You’ve Had it All Along

Ever feel like you’ve lost your mojo?

I’m not talkin’ about the mojo of the exact Austin Powers variety which has everything to do with your ability to “shag”, but more so in general.

I’m talking about the confidence, optimism, sunshine and rainbows, “I am control of my own destiny” variety.

I’ve been letting silly things get in the way and cloud mine lately, and I needed to make myself a reminder to STOP THAT.

There are wayyyyy too many awesome things going on in my life to focus on the bad or annoying, or excuses for not doing things. But it feels pretty darn good to reflect, and this here blog sometimes is what I need to do so, so let’s begin.

As y’all probably know by now, I’m growing a tiny human (!!!!) and this whole thing is extremely exciting, draining, scary, exciting, hormonal, life-changing, and many many other emotions that are constantly with me.

Did I say exciting?

Did I especially say scary? I hope I didn’t leave out these two key points.

We are going to take a babymoon trip to one of my favorite and most nostalgic places — Maine! As many of my readers know, being family and friends, I used to go to Maine in the summer times and spend time at my great uncle’s beach house on Wells Beach. For two glorious weeks we did all these things that were just normal at the time, and then TIME happened, my great uncle passed away (RIP Uncle Spencer!), the beach house was sold, we grew up. I haven’t done any of these things since I was 14 years old and now that I’m about to be 32 and I am sitting here typing this I realize, that was OVER half my life ago. And we had a lot of fun back then and were so so lucky to get to do it all.

I went back to Portland, ME for work in 2015 and talked a coworker into driving me down to Wells Beach circa 4am. This just happened to be the time we were available for various reasons (don’t ask me – but there was karaoke involved) which maybe didn’t allow me to have the best view of the house while peering in the windows and walking on the private property that I wasn’t allowed on, but it did let me stay under the cover of the night while doing such things which in the end is a very good thing.

Because I see now how it could be perceived as prettttttty creepy.

And probably illegal.

But I’ve never felt such a wave of nostalgia like that before!

I was looking at the sea wall and thinking of all the times we used to have jumping contests off of it into the sand to see who could go the farthest.

How we would collect our sand dollars and starfish and dry them out on top of it (I don’t feel great about this now) but they were amazing little prizes. You just don’t find whole sand dollars like we used to anymore, when we were young and willingly swimming in water that’s 50-something degrees didn’t bother us.

Looking at the steps thinking of how we used to hang towels from the landing and make a “fort” underneath.

Looking at the back patio thinking of how my grandmother and great uncle would drink their happy hour toddies at the table, or on the front porch.

Looking at the front steps and remembering how we used to perk up when we heard the sound of the ice cream man going by, then we’d hold out our hands for money and beg, and then chase him halfway down the road for our prize. For some reason we never seemed to catch him out front, but do you ever? I mean, who ARE these lucky kids who manage to have the yard that he stops in front of once the rest of the kids on the street catch up to him, anyway?

All these memories, and I’m going BACK. As an ADULT. With our very own Air BnBs in two super cool places, one up north near Canada, and one in the south near Wells. Lucky girl, I am! I plan to eat as much salt water taffy as I can fit in my belly and ride the Dolly Trolley around one full route, just because. And I know Sammy’s most looking forward to this:

Any family nearby, if you’d like to take a day trip to Maine, let’s talk! 🙂

I have an awesome family and friends who aren’t TOO far away, though farther than I would have liked, moving back to the east coast and all. But that’s okay, because it isn’t 1600 miles anymore.

I have some exciting endeavors on the horizon that I will talk more about later, but something I’m very excited about all the same! I’ll be re-doing some classes I took last year but this time with some fresh ideas, and I’m really looking forward to this.

I’m going to see the GAME OF THRONES CONCERT EXPERIENCE in a week, because DUHHHHH! My dad literally called me a weirdo when I TRIED to explain to him what it is just yesterday, but if you don’t know then you just don’t know. It’s my cell phone ringer and it’s the most beautiful song [of ice and fire ;)] in the world and if you don’t know Game of Thrones, then I’m sorry for ya but you probably should figure out how to watch HBO and set aside a few weeks of your life to do so. I’m telling you, you will be changed. This concert will be a first for us since it’s an orchestra, but I am so ecstatic about hearing those cellos live for the very first time that I just. can’t. even.

Don’t judge me. Just go to the website above and listen. Or try a Ramin Djiwadi Pandora station; you will NOT be let down.

So I am not trying to return to the negative, but I will for just a second.

Working from home is cool, and allows you to have freedom, but when you have little to no human contact every day, shit gets lonely. You may wear a shirt for three days in a row without realizing it, leaving the house becomes something you choose to do for any reason at all, just to get out, and your Roomba becomes your very best friend. I mean I could watch him (Charlie because obviously the robot has a name) work for hours. (Seriously though, best purchase ever.)

My point here is that I’m a social person and this is very hard for me to get used to. I also had to make my office a room in the basement due to space reasons in this house, and it has no windows, and sometimes a person just needs a little sunshine and human interaction in their life.

I have retreated from Facebook which has been lovely and blissful and I’ve been a much happier person because of it, but see above regarding human interaction. I’m not going to go into all of the reasons here why I did this but sometimes you just have to get out of that world and get back into your own. I don’t want ads, and Donald Trump, and bad grammar (and simultaneously the grammar police who feel the need to comment — and why am I reading the comments anyway?!) shoved down my throat every day. I have better ways to spend my time and I intend on making the most of it.

I am again, much closer to my people than before, but still half a days’ worth of driving from many of them. This makes it hard to see them without taking a day off of work.

You may be asking, why don’t you take a day of PTO?

Well that’s because I’m a contractor, and I don’t have any.

You may now be thinking, what will you do when you give birth?

And my answer is, I dunno, I’m screwed in that regard, and I will have to take unpaid time off and hope that my people respect me enough not to give me the boot.

Sammy works for a wonderful company that is giving him a month of paid paternity leave to spend time with his new family, and I am going through this physical, emotional, life- and body-changing thing over here, and I have no paid time off. I can’t begin to explain how this makes me sad for women in our country, but as for me, I am told, “well you knew that is the life of a contractor”. This is partly my fault for being a poor planner and negotiator I suppose, but even what I COULD finagle wouldn’t touch what Sammy will get.

I am grateful for my job and the people I work with, this is for certain. I am not complaining about them or my specifically company, so I hope it isn’t taken that way, but rather just the way this works in general. It shouldn’t be a thing that people can say, “well you knew what you were getting into when working for a contractor.” I don’t care what contractor is in question. If you are bringing life into this world, damnit, you deserve some time. And that goes for both men and women because while it can be done on one’s own, it shouldn’t have to. It’s a family affair.

Anyone think that good ol’ Murica could use some change here?!?! I’m just sayin.

So while this consumes my thinking for part of my days, I am trying to accept it and just remember that it’s going to be a beautiful ride all the same, no matter how it works out.

Because we’re going to be parents.

Parent goal #1: keep it alive.

Parent goal #2:

Because we already ARE parents to three sweet (well AT LEAST two out of the three) critters.

Because I’ve gotten to do life with this guy since 2002:

Because outside of alot of other shitty things going on in and around us, we still make our lives what they are and in the end, we live in an awesome place (besides that whole HB2 thing that Texas envies so much) with so much to do, and eat, and see. Our support system is amazing and no one is farther than a phone call away. There is always bad with the good but sometimes you just have to choose to focus on the good.

Because although sometimes we may feel like we’ve lost our mojo, like Felicity Shagwell pointed out to Austin Powers at the end of the Spy Who Shagged Me, “you’ve had it all along.”

Yes I did just use an Austin Powers movie to make my point; this is me, what did you expect??

So, this is my Friday pearl for all of you, dear readers. When you feel down or lost or powerless or angry, take a breath of fresh air, regroup, make a plan, and remember your mojo is in there. There may be a fat bastard out there somewhere trying to steal it from you, but in the end, you hold the power.

And you’ve had it all along.