This Body is Bullshit

I was not expecting the response I got. You all made me blush and feel uncomfortable. Thank you.

Kevin, my brother-in-law, a partner and chief creative director at probably one of the number one ad agencies in the world, read the blog and texted me to say it’s fantastic and that I’m a good writer. I didn’t know what to do with that. I still don’t fully know what to do with that. There is no higher compliment than one coming from him on this subject. Even though maybe he was just being nice — that guy is a sweetheart. THANK YOU! I thought Aunt Susie was my only reader for a long time and honestly, I liked it that way. Less intimidating. But apparently, there are more of you now. Which is terrifying and wonderful. I’ll choose to try to focus on the wonderful.

Here’s something I want to clear up though: I am not sitting at a desk with a pen and a leather journal like some kind of put-together person. My hands barely work. You cannot read my handwriting. I am typing and voice-memoing and then putting it all together, and thank God for grammar/spellcheck because without those two things you would all be reading something that looks like a ransom note. The non-edited versions of my thoughts would make you genuinely question everything you thought you knew about me.

So… That’s the behind the scenes. You’re welcome.

I’m not an intellectual. I didn’t go away to college. I graduated high school a semester early in January of my senior year because I just wanted out. I went to COD for a while but those were the partying years, so mostly I just worked and partied and stopped going to school. I had my own apartment at 18. Grace was born when I was 23. The rest is history and also this blog.

I wish I had gone away to college. I wish I had lived in the city. I wish I hadn’t quit basketball my sophomore year of high school. I’m still obsessed with Michael Jordan. I still want to “Be Like Mike.” These are some of my regrets.

But here’s what I’m also realizing: not going to college doesn’t mean I’m not smart. It means I didn’t give myself a chance back then.

What I am — what I think I’ve always been — is aware. I notice things. I notice everything, actually. I hear things even when I don’t react. I read rooms before I commit to them. I watch people. I absorb. There’s probably a meme about this, something about how the quiet ones are always watching, and yes, that’s me, even when I’m also the loudest person in the room.

What I have — what I’ve always had — is common sense and street smarts. And I’ve come to realize that’s not nothing. That’s actually a lot. Book smarts are great but they don’t teach you how to read a person or know when something’s off before anyone has noticed. They don’t teach you how to survive hard things and come out the other side with your sense of humor intact. Life experience does that. And I have had plenty of life experience.

I’m also becoming wise — slowly, imperfectly, sometimes the hard way — in the way that only comes from actually living through things. Not reading about them. Not studying them. Living them. The grief, the illness, the single motherhood, the bad relationships, the good ones, the loss, the joy, all of it. It adds up. It means something. And I’m finally starting to trust that.

Which brings me to something I just learned about myself: I think I’m an omnivert. Not an ambivert, someone who maintains a stable balance of introvert and extrovert. An omnivert swings between the extreme poles. Total extroversion or total introversion depending on the situation, the people, the day, the energy. Intense, situational, sometimes erratic shifts.

And then I thought, wait, can you be both? Because I think I am. With my people — my Fab Five, my JJAM crew, my BFFLs — I am fully on. The life of the party. Loud, present, generating energy for the whole room. But put me somewhere unfamiliar or with people I don’t feel comfortable with and I go completely quiet. I watch. I notice. I say nothing and take in everything. No one has lived this more than Natalie. When we travel she will talk to anyone. Everyone. I sit on the other side of her and almost never engage with the person next to her, it’s like I’m not even there. I’m not rude, I think I’m friendly. But I just listen, maybe judge a little, and then talk to her about it later.

And then there are the days, and I’ve written about these, where even being with my people takes everything I have. Where I’d rather sit back and watch them laugh than be the one making it happen. Where contentment looks like witnessing instead of performing. I love watching them have a good time and be happy.

That’s not inconsistency. That’s a nervous system that’s been through a lot and learned to read every room before deciding how much of itself to give.

The awareness thing, the noticing, I think that’s actually a survival skill. I think I learned to read situations before committing to them because at some point in my life I had to. When you move around a lot as a kid, when home isn’t always stable, when you’re trying to figure out who’s safe and who isn’t, you learn to watch first. You learn to notice.

I was made to feel not smart a long time ago. And I mean a long time ago, it started in first or second grade. My mom and I had moved around a lot when I was young and at one point we lived in Milwaukee for a while, which is a whole other story that involves my dad showing up and threatening a principal. When we moved back to Illinois and I was at Highlands in La Grange, something happened that would never happen in today’s world. It was October or November of second grade when they decided my education in Milwaukee was not up to Highlands standards and they moved me back to first grade. Mid-year.

I’m not sure my school confidence ever fully recovered from that.

I spent years pretending to be the smartest person in the room while half the time not knowing what was going on. Always feeling smart but insecure about showing it. Because people, certain people, had a way of telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about. That it wasn’t my place. That I was wrong. And I believed them for way too long. Probably until about five years ago, if I’m being honest.

But people also lifted me up. Mary Nelson, who worked with me at Hinsdale Dental and passed away recently, always told me I was smart. That I had more potential than I was using. That she saw something in me. For some reason I believed her. I still think about her. I hope she knew what that meant.

As I get older I am genuinely fascinated with learning. Podcasts, books, documentaries, articles, I want to consume them. I’m curious in a way I never let myself be when I was younger. That’s not a failure. That’s just late. And late is still something.

Something else about myself, this one isn’t really new. In a fight or flight situation, I am always fight. Always. My first instinct is never to call 911. I don’t have the natural fear response most people have. My brain calculates that I can handle it faster than waiting for help. And then I just act. It’s a trauma response, apparently. My nervous system decided somewhere early on that action was safer than waiting. That doing something, anything, was better than standing still and hoping for the best. That I could not afford to be passive. Which also probably explains why I struggle to ask for help. Fighting means handling it yourself. Always has. My friend at work told me I go from mild to wild real quick. He is not wrong.

Kathy and I did the Wine Walk in Downers Grove. Fourth year in a row, which now feels like a real tradition, and I love that. My dad and George stayed with Matt and our dogs while we went, which meant Matt got to experience something I don’t think he was fully prepared for. I won’t get into all the gory details. What I will say is that it started with my dad being in the bathroom for a long period of time, Matt getting worried, and my dad calling him in to take a picture. My dad was still talking about what he had created long after he got home with Kathy. Matt may be traumatized for life. We appreciate his effort more than words can say.

The Wine Walk itself was good. Basically shopping and shots of wine. Amy met us, which was really nice. Donna was going to come but she was having a bad day, which I hated. We were a little rushed trying to get through it all and get back to Matt in time for his bedtime. Yes, his bedtime, he is a 3am person and we respect the schedule. It’s usually one of us staying with my dad, so getting Kathy out and doing something just the two of us was nice.

It’s a beautiful day today. Hope it continues for Mother’s Day weekend.

I’ve been thinking about how many of my friends are without their moms. Or have complicated relationships with their moms. Or complicated relationships with their kids. It can be a strange holiday when you really think about it. Joyful and melancholy all at once, which seems to be the theme of most things in life lately.

I hope everyone finds their joy this weekend. Even just a little bit of it.