Half my life

I recently turned 35. I’ve been with my husband, Jeb, for 17.5 years. Do the math: I’ve been with this man half my life.

Yet not even the knowledge that comes with time can stop me from sometimes being plagued with doubt. I often worry whether we’re doing marriage “the right way.” I don’t know about you, but I do this thing where I look at other couples and assume they have it all figured out, everything in their life is perfect and wonderful. I go so far as to let others’ lives play out like movies in my mind. Other couples, watching every TV show together, spending all night talking. Agreeing on every single opinion about every single thing in life, ever. Skipping through dewy meadows in their perfectly pressed clothes and clean shoes, then going home to their pristine houses. (Y’all are killing it, in my imagination.)

I wonder if people do that with me and Jeb. We have an exceptionally well-documented life via social media, due to Jeb being a photographer and also knowing a lot of photographers. A quick perusal of either of our Facebook  accounts reveals lots of pretty pics of us, all made up. Tons of snaps of our kids being awesome. Photos from tropical vacations, and warm, cozy holidays. Our social media screams “We’re happy! SO FREAKING HAPPY!”

And that’s about half of the truth. A lot of the time, we are happy, content, doing fine.  

And a lot of the time, we’ve struggled.

Getting married is easy. You find someone you love. You think, yeah, I could spend my life with this person. You have a celebration and your friends and family all show up and everyone cries. The world is your oyster; everything is possible.

It’s staying married that’s hard.

If you’d have asked me at twenty-three, which is how old I was when I got married, I’d have predicted that over the years, I’d change very little—I knew who I was, what I wanted, the road I was headed down. I had it all figured out.

Except I didn’t and I didn’t have enough foresight to see that I didn’t.

People can change a hell of a lot over time, and I think it’s possible that Jeb and I changed more than most. I pursued many years of higher education, and due to that, was exposed to ideas and people and adversity and growth and culture in a way that molded me, shaped me, carved me into a different person. As for Jeb, he left his job as a public school educator and became a full-time photographer/creative. He learned that he needs to be making things, thinking outside of the box, and not answering to a hierarchy to feel fulfilled through his work.

We also became parents of two kiddos in a span of twenty months, so as we were stretching and learning and developing our singular identities, we were also immersed in the task of keeping tiny humans alive.

The years marched on. I got my PhD and started a private practice. The kids started school. We went to family celebrations. We hung out with friends. We did date nights sometimes. We traveled. We pursued individual hobbies and interests. We built a house and moved to a lovely new neighborhood.

And then one day in our thirties we woke up and realized we had no idea who the other was. I won’t speak for his side of it, but my personal awakening came with the question: Why are we together? We had different groups of friends. We didn’t read the same books, or necessarily gravitate to the same kinds of media, or have any hobbies in common. I loved Jeb, but I didn’t know why I was with him anymore.

At about the same time I was grappling with these serious questions about my marriage, I became depressed— so depressed I couldn’t even see straight. It seemed like every decision I’d ever made in my life was wrong. I questioned my entire existence as a human being: where I’d come from, what I was doing now, where I was going. It was hell. And Jeb got angry and withdrew. He didn’t know what to do with me; didn’t understand what I was trying to say when I talked about my questions, about my doubts, about what wasn’t working for me in our marriage. In hindsight, he was depressed, too, but men sometimes look different when they’re depressed. (Google Masked Male depression for more on that.)

And we fought. Good Lord, did we fight. There were tears and storming out and many nights spent sleeping apart. I spent the night of our 11^th wedding anniversary at my parent’s house, that’s how bad it was.

We contemplated separation. We ate meals together with our kids and had our best “everything is fine” faces on, even as I researched apartments, always late at night, or at the office, while I wept my way through my fifth box of Kleenex.  

But in the chaos, something miraculous happened. We fought for each other. Even through all the squabbling and miscommunicating and passive-aggression, we kept coming back to the same point: we wanted to try. We wanted our family. We wanted to see if we could find each other again.

So we tried. We went to therapy together, and went to therapy individually. First, we bent. I started trying harder to listen to him when he was sharing something he was excited about, even when I was exhausted from listening to people all day, and even if what he was saying didn’t interest me. He started greeting me when I came in the door after work, and went out of his way to tell me all the ways he appreciates me. Essentially, we slowly figured out the ways we had been failing each other and made the others’ emotional needs a priority again. We made a few big shifts, but mostly, we made a million little changes.

And after awhile, we had bent so much that we softened; the rigid edges of us melting. I let him back into the places in my spirit that had long been steeled against him. Though he isn’t and will never again be the man I married, he became a man I wanted to stay married to.

I don’t think that Jeb’s my soulmate. This is because I don’t believe in soulmates, this idea that you can meet someone and POOF, love happens and it’s forever and you don’t have to do anything to make it work. I used to buy into this stuff, and sometimes that wily belief wants to come weaseling back in—mostly when Jeb and I are struggling. I think, during those rough times: “Oh, if only I’d found my soulmate and married him, then I wouldn’t be going through any of this arguing or pain or doubt.” But you know what? I call bullshit. What I really believe in is two people fighting for each other and choosing each other again and again and again, every day. I can’t think of any better definition of love than that.

I didn’t write this for some kind of “atta girl.” I’m not aiming for you all to see me as a paragon of morality, because believe you me, the level of fuck uppery that I’ve reached during these years of growth and struggle has been unreal. I also fully anticipate that I will in some way, at some point, mess something up again.  Our struggle isn't over. It's not a thing that ends. I think marriage/partnership is less like a straight line with some kind of destination that a couple can arrive at, and more like a circle with little pit stops along the path, some happy, some sad, some totally fucked up. And round and round the circle you go, hopefully learning how to navigate the rough times as you know yourself and your partner better.

I also didn’t write this to shame those of you who have divorced or ended long term partnerships. I don’t think every relationship can be saved, or should be.  

I wrote this for the folks like me, who are sitting there comparing their imperfect relationship to everyone else’s “perfect” one, lurking and hiding in secret shame. If your marriage is messy, if there’s some stain on it that you wish wasn’t there but is, if you’ve hurt your partner or been hurt, if you’ve wondered if you made the “right” choice in a partner—you’re not alone. You’re more normal than you think. The more I talk to people who I’m real with, and who are real with me, the more I realize that every long term romantic relationship has problems. It’s what we do with the problem that matters.

As for me, I’m going to keep trying with Jeb for as long as it makes sense to try. Being with him for half of my life hasn’t been nearly long enough.  

Photo: Sarah Gudeman   http://www.sarahgudeman.com

Dust

8/13/17

Sometimes I write bittersweet things. Is there anything more beautiful than that edge between joy and pain? Here's a little snippet from a work-in-progress novel. 

***

It’s been months.

Days pass where I hardly think of you at all.

Days pass where I am buried and smothering in you.

I don’t know which is better.

There was a time that I wanted every trace of you away from me, because the shards you left sticking out of my skin were bleeding and painful. I picked you out with tweezers. I threw the bits and pieces of you into the air and watched them soar.

And now I bleed less but I remember less. I can hardly remember the way that your chocolate eyes crinkled and your hair grayed—just a little—at the temples. Your face is all blurry, like a moonlight lake reflection of you, not Actual You. I’m not sure what your voice sounds like anymore.

Sounded like.

Remember when you started talking about me in the past tense? I do remember that.

I’m not sorry that I met you. Months ago, when I was bleeding, I was sorry. But now I can see that if I wouldn’t have known you, there are so many other things I wouldn’t have known, some of them so precious to me that I wouldn’t be willing to give them back, not for anything. Not even if I could.

And so even though maybe you ruined my life a little bit, I have no choice but to welcome in my grudging gratitude for you.

I don’t know what to wish for you. When I think of you, you’re smiling. Happy. Looking at your new lover like she is made of magic, your light reflected in her eyes. On my very best days, I think of this and send you warmth, and kindness, and “I’m so glad, I want this for you, you deserve happiness” -type intentions.

And on my lesser days, I wish thoughts of me would steal over you and soak into your body like heavy August damp.

Maybe in years, when so many days have passed that I’ve lost track, and the memories are faded and yellow and brittle with age, this will all mean nothing.

But even then, in some recess of my heart you will stay. You held yourself out to me with cupped hands, and I drank you in. You’ll be with me even as memories turn to dust and scatter in the wind.

I suppose I hope you are being you. Wherever you are. 

To the friends who saw Me and liked me anyway

On one of the last days of my undergraduate career, one of my best friends wrote this in my graduation card. “When I met you, I didn’t like you. I was a fool.”

Youch.

But it only took me about thirty seconds to completely understand what she meant. Why she’d felt that way. 

You see, I wasn’t the easiest person to get to know, in my younger years. It was weird: I was SO excited to go to college. I’d thought I would reinvent myself, create a new identity. I was all outward confidence and gusto, and if anyone would have asked, I’d have told them I was planning to take UNL by the balls.

Yet I didn’t know myself at all. There was all of this stuff happening on the inside of me that I couldn’t see.

I entered my freshman year convinced that I’d already made all the close friends I was ever going to make, EVER. I thought that only people who’d known me my whole life, since the beginning, would really care for me. In other words, I didn’t see myself as likable. It was more like I saw people as tolerating me—and not because they wanted to, but because they’d had to.

That (unconscious) attitude followed me around UNL for my first two years. I was closed off, reserved. I didn’t put much time or effort into making new friends. I poured every ounce of energy into academics, the one thing I knew I did well. I’m pretty sure I came off as a quieter, less spirited Hermione—the 11-year old Hermione living in the 19-year old me. (I even had really poofy hair. Hermione central!)

Yet even though I had no idea how to find it or build it, there was a big and growing part of me that craved community. Belongingness. So I applied to be a Resident Assistant for UNL. I’m forever grateful to the late (and wonderful) Sheryl Haug, the woman who chose me to be a part of her staff at Cather Hall. She saw something in me and gave me a chance. Without her, I’d probably still be Grangering it up, able to tackle serious math theorems but unable to make friends. 

I got a chance to meet my future fellow coworkers the Spring of my sophomore year. I had super unchecked anxiety at the meet-up, and this came out of me as rigidity. Shut-down mode. And it didn’t matter, because these people weren’t going to like me much, anyway.

Though not a lot of real info got over my walls during that first encounter, there was this one guy who stood out, who I thought about long after the day had passed. He was everything I wasn’t yet everything I was. He was blunt, sarcastic, uninhibited. I was none of those things. Yet he also seemed to love Moulin Rouge and kids and music—like me. He scared the bejesus out of me and I dreaded seeing him in the fall. And, because life is life, he was the very first person I saw when I rolled up to move into Cather Hall the following August. We saw each other, and he—who wears all of his emotions on his face—gave me a lackluster hi, obviously not thrilled to see me. And I spoke through my teeth to my dad, “I don’t think I’m going to get along with that one.”

Our whole staff went on a retreat together, immediately, the same day we all moved in. It was a weekend full of ice breakers, trust falls, ropes courses-- you know, all that bonding crap. But I'll be damned if it didn't work. I let down my guard and started to let people see who I actually was. And they didn’t hate me. And that guy, the one who scared the shit out of me? He quickly became one of the best friends I ever had. (His name is Brett Hall and he is a stand up guy.)

My RA staff friends became lifelines to the self I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be stiff and scared of my own shadow. I wanted to be fun and silly and brave. I wanted to laugh a lot. I wanted to believe that I was a likable person, even if I’m not everyone’s type. These friends taught me that I could be...well, me.  And they brought me Razzles and ate Thanksgiving dinner in my room with me and drug me to Tarentino movies I'd never go to otherwise and drank Parrot Bay with me and bitched about hall government with me and hugged me when my great-grandma died and covered my socials for me when I was too depressed to handle them. They were always there. (Literally. I lived, worked, ate, and went to class with these people.)

For a long time I’ve known what these guys did for me. I’ve talked about it in graduate school classes, and with my clients. I even pseudo-used this life experience as inspiration for my dissertation, which focused on social adjustment to college for rural students. I don’t know if I ever really thanked them, though.

So, to all of my Cather Staff peeps: thank you, thank you, for seeing all of my weird quirks and liking me anyway. I don’t know where I’d be today if it hadn’t been for you.

You will all be my friends 4 Life.

Big Pimpin'. (Yeah, I just said that.)

Find me on Twitter and Instagram @AllisonLBitz  


I never thought I'd see the day where the word Pimp appeared in my blog. Once, during a therapy session with one of my clients, I made the offhand comment that promos for the movie The Giver seemed to be "Pimping TSwift pretty hard." Later, I worried so much this had been an anti-feminist thing to say that I emailed the client to apologize.

And now you know a little bit about what I'm like. Holla back y'all!

Okay, so lemme get straight into some Pimp Juice:

Be Still in a visual nutshell

About Be Still

Living in the community of rural Fairfax, a town where sports are almost as important as church, and where a family's last name matters a whole heck of a lot, isn't easy for every teen. Fortunately for high school freshman Shelby Novotny, she has it all: basketball talent, a powerful family name, good friends, stellar grades. She's even earned the respect of her community through her unyielding patience for her mother, who struggles with bipolar disorder.

When Shelby's basketball coach, who's a longtime friend of her father's, takes an interest in helping her develop her talent, no one bats an eye. Everyone trusts Jeff Vogel. His last name has been part of the Fairfax social thread for generations.

Yet Jeff's interest in Shelby goes beyond her basketball abilities.

Shelby falls in love with Jeff. It's wrong, and she knows it, but it's meant to be, so she persists. For years, she lives a double life, maintaining her Good Girl image while also having as many trysts with Jeff as they can manage.

Three years later, Shelby finds out that her star crossed-destiny was all of Jeff's design. She learns that he has had student "loves" before her, and he seems to be working on the next one already.

Shelby finds herself torn. Report what she now realizes is abuse, and send a row of dominoes tumbling down: Dad loses his position as school board president. Mom goes into a depressive episode. Jeff loses his job and likely his family. The Novotny name, forever tarnished. If anyone believes her in the first place.

Yet if she sits on her secret, it's only a matter of time before the next girl meets the same fate as she and the girls before her.

Be Still is an 90,000 word YA contemporary fiction with series potential.

Q & A 

What else does Be Still have going on?

• Snarky dialogue
• Parents who are doing the best they can
• Strong father-daughter dynamics
• A dad who moves from passively supporting rape culture to taking a stand against it
• A fantastically witty mom
• A creepy, complicated antagonist 
• An adorable peer love interest for Shelby (not Coach! I'm talking someone her age)
• Rural, small-town culture
• Basketball! It's the backdrop for the drama... like how football was for Friday Night Lights

Who might like Be Still? 

• Readers of Rainbow Rowell
• People who loved The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson
• Anyone curious about what Nabokov's Lolita might have sounded like from the perspective of slightly older Lolita
• Lovers of One Tree Hill or Friday Night Lights

Why is it called Be Still?

The easiest thing about this MS was the title. "Be still" is something that Jeff says to Shelby with frequency. And there's more to it, but I want you to read the MS to find out!

Why did you write about such a dark theme? You seem like kind of a silly person. 

I know, right?! Laughing is my favorite. I am 60% silly.

And then I'm 40% pretty hardcore.

I feel like this MS came for me. I really do. It happened in my day job, where I work as a psychologist in private practice. One day in my first year, a client disclosed that she had been in a relationship with her band teacher when she was in high school. Okay. I took it as an anomaly. The next year, another client came in and told me the same thing, only she'd slept with her 8TH GRADE MATH TEACHER (when she was in 8th grade). And now five years into my practice, I've heard versions of the student-teacher relationship story many more times. Spoken painfully, tearfully, shamefully.  I thought to myself, "This is a story that's been untold. I want to give these young people a voice. I want society to understand what it's like to live in their shoes." Shelby was born out of this desire.

Why should you choose me as a mentee?

1) I will do what it takes to make my MS shine! I'm ready to listen to your expertise, and I'm ready to work. I'm willing to make major edits.

2) I am growth-oriented. Although I don't like failure any more than the next person, I accept that it's part of the process of getting better. I'm willing to take risks. I will be vulnerable with my mentor. My mind and heart will be open to your ideas. I see my MS, and indeed my very personhood, as always, always a work in progress.

3) I pick really good GIFS in Twitter conversations. I work hard at this. Though I do have a couple that I tend to really like and overuse. My pick for this post WAS GOING TO BE the Meredith Grey "Pick me! Choose me!" scene, because duh. But a lot of people already used that for their pimping. So I will choose another favorite:

Hermione Raise Hand GIF from Harrypotter GIFs

4) I want to form a relationship with my mentor. I mean, of course I want my MS to get shinier through the mentoring process. But I love people, and I want to love you, prospective mentor. Not in a creepy way. Not too creepy, anyway. I probably won't window peep at your house or dig through your trash. But I might try to find out when your birthday is so that I can send you a card. Or find out your favorite stuff so I can Tweet all the right GIFs at you. And cheerlead your progress on whatever you are conquering these days.

I could have probably summed all that of that up just by saying I'M A HUFFLEPUFF, Y'ALL.

5) I am organized and task-oriented when the occasion calls for it. See my numbered list here? See?

6) I work hard. So, so hard. Rest and relaxation are actually harder for me to do than work. So if you want a worker bee...pick me. :) (also, if you want a poet, pick me. I guess).

What's your favorite color? 

Seriously, that, of anything you could ask, is what you want to know? Fine. It's blue-green, the color of the Caribbean sea.

What's your other favorite stuff? 

That's better.

I love my husband and my kids. And my kitties. And Stranger Things.

See us? Bunch of dorks. But man, we're the best dorks. (The kids haven't actually seen Stranger Things--we don't think they're old enough-- but we made them pose for the card anyway.)

I love Harry Potter. Maybe a little too much. (Is there such a thing?) I recently defeated my very HP-oriented group of cousins in HP Trivia, one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. My cousin with the Dumbledore tattoo was PISSED.

Other loves:
   TV: Parks and Rec, Silicon Valley, Downton Abbey, The Office, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Mozart in the Jungle, West Wing
   Movies: HP Series, LOTR series, Beauty and the Beast (both), THE FIRST PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. ONLY THE FIRST ONE.
   Music: The Head and the Heart, First Aid Kit, Lumineers, OK-GO, Strumbellas, Florence and the Machine, HAMILTON SOUNDTRACK, Garth Brooks, Queen, Tom Petty, Cake
   Hobbies: I'm a baller (league volleyball), voracious reader, loving gardener, and enthusiastic karaoke singer.

Books:  (*cracks knuckles*)....where do I even begin?

All the books by Rainbow Rowell
Outlander Series- Diana Gabaldon
All the books by Tana French
The Poisonwood Bible and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Small Great Things- Jodi Piccoult
The Night Circus- Erin Morgenstern
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry- Rachel Joyce
East of Eden- John Steinbeck
Bellweather Rhapsody- Kate Racculia
The Sun is Also a Star- Nicola Yoon
The Forgotten Garden- Kate Morton
The Perks of Being a Wallflower- Stephen Chbosky
Broken for You- Stephanie Kallos
The Time Traveller's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
 

Please don't be strangers, y'all. I want to know you. Hit me up on Twitter @allisonlbitz. 

via GIPHY

Big shout out to Brenda Drake for putting on Pitch Wars, and to Lana Pattinson for hosting #Pimpmybio!

The Room Where It Happened: The Time I went to Hamilton

If you follow my online presence AT ALL, you’ve realized that last Saturday, I went to Hamilton: The Musical in Chicago. I haven’t exactly been quiet about it. It’s been one of the most exciting things to happen to me since...birth? IDK. 

Excited as I was, I admit I was nervous about seeing the show live. I love the soundtrack so, so much, and have listened to it countless times- as recorded by the original New York cast, who of course all are the cream of the crop in terms of Broadway talent. Could ANY other cast live up to my expectations?

As it turns out: Yes. YES.

I’m gonna break the whole thing down for you. I mostly have a lot of thoughts about how seeing the show live compares to listening to the soundtrack. However, since I’ve also seen most of the Original NY Broadway performance (acquired via the Black Market for Nerdy Stuff, which only opens itself to those truly worthy. It’s like a Room of Requirement for nerds. And if you don’t understand that reference, you’re definitely not getting in), I have a few thoughts on performance differences—broad strokes, not specifics.

Okay, first of all, let me *literally* (say that like Chris Traeger) set the stage for you. The PrivateBank Theatre is located in downtown Chicago, nestled amongst restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, and other retail venues. The Air BnB loft apartment my friend and I managed to snag was within walking distance, which meant we schlepped by the theatre multiple times both before and after the performance we attended. Every time my eyes lit on the iconic gold poster of Alexander with his hand thrown up to the sky, my heart went BOOM. I’m thinking that feeling will never go away. I’m okay with that.

(Did you get the Chris Traeger reference? That nerd Black Market door might have just slid open to you.)  

The theatre itself isn’t huge. It’s an old, pretty, tasteful venue with red carpet, red walls, and ornate scrollwork and columns. Janelle and I had seats on the floor, Orchestra left, closer to center than I’d thought, and closer to the front than I’d thought. Walking in to realize that we had not just good seats, but AMAZING seats, was thrilling. Worth every penny.

The view from our seats!

I got a Hamilton Cocktail, which is Hennessy and Ginger Ale in a collectible cup—which really turned out to be a sippy cup of booze with the Hamilton logo emblazoned around the outside. I was pretty proud of it.

This is how the show starts: King George over the loudspeaker welcomes you to his show (everyone laughs). Then, even as the laughter is still dying down, the opening violin strain – the oh so recognizable One-Triplet-One-One-One-sweet violin line—enter Burr.  "How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore..."

The first set of goosebumps rippled over me right then, the kind that start in your face and shoulders and fizz their way down your arms, leave a cold-but-not-unpleasant-tingle in your gut, and travel down your legs and into even your toes. My feet were cold, then sweating, then cold.

And then there was this burning haze over my vision. A lone tear overflowed and ran down my right cheek.

I know, I know, it’s a pretty dramatic response to attending a musical. But I tell you, this isn’t just any show to me. This particular musical represents a bunch of things that are dear and central to my identity and what I want to do in this world—social progress and equity for women and equity for people of color and immigrants and the importance of writing as a means of fostering social change. Lin Manuel-Miranda (LMM) has written about these things with the hand of Shakespeare but the beats of Biggie and it is NUTS. It’s the smartest piece of art I’ve yet to witness.

So, there’s my justification for all of my chills and crying, if you felt like you needed that to not judge me.

Anyway. Now just a bunch of thoughts about the show. (Those who don’t speak Hamiltonese might want to skip the end of this post, where I discuss my Madcap Bathroom Break.)

It was hard for me to imagine anyone but LMM in the role of Alexander, so I was especially nervy about what comparisons I might draw between LMM and Miguel Cervantes. HOWEVER, Cervantes was MADE for this role. He was so good. As soon as he walked on stage and his dulcet “Alexander Hamilton. My name is Alexander Hamilton…” cut through the theatre, I was a believer. A helpless devotee. His voice is great, but his acting is maybe even better. He somehow—and I say somehow, because obviously the dialogue is exactly the same across shows—played a humbler Hamilton than LMM’s, and I liked this modified take. (Bonus: Cervantes is easy on the eyes, ladies and gents.)  

Miguel Cervantes

I learned from seeing the show live that I’m *not* as loyal the original NY cast as I thought I’d be. Hearing and witnessing other actors in the roles turned out to be fascinating. I would compare the feeling to ordering a limeade after months of drinking only my favorite lemonade, and finding that I liked the limeade just as well. In this cast, I especially loved Daniel Breaker as Burr, Alexander Gemignani as King George, and really especially Karen Olivo as Angelica (she just SLAYED everything). Also, Chris De’Sean Lee was an awesome Lafayette/Jefferson. This is a hell of a role to fulfill per se, but then again, trying to live up to Daveed Diggs is probably a little bit impossible. 

The one actress who for me might always be untouchable is Phillipa Soo, the original Eliza. Eliza was played by Aubin Wise for this performance, and there were moments when she was slightly over or slightly under her notes—not the big long belting ones, but the notes in between the big belters. I was crushingly aware that she was Not Phillipa Soo during the whole show, and held my breath every time that Wise sang. Fortunately, she nailed Who Lives Who Dies and left me in my usual tears at “the orphanage…” (If you can get through that without misting up at least a little, I’m not sure you have a heart.)

Moral of the story: Phillipa Soo is the shit and probably I’ll never love any Eliza as much. I can accept that and still love other incantations of the show, though.

Okay, next point: The choreography, blocking, chorus/ensemble, and interaction between the characters brings the show to life in a way that the soundtrack alone cannot—and that’s saying something, because the soundtrack IS the musical. As opposed to other Broadway shows, many of which have more non-singing dialogue, Hamilton is almost entirely sung or rapped. There is only one scene—where Hamilton learns that John Laurens has been killed—that doesn’t make the soundtrack. Yet, even though you can listen to the soundtrack and get the complete storyline of the show, the live show is still SO MUCH COOLER. It’s incredibly dynamic. There are things happening on every corner of the stage for many of the songs, flirting and sidelong glances and eye rolling and all kinds of things that make the show vibrant and robust.

I noticed that I liked some of the songs better when I could see them live. My favorite listening songs: My Shot, Schuyler Sisters, Satisfied, Right Hand Man, Yorktown, Non-Stop, One Last Time. Here’s the breakdown of my favorite live songs:

• Schuyler Sisters— I will never again be able to listen to it without wishing I could watch it— it’s such a great ensemble piece. I love watching the sisters interact, I love Angelica’s dressing down of Burr (I love it vocally—it’s one of my favorite parts to sing in the car-- but I REALLY loved watching her lay the smack in person).
•  Every single King George song. Dude, talk about an actor who could bring down the house by doing almost NOTHING. On his first song, he walked out and stood almost stock still (like the stately King of England would), but his vocal inflections and slight facial expressions made the song hilarious. So. Good. Most of this shtick is missed when you can only hear the songs and not see the acting.
• Right Hand Man— The lights for “BOOM” (cannons) was just cool. Plus, you could see the actors spit on all of that crazy rapping, which I weirdly loved.
• Satisfied- Angelica’s face and inflections change everything. It’s obviously a sad, wistful song, but when you see Angelica foregoing the probable love of her life so her sister can be happy…it’s a gut wrencher, folks.
• Yorktown- (duh). Seeing the world literally get turned upside down on stage brings it all to life.

Also spotted in Chicago.

• The Reynolds Pamphlet – There’s this bit where a bunch of characters are throwing tons of pamphlets up into the air as a means of taunting Alexander, who is standing at the center of it, papers raining down on him, looking chagrined. It’s so visually chaotic and awesome. It’s funny to watch King George get in on the taunting. It’s also a really good visual set up for the next song, Hurricane.
•  Blow Us All Away – Watching Eliza and Alexander hold their son as he dies takes the heartbreak factor up to a new level. The interplay between Eliza and Alexander during this scene is something you just can’t see or infer from the soundtrack—i.e., when Alexander tries to take Eliza’s hand, she rips it away from him. Super well-blocked and acted.
• The Election of 1800—There are about a million things in this scene that can’t be seen from listening to the song. Burr and Jefferson are at stage left and right, while Hamilton is up above them, as the election’s outcome has now fallen to Hamilton’s opinion. When Hamilton makes his surprising endorsement of Jefferson, you get to see Burr’s face shift from smug to shock, and Jefferson’s hang-dog embarrassment transform to unabashed glee. Jefferson literally gallops around the stage—there’s so much stuff going on with his physical person throughout the musical (most of it is really funny) that you could only see through watching the show.
•  The World was Wide Enough—So many reasons this was way better in person. First of all, watching Alexander go through his whole scenario of “is this where I die?” and thinking through the reasons to stay, and reasons to go—with all of the characters popping up on stage as he thinks about who he’ll join if he goes—helped the song ring truer and hit home harder for me. Then, watching Burr’s reaction, seeing the regret on his face, realizing how truly devastating it was for him when he became a pariah—you can hear that in the song, but when you see the glaring faces, and the slump of his shoulders, the song becomes an even stronger empathy-builder.
• Who Lives Who Dies— Eliza’s finish takes out your heart and squeezes it until only pulp remains. So many feels.

So now that I’m seeing it all laid out like this, I’m realizing that I liked Act II much, MUCH better live than I do when I just listen.

Captain Obvious is going to make an appearance and and sum some shit up right here: If you can, see Hamilton live. Get yourself into the Room Where It Happens. The soundtrack is and will always be superb as a standalone, but the show is indescribably good. I mean, I’m really doing my best to tell how good it was, but in a way this task feels like trying to verbally describe the color “purple” to someone who has never seen color. Sometimes words are inadequate.

The most stressful part of the show? Trying to go to the bathroom at intermission. The venue had ONE bathroom, and ushers were herding people in and out of it like air traffic controllers. I’m not kidding, there were probably five or six ushers JUST handling the ladies’ room. So you’re standing there in line with hundreds of other women who have to pee, and then the lights start blinking, signaling five minutes to the show resumes, three minutes, etc., which stressed me the eff out, because I was also aware the lobby ushers would not let me into the theatre until after the first song if I missed the start of it, and it was “What Did I Miss?” and I DID NOT WANT TO MISS IT. Once I finally arrived at the threshold of the bathroom, one of those bathroom ushers pointed me to an open stall—I’m surprised they didn’t have these folks wearing neon orange vests, like gameday parking lot attendants—and I ran to it, peed without actually fully emptying my bladder because I was too nervous and also, cutting my pee off three seconds early was three more seconds to get to my seat. I summarily whisked my hands under a faucet mostly for the sake of appearances (that’s what hand sanitizer is for), and bolted out of there like the place was on fire. I made it back to my seat in time for Act II and jumped headfirst into a political abyss.

As a point of comparison: I almost missed my homebound flight on Sunday night. This experience involved Home Alone-ing it through O’Hare and obsessively checking my watch to ascertain that my flight door was still open. I arrived at my gate just in time for the final boarding call. But I’m not kidding you guys: I was more stressed out in line for the bathroom at Hamilton than I was at the airport. #values

Stressful urination experience notwithstanding, attending Hamilton in Chicago was easily one of the best experiences of my whole life. I know that’s a big statement, but it’s not hyperbole. It was incredibly meaningful to me. I loved every minute of that show.

I am now grieving the fact that Hamilton Day has now come and gone. It’s a hard thing, grounding my feet back into solid earth after a dizzying peak experience like that.

But, I’ve already decided…I’ll be back.

Just you wait. 

How a lost a brother and gained a sister-- in one day

May 2012

The most poignant moments of my life tend to sneak up on me. Granted, some of them I'm able to see coming: for example, my wedding day, and the days I met each of my sweet babies. I knew in advance that these life-altering days would unforgettable, but I had no idea which specific parts of these days would get seared into my memory. I find that it's usually some small detail, something I wouldn't have predicted would be important, that ends up claiming the honor of making a wrinkle in my brain. Almost always, it's something that moves me deeply and unexpectedly. For example, I remember the receiving line at my wedding much more than I remember the exchanging of rings or vows or the first dance. In my mind's eye are the tears coming out of my grandpa's eyes, the spring in my mother-in-law's step. I can still hear the voices and laughter echoing in the back of the church. From Evie's birth, I recall the weight of her being lifted off of me, out of me, and the intense relief of being able to draw a deep breath. And with Jonah, I think of this song that my hospital bracelet played when I pushed my bracelet to his (a neat safety feature, so no weirdo can sneak off with a baby that's not theirs)-- which gave me a little thrill of joy every time we did it. How could I have possibly predicted that of all of the moments, these would be the ones that persisted? The ones that I can readily recall?  Yet my life as I know it is woven out of a million tiny details like this.

Last Saturday some new memories got woven into my life tapestry. My brother got married. Because I'm mostly not an idiot, I knew that the day would bring on lots of feels, and would leave me with lots of good stuff to look back on. Yet, as usual, there was this sucker-punching moment that caught me off guard. It happened at a time that I would have expected to be routine, cursory, a mundane detail: standing in line, waiting to walk down the aisle for the processional. Up to and even including that point, the day had been hellishly hectic. My existence as a human being had been reduced to that of a frazzled and purple-gowned personal assistant for my immediate family: the management of hair, clothes, everyone being at the right place at the right time, plus attempts at gracefully maneuvering the egos and bodily functions of two small kids in formal attire. (Have you ever tried to help a coiffed and incredibly stubborn 4-year old flower girl go pee? Not for the faint of heart.). After Evie disappeared for the umpteenth time and required a cursory search party, I began to fantasize about propping my feet up on a church pew and downing Morgan ‘n’ diets until smiling came easy again.

Yet as the service started, the noise in my head finally quieted down. I stopped, and for the first time looked, really looked, around me. I saw my Mom. She was striking in her mother-of-the-groom attire; that much I had already seen. Now, though, I Saw. I saw through all of the formality and fuss and noticed her fragility. Her pride, her tears, the bittersweetness of seeing her son happy yet so grown up. I saw Dad, farmer-gone-debonair in his tux and cufflinks, his eyes glistening and red-rimmed as he waited with Mom. For a man I have never seen cry, he seemed markedly unabashed about wearing his heart on his sleeve. The therapist in me smiled while the little girl in me wanted to comfort her daddy. Cue my own tears, the cup of my emotion finally runneth over as my parents made their way down the aisle ahead of me.

That’s when I got my sock in the gut: “my little brother is getting married.” In the span of seconds my mind flipped through the catalog of memories that I have stored for Nate. I remembered him as a guileless toddler, following me around the house because I held his tractors captive; as the little guy who ran around with these two other little guys, all in MC Hammer pants and neon t-shirts, who my friends and I labelled "the junior mafia." As a teen stumbling drunk and breaking one of Mom’s fancy lamps, spurring a ten-year secret between he and I, one that we guarded carefully until we were sure we were beyond the statute of limitations on such things. I recalled him leaving home, moving into his first apartment, experimenting with different hobbies and jobs and lifestyles until he found what fit for him. Over the years he became a person I not only loved, but also liked-- he became one of my closest friends. He was no longer a child in any way. He hadn’t been for a long time, but this fact finally hit home for me as I stood looking down the long aisle at that nervous and joyful man who stood waiting at the altar. I felt a pang of loss. Our past was gone. Our little Michl family of four was no more.

In almost the same breath, I thought of all I was about to gain.  Before I started my walk down the aisle, I looked back and saw Abby. The beginnings of tears were in her eyes as she clutched her father’s arm. My heart squeezed when I looked at her, and I remembered that already, I loved her like a sister. I wanted her to be in my family. I was happy to say goodbye to the past if it meant that she would be a part of our future.

And this is the snapshot image that will remain when I look back on the day: crying with my parents as we said goodbye to the past and hello to the future. I’ll remember other things, like Evie crawling under a pew and screaming during the ceremony, like the best man’s speech, like losing and serendipitously finding my sunglasses (on one of the groomsmen's faces at 11 PM), like eating a Skittle that I thought was a Reese’s Pieces (and this, my friends, is not a good surprise if you’re me). It was a day filled with stress and joy, dirty jokes and cocktails, old family and new family. It was an honor to be a part of it. Though I did have to let go of my “baby” brother, I got him back as a peer and friend, and I also got a sister-- I'd say that's a hell of a deal, and I couldn't be happier about it. 

Cheers, once again, to Nate and Abby!!

Originally published 5/6/2012 on ideclarelifecrisis.blogspot.com. Edited 5/1/2017.

Worst field trip sponsor ever

So, I’m a mom. Two conglomerations of matter and soul took root within me, and I grew lives where lives hadn’t previously existed.

(The above sentiment will be the most beautiful part of this post. It’s all downhill from here.)

I sort of thought that since I had CREATED and GROWN LIVES, this process, by virtue of what it is, would automatically impart to me a new skill set, a sacred wisdom: the gift of knowing how to be good with kids. Not just mine; other people’s, too.

As it turns out: nope.

First, a series of disclaimers:

DISCLAIMER 1: It's not that I don't like kids. I really do. They're fantastic, and funny, and I believe they are the very fabric of our society. But, let's face it: You can really, really like something and not be good at it. For example, after years of denying it, I will admit to you all that I love to dance. Does that mean I'm good at it? Oh, heavens no. Though the ardent whispers of my sometimes-weekend lover Captain Morgan tries to convince me otherwise.

DISCLAIMER 2: If you leave your kids in my care, I'm not going to ruin them. Just don't expect them to be writing home about my awesomeness. Expect more something to the effect of: "Um, Evie's mom is kind of weird. She kept trying to tell me about women's revolutions and was singing something that she called Hamilton."

DISCLAIMER 3: Age matters. I'm good with babies and toddlers, because I'm not above a long game of peek-a-boo or a rollicking ten verses of Where Is Thumbkin. I speak the language of the very young, and they usually like me okay, because I smile a lot and am kind of a goober. And teens, they're fine too. There's around an 85% chance that they're going to be into Harry Potter (or other nerdy fandom), sports, shopping, music, or theater, and I can work with any of those variables.

But that 6-12 year old age? Man, those kids throw me for a loop. They're like sharks: they fascinate me and I'd spend all day watching them behind glass, but do I wanna get in a tank with one and see what happens? No sir. I do not.

DISCLAIMER 4: I have two kids in the baffling 6-12 year old age range, yet I make every effort to be what is, in my understanding, a Good Mom.

And it is because of this last bit that I sometimes, despite my obvious shortcomings in the realm of all things kid, occasionally volunteer for stuff at my kids' school. Isn't that what Good Moms do? That being said, I can’t shake the feeling that when I show up for these things the people in charge are all like "Oh no. Not her." If this is indeed the internal monologue of teachers and other parents I've volunteered with, I wouldn't blame them. I deserve it, you guys. I’m terrible. Honestly. I’m the worst parent sponsor on Earth. 

Allow me to demonstrate: Last week, I volunteered to go with my kids’ school to their annual “Ride the Waves” event, which is a field trip to one of the indoor YMCA pools. I’ve gone every year, so this was my fourth time. When my kids were little, I was a Cool Mom at this event. My kids wanted to play with me, and then their friends did too, and I figured out what to do because the kids were so engaging. This year, when I rolled in, Evie acknowledged me with a wave and a grin but was too busy with her own clique to pay me much mind. As for Jonah, he looked over at me once and then his eyes slid away, like I was a stranger. I realized that my Cool Mom days were a thing of the past.

So, mostly I sat on the ledge dangling my feet in the water, staring awkwardly around at this pool full of kids, wondering what it was that I was supposed to do.

Another mom stood near one edge of the pool, tossing rings in for the kids to dive in and retrieve, a game that a bunch of kids were clearly really into. It seemed like she knew what she was doing. I wondered: is there a game I should be playing with the kids? I had no idea what kind of game or activity would be fun for them. Pool charades? Would You Rather? Maybe a quick round of Settlers of Catan, poolside?  I chose to sit back and quietly observe.

At one point a tiny girl, shivering and crying, made her way around my post. Since I was in my swimsuit and a lot of the sponsors weren’t, I thought I should take it upon myself to help her out. I held her hand and walked around the pool with her, and she temporarily calmed down. But then she started crying again. I squatted down so that we were at eye level, because I’ve heard that’s a thing you’re supposed to do with kids. And I said, “My name is Allison. What’s your name?”

Trying to talk to her? That was my first mistake. She lurched away from me and started crying harder. I went for a distraction route. I asked her favorite color. I asked about her family. I asked, did she have any brothers or sisters? She said she had a sister. I said, “What’s your sister’s name?”

And she said, “I DON’T KNOW!!!” Then she started crying so hard that a teacher had to come manually remove her from the pool.

I thought that went pretty well.

I spent the rest of the time lurking around my third grade daughter. My behavior was probably only moderately creepy. I felt like a kid on the fringe: wanting to join in, but waiting for the cool kids to welcome me to the inner sanctum. Turns out that third graders aren’t super jazzed about awkward 34-year old psychologists who like talking about universal health care and the latest Barbara Kingsolver novel.

And yet, there was one golden opportunity, a time I could have stepped up and been a grown-up. A few kids caused some commotion by climbing OVER the pool rope, instead of going UNDER it, which was AGAINST THE RULES. However, during this event I’d been spacing out and thinking about fried fish and peanut butter cups in ice cream and also wondering what it would have been like to have lived in New Jersey in the 1970s. By the time I realized there was commotion, the teachers, fully dressed, from the side of the pool, had taken care of the scene that had unfolded literally five feet in front of me, in the middle of the pool. #winning

Other school volunteering that I’ve done went about as well as Ride the Waves did. I helped out at a classroom Thanksgiving party when Evie was in Kindergarten. I, per usual, didn’t know what to do with the kids, so I just let them stick foam stickers all over my face. It made them laugh, and that was a step up from my usual performance.

And then we all got in trouble with the teacher and the other sponsors, because apparently that wasn’t what we were supposed to do with the stickers. *shrugs*

Another time, we were hosting a sleepover for Evie at our house, and during the half-hour that my husband ran out to the store to get ice cream, the girls started bickering at each other. They split off into tiny-but-brutal feminine gangs, the Bloods raging up in the piano room while the Crips staged a hostile take-over of the downstairs TV room. One lone soldier stood by the door and said she wanted to go home.

I was paralyzed. What do you do when a group of 7-year olds that’s supposed to be cohesive and BFFs-4-Life all of the sudden goes full on gang war? I stood in the kitchen, wide eyed, watching it all go down, and thought, “Oh no.” And that was as far as my thinking went. It stalled out on “ohhhh nooooo” and looped.

So I didn’t do anything. I stood there and watched as the Bloods yelled and the Crips taunted. The lone soldier at the door glared at me, accusatorily. My husband came home, took one look at the scene, and immediately engaged them all in some kind of fun joint activity that mended fences and prevented drive bys. Jeb knows how terrible I am with kids. Dude’s got a fricking degree in education, taught for 8 years in public schools, and also worked with elementary-aged kids as a teacher-naturalist for several summers. He’s got a leg up on this whole “I know how to talk to kids” thing. (When I said to him, as I was brainstorming for this post, “Man, I’m really awkward with kids,” he said, “Yeah, I’ve seen.”)

I think that probably even if I did have all the right kinds of education, mixing with kids still wouldn’t be a strength of mine. Hell, even when I was a kid I sucked at talking to other kids. I didn’t even realize this about myself until I saw video evidence of me on a day of preschool. My peers are running amok, parading around in dress-up clothes, smashing playdough between their hands, giggling, laughing, skipping, dancing. I’m sitting crosslegged on the floor next to the teacher, a very serious, doleful expression on my face, no doubt engaging her in a conversation about the Chernobyl disaster or Ronald Reagan’s diplomatic progress with Gorbachev.

Yet somehow, between the field trips and class parties, I always forget my deficits. Enough time goes by between volunteering events that I get myself to thinking, “This won’t be so bad!” and “You can totally do this!” It’s like how a woman can forget the pain of childbirth, only to be rudely awakened when it’s upon her again. (Or so I've heard. I don't actually know. My kids came out the sunroof, thank you very much.) Or, like that time at the age of 21 I decided I was a master roller skater and should totally go to a rink, even though I hadn’t skated for 13 years and had been absolutely awful at it in my childhood. In case it’s not obvious how this excellent choice panned out: Immediately upon entering the rink on skates, I fell and hit my head. I cried for a long time. Mostly because my head hurt, but also because I was really embarrassed, but also because I was drunk.  

Pre-skate optimism

Post-skate realism (and pain)

It seems that optimism comes for me in the stretches between life events. Optimism, with a splash of denial, and a misplaced confidence chaser.  Maybe adding a stiff shot of realism to the optimism cocktail could help, the next time I think about school volunteering. Maybe I could volunteer for a task better suited to my strengths….like, maybe I could organize the library. Or just read the library. I don’t know.

There's this part of me that wants to be more of a kid person. This is the Pollyanna part of me that thinks that maybe, if I take the right class or read the right book or observe the right people, I could become Kid Competent. The other part of me-- the louder part, the bigger part, the part that talks like Doctor Phil-- is pretty sure that it's time to settle up with reality. I’m 34 years old, I’ve got two kids of my own, I have seven nephews and a niece (all of whom I’ve had ample opportunities to practice with), a PhD IN EFFING TALKING TO PEOPLE, and I’ve still got nothing.

Chances are, when it comes to me and kids: this is as good as it’s gonna get.

Change isn't linear, and that sucks

Sometimes I feel like a broken record in my work as a therapist. I end up saying the same things, over and over again, day in and day out. Don’t get me wrong: I say a lot of weird and different stuff every day, too. My head is honestly just too chaotic-- any number of different words and pictures and songs and feelings and ideas and shit are flying around up in there at any given moment-- to be all that repetitive.

Yet, some interventions are so “Allison-style” that I end up using them with most of my clients—hence the broken-record feeling I've got going on. I’m big on self-compassion, so I end up saying “Would you talk like that to your best friend if she was going through what you’re going through?” I'm hip on self-awareness and values as in-roads to making lasting change, so I hear myself saying, “I think it would be helpful if we spend some time identifying the things you deeply care about, the things you want to build your life around.”  And, I'm pragmatic. I accept that people are inherently messy, and so is change. Thus, the  “progress isn’t linear” talk, which is one that I have with almost every client.

Here’s what sets the scene for the “progress isn’t linear” shtick: after a couple of sessions, a client comes in saying he's feeling better. He's probably feeling lighter, freer, because he has someone to talk to now. Maybe he's also experimented with a coping skill or two that he's learned in session. This relief lasts for a few days, or maybe a few weeks, sometimes even months. Yet, inevitably, the client falters, and that relief slips through his fingers. He has a bad day. If he struggles with alcoholism, he's picked up a bottle. If he struggles with depression, he's struggled to get out of bed. If he has post-traumatic stress, he's had a series of disturbing flashbacks. And he'd thought that these behaviors or symptoms were gone, that he'd kicked them. He comes in, head hanging, and tells me that he’s failed. He’s “back at square one.” He is demoralized and dejected and questioning if he really can change, if he really can heal. Sometimes he wants to quit trying.

And I, though I feel empathy for my client, am unfazed by his revelations. I know that this is how it goes. I’ve seen this happen so many times, in fact, that I would argue until I’m blue in the face that progress simply isn’t linear. And that sucks, because we so want progress to be linear. We want to see ourselves on a steady road to recovery, to see improvement every day.

We want progress to look like this:

But what progress really looks like is usually this:

Or even this:

I'm not entirely sure what this means. I'm pretty sure the line might
even suggest that going back in time was involved. The point is:
Progress is messy. Just go with it. 

In other words, progress can be a real bitch.

I tell clients about this. I draw these pictures. I attempt to normalize their setbacks. Usually, I can get clients to jump on this bandwagon with me. They are able to see how yes, they are human and yes, change is hard, and no, this return to old behavior does not necessarily mean they are at square one. It means they are on square 34 but had a bump in the road.

So, I hang my hat on getting my clients to buy this, so that they will go easy on themselves, and so that they keep their hope alive. And not just because I believe it's good for them, but because I actually believe it. Which all makes me very embarrassed to admit that I CAN'T EVEN DRINK MY OWN MEDICINE. Why is it so hard?  I wonder why, when I have a bad day, it is damn-near impossible to see this as normal, human, to be expected?

You know, being a therapist is nothing if it isn’t being the world’s biggest hypocrite, on a daily basis.

I’ve had a couple of challenging days lately with my journey out of depression (click here to read more about that), which caught me off guard—because things had been going so great! For the past couple of months, I’ve been riding waves of positivity. I have a new nephew to love on. My cousins and I had an epic Harry Potter Trivia night, and I was victorious! (eat it, Noah! And you’ll get me next time, Kevin. BTW, I have the best ever cousins). I BOUGHT TICKETS TO HAMILTON: THE MUSICAL (Chicago), which is a total bucket list thing for me. I’m writing more than I ever have, and better yet, I’m having meaningful conversations with friends (and even strangers!) about what I’ve written. I’ve played volleyball and baked brownies and sang Happy Birthday and chatted around firepits and taken long walks and sang on a stage and giggled with my friends and snuggled with my kiddos and did sun salutations daily. These experiences are giving me fuel, are helping me to heal. My energy level is good, my productivity at work and at home has improved immensely.   I feel smiley, a lot, and have possibly already laughed more this year than I did in 2016 altogether. Hope is winning the battle over fear and self-deprecation.

But even given all of that, I’m apparently not immune to bad days. Sometimes unwelcome stressful events go ahead and let themselves in and knock me over. If I were a football team, this would be a rebuilding year for me. So the quarterback gets hit a lot. His O line is injured, and slow. My playcalling is still all wonky, and sometimes, Bo Pelini shows up and starts railing on everyone.

Though more resilient than I would have been six months ago, going through The Depression of 2016 has left me more vulnerable, still, than I’d like. Some days it’s still hard to adjust my sails when the wind blows. Some days, I still want to crawl into my bed, cover up with the quilt that my great-grandma sewed from scraps of her clothing, and hide from everyone, everything. Some days, I hate on myself, really hate on myself, with the heat of a thousand suns, or I doubt myself with such fury that there’s not a lot of me left at the end of it.

Fortunately, these days, or stretches of days, have been few and far between. But they do happen.

And I’m going to falter again, no matter how hard I rail against that possibility. Not every day can I possibly go skipping into the sunset, in search of my ponies and rainbows. Tomorrow will not necessarily be “better” than today. I don’t get that guarantee, and neither do you. Sure, we can hope for it. We can even work for it (and we should!)—we can use good coping skills, and talk to ourselves kindly, and practice sound self-care and do everything “right”—and still, we get no guarantees.

Because change isn’t fucking linear, you guys. I so wish it was, but it’s not.

The good news is this: If you, like me, have faltered lately, you’re not alone. All this means is that you’re “normal.” You’re human. This is happening to all of us, all the time, but we’re mostly too ashamed to talk about it. This isn’t square one. This is a bump in the road. Maybe tomorrow will be kinder, maybe it won’t—but some tomorrow will be kinder, if you keep working at whatever your battle is. I promise.

Maybe if I say these things enough times, to you all, to my clients, and to myself, I'll start to apply them more readily to my life, too. :) It would seem that perhaps being a broken record does have its advantages.

Pray For My Accountant

2/9/2017

Today started as many others do. A few clients in the morning. An uninspired Healthy Choice meal for lunch. A little witty repartee with Megan, my across-the-hall fellow psychologist and valued friend. We were talking about how many hats Megan bought for her son this year, which is a subject that we cover a lot, because I think she buys too many hats and I tend to bring up the same subjects over and over. I bet she gets sick of that. So anyway, it was business as usual until she said, "I've gotta work on my taxes today."

I gulped.“Your taxes. Does that mean…Tom’s coming?”

“Yeah, Tom’s coming.”

Tom’s coming. Two words. Infinite fear.

Tom is our accountant.

Please let it be known that my fear has very little to do with Tom himself. Tom is a lovely man.  He is smart, patient, and tactful. He helps me to make good financial choices. In fact, I think if everyone could have Tom in their lives, they’d probably be a lot better off.

So no, it’s not Tom per sé that gives me pause. It’s the stuff I find myself having to say to Tom. Like, “Oops, I totally forgot to send you that mileage number again,” or “Can you explain how SIMPLE IRAs work, one more time?” (I’d already asked like 9 times), or “Wait, was I supposed to mail a check for that last week?”

“Ah, shit,” I said, trying to figure out how I was going to not look like an idiot in front of Tom. Again. And this time was bound to be especially bad, because I’d been harboring a secret.

You see, I didn’t get into psychology to be a businesswoman. I really didn’t. In my ten years of higher education, I didn’t take one—not even one!— course in business. Every lick of business knowledge I have is from way back in the day, when I took Accounting I and II in high school. 

So what did I do, immediately upon graduating with my PhD? Open a business. YOLO.

That’s where Tom comes in. He’s a powerhouse of financial knowledge. Incredibly helpful? YES. A bit intimidating? Also yes.

So, I’m usually nervous when Tom comes to visit, and nerves make me more clunky than I already am.  My mouth runs ahead of my brain, and I'm pretty sure I make a lot of weird, strained faces. Also, I’m inherently socially awkward, namely because I SUCK at socially acceptable small talk. Which I didn’t even realize about myself until I learned about some of the most common American social scripts in a multicultural communication class in undergrad and realized I was DOING THEM ALL WRONG. For example, when an American says “How are you?”, in passing,  it is meant to be a greeting, not a legitimate question. You are supposed to reply, “Fine, thanks. How are you?”

You guys, this info blew my mind. I’d always thought that when people asked how I was, my job was to be honest and forthcoming, you know, like “Actually, terrible, because I’ve got cramps and my TV show didn’t record last night and I’m also feeling really insecure about this conversation that I had with a friend this morning.”

But at least now I understand why so many folks in undergrad stopped asking how I was when I saw them in the hall.

Anyway.

Before I’d even had a chance to formulate a plan for disclosing my shameful secret to Tom, the office door bell rang.

“Is that him?” I mouthed to Megan, standing in the threshold of my doorway, out of the line of sight of the waiting room and hallway.

Megan nodded.

I took a deep breath and stepped out of my doorway, and there, just ten feet away from me, was Tom. I smiled my most winning smile.

“Tom! Hi!”

“Hello there!” His tone was friendly, but I caught the way he froze, just a little.

Imagine this from his perspective: you go to a client’s office, and on your way down the hall to her door, another of your clients, NOT the one you were supposed to be meeting with, comes popping out of nowhere, smiling hugely, saying your name like she knew you were coming. Creepy, amiright?

“I was going to email you today," I said. It was almost the truth. 

“Oh, were you? I was starting to think you were avoiding me!”

I knew he was joking but SHIT did I feel called out. Dude saw right through me.

I eased into my confession. Started with a positive. “I put some money into my retirement account!”

He smiled. “Okay, that’s good!” He looked at me expectantly...probably because I was blocking his way into Megan’s office. 

I did that smile that’s not really a smile, but more of a baring of teeth. I guess it’s a grimace? It looks like this:

“Okay, so another thing. I’m a little behind on my Quickbooks for the year.” 

Tom, because he is a lovely man, once spent well over an hour in my office teaching me how to use Quickbooks. For a few years I’d been able to use it on my own with relative proficiency. Then 2016 happened. (Author’s Note: If you’re new to me, or to the blog: 2016 was not my best year. Read this if you want to know why.)

He furrowed his brow, just a little. “All right, like how far behind are we talking?”

“Ummm…pretty behind.”

“When’s the last time you updated it?”

“December.”

“Oh, that’s not bad. You can get that caught up.”

“No…like last December. December 2015.” More teeth baring.

“Ookkay.” He narrowed his eyes. Not unkindly, just kind of a “what in the hell should we do with this?” kind of face. It felt like the time I drove my dad’s pickup into a snowdrift in the country and got it stuck. Just like back then, I’d done a bad thing, and there was nothing to do but come clean.

Tom was nowhere near as pissed as my dad had been the night of the truck in the snowdrift. Tom didn’t say “Fuck” even one time.

Yet despite Tom's total lack of criticism, my need to please rushed forth and started pushing nonsense out of my mouth. “I’ve got all of my bank statements! I could go through and get it all caught up really quick! Should I? I can! I definitely can. Yep. But, I mean…does it make more sense for me to do it, or for me to just have you do it, at this point?”

He paused, considering this. “I think it’s probably best if you just get me the statements, and I’ll do it. It’ll save time for you, anyway.”

Later that day, Tom and I came up with a system that will work better for me for the upcoming tax year-- which includes not trying to do my own Quickbooks from now on. This will cost me a little more in terms of what I pay him, but will be worth the savings of time and guilt.

Before he left, he flipped through the bank statements I'd managed to find for him. “What’s this Capital One deposit?”

“Distribution. That’s just a regular deposit into a savings account.” Ah, the thrill of competence!

“And how about this $22.30 at Super Saver?”

I squirmed. “Umm….pretty sure that was office supplies and postage.” And Tom, if you’re reading this, it was definitely also two large bags of Hershey’s Kisses, which I DO hand out to clients on the regular. Total business expense.

I started to get nervous thinking about Tom going through all of my bank statements. Tom was now going to know every time I went out to eat. He’s going to know every cent that I spent on every book, every training, EVERY BAG OF CHOCOLATE. When you really get down to it, your accountant is like a benevolent Big Brother—not the genetic type, the Orwellian type. So you’d better damn-well have someone you trust. Thank goodness I trust Tom.

Trust aside, I was still jittery thinking about the Big Brothery aspects and also still feeling sort of like a daughter having just admitted some grave error to her father.

So I started rambling on about all kinds of weird shit, I don’t even know what, but I do know that it got worse and worse as it went along, culminating in me comparing Tom to a priest who had just absolved me of all of my financial sins, literally crossing myself, and saying “I’m not even Catholic, but I guess I’m Catholic today.”

Yep. That happened. My Protestant ass crossed myself in front of my accountant and pretended that he was a priest. (WTF?)

To be fair, he did give me permission to throw all of my guilt away. I mean, was crossing myself after that situation really so wrong? (Hint: Yes.)

After assigning me three Hail Marys and two Our Fathers (not really), Tom left, and I have to imagine he was relieved. Ultimately, I was also relieved, but not because of his absence, but rather, because I’d “come clean” and it really wasn’t all that big of a deal. All of the meetings with Tom are like that: we hold our breath, we talk about the financial truths of the situation at hand, he tells us what to do in that calm, no-nonsense way that he does, and then we all move on with our lives. Sometimes we do what he says. Sometimes we don’t. But even when we fail he helps us figure out what the next best step is.

Best accountant ever.

Lucky Megan: she got to hear the entire "I'm Catholic today" shitshow go down. Given the proximity between her door and mine, she Very Often sees me making an ass of myself.

And, lucky me, Megan thinks I’m “cute awkward.” I want to believe her, but somehow her sentiment smacks of that way that parents think the weird things their kids do are cute. But I guess that’d make me Megan’s kid in this scenario, and that doesn’t really work because we’re not like that, and plus if I was her kid she’d start bringing me all of these hats and dear god, please don’t let her buy any more hats.

Cute awkward, actual awkward, whatever I am--I’ve accepted it’s how I’ll always be. Even with my accountant. Especially with my accountant. If you think about it, say a prayer for Tom tonight. When it comes to our office, he needs all the help he can get. And it’s tax season, y’all. 

***
UPDATE: TOM READ AND APPROVED OF THIS POST (see the comments below). I FEEL LIKE I HAVE WON AT LIFE. Quickbooks be damned.