Me, in a beautifully produced video, being open. Or something.
A few weeks ago, my therapist said to me something that left me reeling. Jordan, she said, I have known you for years. And you are one of the least authentic people I have ever met.
How's that for a compliment?
At my son's open house last night, we were given a checklist with the different projects on display, so we could make sure to see them all. There was a wall where the kids had written about their favorite part of first grade (my son wrote "getting to eat breakfast in school," because he has his priorities straight), and a wall displaying illustrated book reports of their favorite Dr. Seuss story. The last project on the checklist was "My Home." There were little spaces where the kids filled in various facts about their home - how many pets they have, that kind of thing.
In my home, there are 3 pets, my son wrote. There is 1 adult and 2 kids.
I scanned the other kids' projects, doing the now-familiar hunt for Another Divorced Person (I look for them everywhere - at drop-offs and playgrounds and amusement parks; they're not usually hard to spot). Two of his classmates had 6 people living in their home (4 adults and 2 kids). The majority of them had 4 (2 adults and 2 kids). But - national statistics be damned - nobody else had "1 adult."
This is a sad post, so here is a happy picture.
Since I last posted about what I thought was a miscarriage, my medical situation has gotten pretty significantly worse, and even though right now I'm laying in bed with bandages all over my torso and can't really move, I wanted to write about this because for some reason doing so is functioning as a kind of in-real-time therapy for me. And also because I had no idea that what happened to me over the past week could happen, and it didn't have to, and I'd really like it to not happen to anyone else.
Here's a funny little byproduct of this site: when I write about something that falls on the "heavy" side of the spectrum (like, ohhhh, say, this), it's always strange trying to figure out how to transition back into more "normal" topics. Today, for example, the plan was to do an outfit post, because I haven't done one in forever, but I'm not sure how to go about that; typing up tips on how to wear a 3/4-sleeve jacket in the winter isn't something I feel like doing at the moment.
So I'm going to tell you about my socks instead. But first I'm going to tell you how I'm feeling, because it seems like at least a brief update is warranted.
Just after my pregnancy was confirmed by a blood test.
If you follow me on Instagram, this is the photo you saw yesterday. But I wasn't sitting in a bath with a cocktail; I was sitting in a hospital bed, having a miscarriage from a pregnancy that I hadn't known was happening.
Being someone who has suffered from chronic anxiety for well over a decade and who is writing a humor book about anxiety is a bizarre experience. So much of what I've gone through has been decidedly less-than-funny, but now, as part of the writing process, I've been scrolling back through old posts I've written on the topic with a new perspective. I mean, I hallucinated tiny banana-shaped people sitting in my linen closet and telling me they could help me sleep. (True story.)
Come on. That's funny.
But re-reading these posts is doing something else: it's making me remember just how rough that (extremely long) time period was, because it's easy for me - a person who is now capable of sleeping through the night without bolting straight up in bed at 3AM, wide-awake and sobbing because DEATH IS REAL - to forget how out of control my life used to feel, because I simply couldn't rely on my own brain to do what I wanted it to do.
I had this idea that today, on the day I turn 36, I'd do some reflecting, with the goal of coming up with 36 bits of wisdom I've accumulated over the years. I thought it'd be a good exercise, you know? And then I came up with an idea for how to make it even better.
So I reached out to my best girlfriends - my closest, most incredible circle of humans, who just so happen to also be some of the wisest people I know - and asked them to tell me what they've learned now that they're in their 30s, so I can spend the next 36 years learning from them.
Here are 72 life lessons - the first 36 from me, and the rest from the brilliant, extraordinary women in my life, who make me smarter and stronger and better every single day.
We moms need each other.
I relate to this post utterly and completely, and thought that many of you would as well. So I asked Erin if I could publish it here.
Every working parent should read this.
In the apple trees | Somewhere on I-5
I get asked about this (ancient) sweater all the time, and fiiinally found a similar one.
Whenever I make the drive down to L.A. - as I have at least once every two months since we moved to San Jose - I make up excuses to explain why I'm going. This time, for example, my excuses were: 1) I have a couple of meetings scheduled, 2) Francesca and I always have our own little mini-holiday celebration together, and 3) I just took a "special trip" with Goldie, and wanted to give Indy a special trip of his own.
That's a wrap on St. Louis!
I've spent a ton of time this summer with my cohost for the project I'm working on. Together we drag suitcases down hotel corridors, crawl into Suburbans for five seconds of sweet, sweet air conditioning, and commiserate over our mutual dislike of the straight-from-a-box scrambled eggs that hotel chains all over the country offer up in their "delicious! complimentary! breakfast bar!" We also talk and talk and talk, because that's what you do when you're hanging around on a set all day.
My cohost is more of a veteran of television work (and the associated travel schedule) than I am, so I've been picking his brain for hints about what life will look like should our project continue beyond this summer - basically, should our show get picked up for series and should neither of us get replaced (something I won't know for a couple of months at least). I ask question after question...but whenever I hear his descriptions of "life on the road" I feel my heart rate speed up. He talks about evenings spent perched on top of washing machines in Holiday Inn basements because you're fresh out of clean clothing. About waking up and not being entirely sure what city you're in. About weeks going by without a single glimpse of home. These words don't just "bum me out" - they put me into pure fight or flight mode.
