trust. He'll slow me down and balance me out and smooth my rough edges. We'll put in work in our love because it won't be the "happily ever after" of Disney films. It will be raw, fluid, real.

But I can't will it into existence by hooking any and every guy who could be good for me. It's so much better to be just me and not waste all that energy searching. And if that good guy doesn't exist, I won't cease being a catch. I'll be over here doing my own thing and enjoying life regardless.

Life is too, too good to waste day after day chasing after boys--or, worse, waiting to do all the things you would love to do for hope of the day that you could possibly, hypothetically have a man to do them with. Yeah, being single gets lonely, but it's so not worth it to replace that lonely with just anyone. I'd rather fill it up with all the books I've ever wanted to read. All the words I've ever wanted to pen. All the places I've ever wanted to go. All the friends I've never spent enough time with. If I'm gonna spend time chasing anything, it will be my daughter, my goals, my dreams, sunrises and sunsets, and every adventure that pops into my head.

How about more Disney princesses who are truly happy being authentically themselves, single or not? I'd love to see a generation of girls grow up with Disney heroines like that.

We're all catches, ladies. Don't ever settle.

Peace,
Kels

An ode to Kim

For those who don't know, my older sister Kim died in a terrible car accident in 2004.

It was movie-worthy--a real-life horror/drama. My parents were out of town in San Francisco, and it was the first time they had ever left us home alone. Kevin was at our grandma Gugs's house. It happened in the middle of the night. No one knew whether to wake Kevin or not. No one knew how to breathe or think or talk. Kim's boyfriend survived and probably faces mental trauma I can't even fathom. It was a nightmare. An actual nightmare, except we were all awake and alive and forced to live through it.

It shocked us all. It rocked all of our worlds. It shook up our whole small town.

High school turned into living hell for me. Fake people stuck out like sore thumbs. Pity was on everyone's faces constantly. People walked on eggshells around me at all times.

Home turned into an empty shell with 4 human souls doing all they could day in and day out just to survive in the huge void left in Kim's absence. We didn't talk. There was absolutely no laughter. "Home" really ceased to exist, as a structure at least. Everything became upended and meaningless.

Writing was my only escape. Plucking the words from my mind and putting them to paper was my lone distraction, my one place of solitude in the midst of all that had crumbled around me. Being able to write about Kim's death is the only thing that helped me trudge through my emotions those first few years and make sense of the most nonsensical event of all time.

It took me years and years to be okay. I missed dozens (at least 3 of them) of days of school my senior year of high school, simply because I was too emotionally exhausted to pry myself out of bed those days. I have absolutely no clue how I maintained my perfect GPA through school because everything I "learned" is a blur. The Board of Education threatened me with truancy, and I wrote an essay rebuttal telling them to suck it because my survival was more important than school. No exaggeration: I was literally just trying to survive day to day. There was no concept or fact or theorem in school that held any actual, tangible meaning in my life next to the earth-shattering trauma of losing my best friend in a single instant of time.

Moving away to college helped me heal even more, but it also opened new wounds. No one in college knew my sister. There was such discomfort in that reality. When new friends asked me how many siblings I had, my new answer became: "I have 2 older half-siblings, Rachel and Cody, and a younger brother, Kevin." I could never seem to force Kim's name to roll off my tongue in that answer. Instead, I replaced her name with a lump in my throat and choked-back tears and self-loathing for undermining her memory.

I didn't feel anyone was even deserving of knowing about Kim until around my junior year of college. I remember the night I finally opened up about her life and death with my closest group of guy friends and how relieved, terrified, and emotionally spent it made me feel to talk about her. I cried myself to sleep that night, both out of relief and deep, deep sadness.

The life event that healed me the most, though, would have to be my pregnancy with Kimmy and the way my world brightened with her in it. She filled up so many little rips and tears of my heart. She may never know the depth of the impact she had on me by simply existing, but I hope to always do my best to tell her and show her through everything I do in my journey of motherhood.

Kimmy is Kim made over in so many ways--more ways than I can even articulate. And not because I need her to be Kim made over, but because she just innately is so much like her. Her bravery. Curiosity. Kindness. The things that make her laugh. Facial expressions. Angelic singing voice. Zany sense of humor. Her old soul. She is my biggest blessing.

(Kimmy is also so very like my brother, especially these past 6 months or so. I am so happy she is helping me see all the ways I ever took Kevin for granted. In so many ways, Kim's death and the time we each spent grieving robbed us of years of time as brother and sister that we can never re-claim. But I think we are finally getting in a good space and making up for it. I am the luckiest sister to have my awesome brother. For all the times I never said it: I love you, Kuh-man. We're all we've got, and I don't mind it one bit.)

Overall, I'm pretty okay these days. I have found happiness and bliss. I live authentically. I find true joy in things many people would overlook time and time again. I still think of Kim all the time, but I only catch myself crying every now and then. Usually, I laugh and smile and consider it an honor to be the keeper of her memories. We have memories as sisters that no one else can ever touch, and she fills up places in my heart that no one can ever get into.

Kim was my very best friend in the entire world, and I know she would be so proud of me.

I miss her. I miss her cackley laugh, the way she made everything challenging seem easy and natural, the way our voices fit like puzzle pieces when we sang together, her very odd and hilarious sense of humor, her brave and adventurous spirit, her strange food pairings, her wit, her incredible depth and intelligence, the way she made me strive to be the best version of myself at all times, the wacky songs she was always making up, her terrible parking skills that she always needed me to help with, her inventive solutions to problems, her ability to empathize deeply with just about anyone, her amazing artistic talents, and just the way she saw the world.

I will never forget our adventures together, especially in Midelburg and camping and at the beach. I will never forget the way it felt to speak, many times without even uttering any words, to a person who never once doubted my integrity or character or abilities and who truly got me. I will never forget our sister slumber parties on Christmas Eve or taking shifts getting ready on school days and waking each other up when it was time to switch off in the bathroom. I will never forget laughing so hard that I felt I would never be able to stop, complete with coughing fits and pee and any other type of bodily function that sometimes follows laughter. I will never forget the elevation my heart floated up to when Kim and I sang together. I will never forget Seaweed & Starfish. I will never forget crying in front of someone who never made me feel ashamed. I will never forget "helping" her clean her room (AKA reading magazines for hours while she cleaned it herself). I will never forget spelling our names so fast it was nothing but a blur of sounds. I will never forget plucking our eyebrows together and making fun of each other when we messed up. I will never forget all the weird games we invented. I will never forget her stinky morning breath that smelled like pure death to me (though it was from her albuterol inhaler). I will never forget the 50 billion times she jumped out and scared me. I will never forget her twinkly brown eyes and sneaky smirk, always concealing some wild and wonderful plan for what's next. I will never forget the feeling of "home" with Kim in it.

Today would be Kim's 29th birthday. She died when she was 16. We're nearing the time when she will have been dead longer than she was alive.

But no one can ever, ever tell me that my sister's life was short or that it was meaningless or that she didn't exist or have purpose. Kim lived more fully in her 16 years than most people can live in 100, and that's a fact. There will never be another her. No one else will ever shape me like she has.

Thank you, Kim, for being the best sister and friend I could have ever hoped for. Thank you for loving me unconditionally and always having my back. Thank you for making me me.

I love you.

Kels

Things I wish I had known (part 2 of more to come eventually)

I wish I had known years ago how to recognize my own unhappiness, and when I did recognize it, I wish I had taken myself seriously and not been so afraid to change the things that caused it.

I spent years in a loveless, lifeless relationship, feeling underappreciated, unloved, unheard, unliked, and utterly alone. Sure, it started out great. Why else would I have stayed, right? But it morphed into something I hated, but blindly tolerated because it was one of the only "stable" things in my life at that point in time.

Most of 2013 consisted of me being unemployed and caring for an infant alone. I never slept, or I always slept--you could take your pick on any given day. My daughter was the only thing that made me truly happy. I watched a lot of TV. I sat through many "you may have depression if..." commercials that listed off symptom after symptom, most of which I had, but swiftly swept under the nearest rug.

Do you know how scary it is to lose your passion for basically every single thing you ever loved to do? Because I do. It leaves you in a constant state of questioning: Who am I, really? How did I become so uninteresting? Why don't I like doing things anymore? What am I going to do with this endless stretch of time in front of me? Why can't I feel anything? Nothing feels right, and nothing feels real. I'd rather feel everything than feel nothing. They're two completely different states of "raw," but I'd much rather be the bleeding kind of raw than the cauterized kind of raw.

If I had known how happy and free my life could become, I would have struck out on my own much sooner than I did.

Now, let's flip.

Do you know how amazing it is to re-discover old passions and completely new and different ones? It's mindblowingly awesome!

I love to cook. I love traveling. Music--I love music again! I joke. I talk on the phone. I laugh my ass off! I love to run (even if I'm terrible at it and really should call it jogging with some walking mixed in). I love nature: hiking, all types of birds and trees, thunderstorms, lightning bugs, twinkling stars, sitting by a campfire and just listening to everything out in the dark. I love to be by myself and just think. I love to be in a room full of people and observe their every move--it's stunning to watch people's eyes as they think and comprehend what's around them or what they're going through. I love trying new beer. I love gardening, even if I have no clue what I'm doing. I love, love, love art. I love to paint...watercolor or acrylic, canvas or paper. I'm even starting to sing again.

Healing is a pretty cool phenomenon.

I hope to never get stuck in unhappiness again and miss the beauty that's all around me. It's a good, good life.

Peace,
Kels