Author: kateleen17

I love birthdays. I love celebrations in general. Many years ago I learned the lesson that while we are present on this earth we should take any moment we can to celebrate. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy a party?

There was a period in my life when I created high expectations for what that birthday celebration should look like. If I was loved by so many people surely they would inherently know what I wanted and make it happen, right?

Except, I didn’t know what I wanted. Each day leading up to “my big day” would fill me with waves of anticipation. What would they do? How would they make this day incredibly special for me?? How many calls would I get???

Not everyone is big into birthdays. I think the fact that I grew up in a large family and my parents were good about giving us that one day made a lasting impression on me. But for my husband, it’s nice to get a present. Maybe a cake? For a friend of mine, she likes to keep it low key. Yet another friend is fine with a latte brought to her door.

When my day arrived I wanted it all. And like I said, I wasn’t always clear on what “all” meant.

And so, some birthdays were sad for me. Or frustrating. Or deflating.

“That isn’t what I had hoped and dreamed of!” I’d think.

But then, what did you want?

It is a day. Just like any other day. But it is also a reminder that there was once a time that I wasn’t here.

For some reason, once I took time to understand why birthdays are such a big deal to me, my love of them evolved.

Last year I took advantage of my fresh perspective and began to celebrate life. My life and all the lives around me.

Once upon a time…you weren’t here…I wasn’t here…

I didn’t limit my celebration to one day either. I laughed with friends, moved my body, and tried new things all month long.

I know what I want these days. I want to embrace moments big and small. There are no limits on celebration or letting those in my life know that I am grateful they exist.

So here’s to growing older, wiser, and more confident in celebrating what matters most.

Life.

Cross country skiing is something I’ve wanted to take up for years. In high school I was fortunate to go to a school that offered cross country skiing as a gym class option.

When we initially stepped into our skis I remember thinking, this is gym? But I swallowed my words quickly as we climbed the slow rising hills and made our way through the fields. Cross country skiing is a full body workout.

The business of school dropped away as we concentrated on the skis keeping us steady and moving us forward instead of over and onto the ground. Eventually I grew confident in my skiing and could spend those gym classes noticing the brush popping through the snow, the trees along the middle of the field offering a soft arch of protection from the wind, and the escape the outdoors offered me.

We usually didn’t have much time to shower because we used ten minutes, at least, to get our skis, then return our skis, and make our way back to school. So I imagine for the rest of the day I didn’t smell like roses and daisies but along with an enhanced aroma I also gained a newfound hobby…that I never pursued beyond high school.

Fast forward 20 some years and I finally have an hour or two sometimes when I don’t have children to tend to and the errands and cleaning and cooking can wait. I add “cross country” skiing to my 40 for 40 list and I borrow skis.

The first time out the wind is brutal so I last five minutes. The second time out I regret dressing warmly five minutes into it and unzip as I cascade down a hill.

Other cross country skiers have the right gear. They look amazing, cut, and layer appropriately. But I have a smile that breaks through my sweat lined face.

I feel 18 again. I was clumsy then and clumsy now but just as before, I am surprised at how this activity moves me.

This year I invested in my own skis, boots, and poles. I used them for the first time last weekend.

I overdressed and wished I hadn’t five minutes in. I nearly fell over twice, but by the second lap around the field I was settling into that rhythm of memory that takes over the legs, stomach, and arms.

The body remembers.

I am grateful I learned so many things when I was younger, more able, but possibly less eager to learn. Because now, with my eagerness in place, my body settles in to what it remembers. Down hill skiing, cross country skiing, spinning on an ice rink. It’s all there within me.

I pass by a child who has collapsed on the ground in a perfect tantrum formation and I hide a laugh.

I see you. I probably was you. Someday you will thank who ever brought you here and is willing to teach you.

Tomorrow I will take my own children to the field or the ice rink or the downhill ski slope and shout behind me as I lead them, “you’re welcome!!!”

The body will remember.

My boys are all back to school this week. I’m excited for some form of structure. Even though what I think all of us have gotten better at during this season of our lives is flexibility.

You think you’re going to have a school like normal? Think again. You want to celebrate your 40th birthday with a big bash? How about outside in the below zero weather. Would you like to celebrate holidays with your in laws after spending Christmas at a VRBO? Perhaps rush your mother in law out of your home instead after discovering your youngest is positive for Covid.

All of us, every last one of us, has had this in common as of late. What we hoped and planned to happen doesn’t always happen.

I watch my boys get this lesson time and time again but the one who needs to learn it most is me.

The child in me used to come out when I wanted something so badly to happen but it absolutely would not happen. A grumpy, pain in the ass, kind of child.

Then last year I decided to try something new as my 40th birthday came around. Instead of fighting all the change I didn’t ask for could I find a way to embrace it?

Thus began a new way of thinking that I try to continue today.

Celebrating in the cold on my birthday last year and again this year because of Covid doesn’t feel like a battle. It feels like a gift, an opportunity to see life in a new light.

Last year the women who came to my Hygge parties and lingered for longer than an hour or two as temperatures dropped to below zero and the fire we tried to build fell again and again I saw my friends see themselves in a new way.

Amazing, strong, super human.

We will find a way through this latest obstacle because we don’t see it as a hurdle. We see how we can grow, evolve, and gain strength.

Embracing.

Next week all three boys will walk back into their school hallways.

Covid gave us a turn but, in the end, it could have been worse. The youngest never showed symptoms and my husband continues his slow recovery. The rest of us somehow avoided the virus. Even though it stalked the very corners of our home it decided not to touch us. I don’t know. Ask me if you’d like but all I can think is this virus is random.

Next week won’t be “normal”. I don’t even know what normal is. But it will be a bit more regular. My husband will work. I will clean, run errands, write, and prepare snacks and food for the family. There will be a return of some sort.

I will also take a moment to breathe. Maybe snag a nap or read a good book. There will always be a “next” and it wouldn’t hurt to be ready.

I stopped into a coffee shop today, a casual Saturday, and grabbed a quick latte.

While in line I glanced around at the cozy tables and chairs. There was even a soft, sink into kind of chair tucked in a corner behind a long hallway.

I miss lingering in coffee shops. Pulling out a notebook or a book and spending an hour or more settling into a flow of words.

Words of customers around me, words on the page, words tumbling from my pen clutched in my hand.

Two years. The last time I sank into a couch with a book was two years ago, on a Colorado mountain as the threat of Covid swirled but I tried to ignore it.

I knew it meant a great shift was on the horizon and because I knew I grabbed a few extra minutes beside the fire.

The crackling of the embers was comforting and the nervous laughter between the baristas bantering sounded like so many coffee shops from my past. It reminded me of the time I worked in a coffee shop myself and worried most about how I looked and how long to steam the milk – not too hot but just hot enough.

When I could push the time no more and my anxiety rose too high I gathered all my books and notebook. I shrugged into my winter coat, pulled on my hat and mittens then stood for an extra minute by the door.

I didn’t cry, because as much as I knew I didn’t really know. But I did take one last scan of the coffee shop.

Now I see the unmasked patrons on that long ago afternoon; the customers talking and laughing across from each other. A family snuggled up near another group of people beside the fire. I see what once was, who I once was.

If I had known what was to unfold I would have let the tears drop freely. Because that was the last time my tears would be uninterrupted by a mask.

Whenever I do finally find my way back to the cozy corner of the coffee shop, the part I will grieve the most is who I was on that day two years ago. That tiny, hopeful speck within me who believed a pandemic would never touch me.

It’s cold here in MN. Whipping winds, below zero temperatures, and snow to crunch beneath shoes and add another layer of cold.

I actually like the cold weather. Bundling up in a thing my husband introduced me too and makes getting outside more bearable.

I slip on long johns, then my fleece lined pants; a long coat, hat, thick mittens, and a scarf to wrap around my face.

Out on my walk you most likely won’t know it’s me. I leave a thin line available for me to see between my scarf and hat and I move quickly.

Health benefits of cold weather movement are vast but ones I hold close is how happy I feel when I’m out in the sun (so often, the colder it is the more likely the sun will be out) and when I make it back inside the happiness remains. I feel like I accomplished a feat, and I am better for it.

The older boys asked to go back to school yesterday.

“I just feel off,” my oldest says as he sinks into the peach chair in my writing room.

“How so? Do you feel sick?” Do you have Covid??

“I just, I don’t know.”

He crosses a leg, similar to my own, tucks it close to his body.

“Do you miss your friends?” I say.

“I just don’t understand why we can’t go back?” He says, “we don’t have any symptoms. It’s been days Mom.”

I sigh.

How will they remember this time in their lives? A pandemic that seems never ending. Masks. Obsessive hand washing. Six feet apart. And isolation.

I look at his slouched body. His hands clasped together and expanding – something to do. His eyes meet mine.

“I’ll check with your principal and look at the CDC protocols,” I say.

A glimmer flickers in his eyes. His body rises slightly.

“Really?” He says.

I nod. In my head I am praying. It’s a prayer many parents say.

“Please God, help me. Please, keep my sons safe. Please, make this the right thing.”

And today, I drop them off at school.

Sleeping in the basement while my husband isolates and recovers from Covid feels quiet. Secretive.

I am so far away from the bedrooms of the boys that I know each sound I hear does not belong to them. I also know that I am too far away to be of any assistance.

I stay up late reading because my reading no longer disrupts his sleep. I wake up in the middle of the night to new sounds – creaks and thunks that don’t exist upstairs. Or maybe they do but they sound different down here.

I miss my bed. I miss waking up without having to shake off the back pain. I miss saying goodnight to Seth and being available to the boys.

But I also like my little room. My freedom. Independence.

As with much in life…it isn’t black and white or green and red. It is both/and. Clear as mud. Yes I love, yes I miss, yes to everything.

Omicron has hit us. My husband is down for the count, though tested negative twice, and our youngest tested positive but appears a symptomatic.

What does it mean when the pandemic finally hits home in the most impactful way? I guess I thought we were special. Better than. It feels vain to say it but true. Watching so many people fall victim to the virus; so many classes shut down but the classes my boys were in remained in operation.

Turns out, we were just lucky for a long time – all of us are going to get this virus.

If that sounds negative, I’m sorry, it isn’t meant to be. In lasting as long as we did we were able to get four out of five of us vaccinated and two out of five of us boosted. Which means, hopefully, we will remain overall healthy.

I have to trust that someday soon the fear around this virus will turn into a minor annoyance. As I huddle in my writing room, my room of my own, safe from all the germs floating in my home, I find hope in the next.

I write goals every year.

The number at the end of each year is the number I shoot for. Sometimes I make them, sometimes I don’t. Okay, I never meet every single goal. But if I didn’t meet the goal there’s usually a reason. Last year, I definitely didn’t meet my goal of running a 5K. My plantar faciitis developed into heel spurs so I’m lucky I’m still walking as many steps as I am.

I’m excited for this year, though. This year of 22. Maybe this will be the year we will escape the pandemic. Maybe this year my sister Meghan will return to MN. Maybe this will be the year I finally make writing much more of a hobby leaning into a career.

This blog entry is terrible. It’s bland, it’s slightly broken, but guess what? This entry is also part of my goals. 22 Terrible Blog entries each month. Um, well, the goal isn’t that they’re terrible per say, but to simply write. Terrible or not.

We’ve got this.