Friends

This is going to be a really corny and sappy post about how much I love my friends.

I'm just kidding this is going to be about HOW OBSESSED I AM WITH RE-WATCHING FRIENDS FROM THE BEGINNING.

Guys. It's so good. And I don't even know what I mean by "it" ... The actual show, yes. Which I'm kind of surprised about, I kind of thought I might hate it as a 33 vs. 13 (!) year old. I like it more, though. Hi -- maybe because I might actually get the marriage/sex/job jokes? Just a thought. But I also just love the whole nostalgia of it all. The clothes! The clothes. The overalls and the strange sneakers and the crop tops and the leather string necklaces.

There are also giant giant Star Trek phones and waiting to hear back about interviews by MAIL and they drink so much Snapple. Like cases of Snapple. Why were we all so into Snapple? The facts inside the cap? This is a real question.

I am completely infatuated with Jennifer Aniston. I always liked her fine, but now I'm just so into her everything. Marry me, Jen. Also Lisa Kudrow and Matt LeBlanc are way funnier than I gave them credit for before. And Matt Perry is way less. He's like a tiny flailing Muppet who says every line the same way. Was it the painkillers?

Oh also I'm realizing it's probably like New York! I live here now. Yeah yeah. That's probably part of it.

Is this how you write a blog post? Talk about an old TV show with no real transitions or purpose?

I thought so.

Episode 50, The One Where No One's Ready: PLAY.

Timehop

Do you folks have the Timehop app on your phone? It gathers the Instagrams/tweets/Facebook posts you wrote on this exact date 1, 2, 3 years ago (sometimes my Facebook posts go back 8 or 9 years gasp). It's one of my favorite things to check every morning.

Like... a year ago today I was carrying Bea around for every single one of her naps and the irises were blooming in my Connecticut garden. Two years ago I was just finding out Bea was happening, not believing it might stay this time. Three years ago I was doing endless crafts with HJ at our crazy brown house in Westport and trying to train George not to pee on my bed. Four I was obsessively reading medical journals in my Denver bungalow for the latest on aspirin's effects on recurrence. Etc. 

I wish there were a way to send little notes back in time. Give ourselves some future hindsight. Some love. A promise of good days ahead.  Last year at this time was rough. And it was about to get rougher. And then, well, even rougher. Yesterday I saw a picture of myself from May 26, 2014, a chubby face selfie with chubby face Bea. I was still 25 pounds overweight and trying to stay calm about it, but it felt like no one else was. 

I've got a small frame and don't carry extra weight particularly gracefully. It's very noticeable when I lose or gain even 5 pounds, which is frustrating but just my thing. I probably shouldn't even add that detail because it's mostly irrelevant. I guess it's entirely irrelevant. Because absolutely of course I can't stress this enough it was okay to still have weight to lose in May (this May even!). But I could sense people's weirdness around it. I could tell people close to me felt turned off and worried.

I cried a long time about it yesterday, remembering those feelings, remembering how I felt I wasn't good enough or pretty enough anymore. Realizing how much importance were placed on my looks. Feeling like there was little patience for me to get back. Or, rather, no patience if I never got back. Deep down I knew I would, I knew losing the weight was important to me and would happen. But I'd gained 50 pounds -- 5-0! -- and that takes awhile to shed. 

I lost the 50 -- 55 actually -- and that feels nice and I'm proud. But it mostly feels good because it's just for me. Entirely for me. I'm working on working through that anger and closing up that little hole that happened in my heart. I'm working on softening that time for myself, letting those memories and images -- nursing on the dining room floor and catching a look of disgust as my soft belly squished over my yoga pants -- fade away. Instead, I want to remember the way I'd swaddle Bea every night on my soft white quilt, lay her next to me and we'd both drift off to sleep watching the sun set over the pond. Or planting carrot seeds with Harper up by the cabin after a skinny dip in the pool. Or stomping through the fields as I listened to podcasts, absolutely essential emotional balms for me, and felt fleeting moments of okayness. 

I'm grateful for the pictures I took that anchor me to the good things I wanted to capture and savor, that remind me there was and will always be beauty and richness amidst the rocky stuff. I'm grateful for a life that's kept on moving forward and onward, sprinkled with so many happy moments. 

I am not dead

Hi, peoples!

I am not dead.

I am just

I paused there for so long. I want to write "really busy living!" but that sounds ABSURD because we all are! And that does not preclude writing an update or a life tale. And because these are the times I want to record the most. And so I'll just say

I'd been tiptoeing into my new job (feel free to ask me offline about the job if you're interested in details -- I'm not trying to be secretive, but I still blush thinking about my old advertising bosses finding Blue Jean Amy and reading all my inane ramblings about boring meetings) but as of last week I'm in the real swing of things, going into the office and wearing office clothes and taking the train and being a lady with a desk (though it's only 20 hours a week until September) and I can only say that woah, lots of adjustments underway.

My headspace is cluttered and scrambling. I haven't needed a real work wardrobe since 2008 and so that's a thing. Harper's been watching a few too many Shopkins tutorials on the YouTubes lately. Bea fell asleep with yogurt in her hair tonight. I keep eating breakfast sausage for all my meals.

I want to say upfront I'm pretty damn happy to be working again and getting out of the house. I needed it.

I just don't like: leaving the girls with a sitter all day. (I am all about this stellar preschool/daycare for Bea come fall and public kindergarten for HJ. Then I will skip carefree into Manhattan.) A lot of my reasons are helicopter-y, so I won't bore you, but purely logistically speaking? I HATE GETTING THE HOUSE READY FOR A SITTER. Hate it hate it hate it. I've gots to: make sure there's tons of food and snacks and everything and all organized and super tidy and not weird bras or self-help books or emo journals laying around or whatever. I'm a super private person in lots of ways and it makes me squirm to have someone in my space all day. Then the added prep of making sure everything is all set up/not confusing/clean before I head out the door? Do not want, world!

This post is boring me.

I want to write more in this space. Things are good right now. I'm hectic and chaotic and changing and busy and confused and so tired, but I'm happy. I feel like I have so many New York things happening to me that I'm loving. And I'm loving New York more than I thought I would. Like tonight, the girls hung with their dad while I went grocery shopping in my car. I'm always doing little trips or deliveries, but I wanted to do a massive trip and really stock the freezer and cupboards. I drove to this amazing store in Red Hook (a Brooklyn neighborhood) and I felt this crazy manic runaway happiness being there near the water while the sun set -- looking at the choppy waves and this new angle of the Statue and the hipsters eating crab at picnic tables and I had a case of coconut La Croix in the passenger seat and yeah!

See you back here soon.