Wow April sucked! I was like “ok this month was hard” and then I had May. Glorious, beautiful, incredible May! And I realized April was like, historically awful.

May was great! May was so so so great!!!! I feel lighter, happier, and more excited than I have in a long, long time. Trying hard not to look for the hidden cameras here.

Good

• The glaring difference (besides excellent improved weather) is that I ditched the Lexapro and finally made the jump to Ketamine. I’ve heard a lot about it and been doing some light research, but then it was like my brain said “Hey, Stupid. How many more meds you gonna try that ruin your entire life? Do this other thing.” And that other thing kind of feels like THE thing. I’m two treatments in and still need to give it some time for the whole scientific method and all that, but I promise I’ll report back.
• Reese got into the advanced 3rd grade class for next year!!! There will be some effort to make it work but she is over the moon and we’re so proud of her!
• Sang my lil heart out with some friends at a marathon birthday party for three of them. It was a riot and something I should do more often.
• Stevie’s graduation was hilarious and cute. I love anything extra, and that includes preschool graduation ceremonies with caps and gowns.
• I ~enjoyed my kids this month. I love my kids, but I just don’t always ~enjoy them. I did this month, though. Not all the time. But we had fun. They got along, they were cute, I did fun mom things.
• We listened to our first audiobook as a whole family on our road trip last week—The Princess Bride!!! And it was so so so so so fun. The girls were listening carefully and shouting and laughing about it. 10/10
• St. George!!! It was a divine weekend. Food, pool time, reading. Heaven.
• I got very obsessed with Daisy Jones & the Six and I’ve been listening to that album + Fleetwood Mac all month. The vibes are 100.
• Our yard rehabilitation efforts really took off! Our yard went to sh*t last year (we found out why: we’re lazy and also our neighbor broke a bunch of our sprinkler heads when they were finishing their build) but we finally mustered the care to work on it. And it’s improved so much! I get why people do this!
• The Tulip Festival was gorgeous. One of my favorite spring traditions.
• We took a really big and really good step this month with figuring out and setting some boundaries. Drafting a whole blog post about it soon. But it really did feel like setting down a humungous weight. 10/10 recommend.
• After the disaster of last summer, I feel truly prepared this summer! I created new schedules for the girls (including chores, academic activities, etc.), a bucket list, the Everyday Reading summer reading chart, and printed a weekly planning sheet to fill out every single week of the summer.

Bad

• Ryan has to travel for work, usually one full week a month. It truly doesn’t bother me much, but this time it really did start to wear on all of us. And for the first time I actually started to worry about his safety in San Francisco.
• My kids got hit with yet another round of sickness right around the last week of school and had to miss some of the myriad events. Loney puked on the carpet, again. She’s on a roll.
• Speaking of myriad events. Why. Each of my girls had at least 2-3 school events every single week for the entire month of May. Between me, Ryan, and our angel nanny we could barely manage!!
• Work…. sucks. We’re tackling a really huge project that is insufficiently planned, underestimated, and unrealistically deadlined. I’m getting my ass handed to me and I’ve been powerless against all the May activities, Ryan’s work trips, and family sickness. Professionally, things got pretty dark for me in May. I find myself once again asking if the workplace actually wants moms, and if there’s a fully flexible place for me anywhere.

On My Brain

• After listening to the Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling last month, I haven’t stopped thinking about the false dichotomy of issues. Not just the trans argument—all of them. I have been trying to dive into the opposing opinions on different topics (Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, abortion, mandated reporting for clergy, etc.) and I’m constantly surprised at how much I don’t know. How much the headlines leave out. How little time we spend understanding both sides of an issue before forming opinions of our own. How quickly we dehumanize the other side. As we enter the early stages of another election cycle, I kind of want to just stick my head in a hole in the ground. But then ???? is that privilege? Is that apathy that perpetuates problems? Idk but I’m exhausted.
• I saw a part-time teaching position at a school near me for AP Geography. And I reeeeeaaaaallllly thought about it. I don’t think I could even get it right now (I’d need to renew my teaching license, haven’t taught post-pandemic, haven’t taught an AP class), but there was this part of me that just lit up when I thought about it. I’m carving out some time this month to research relicensing and other potential education-adjacent jobs that could scratch the itch.
• There’s been this weird resurgence of all things anti-LGBTQ lately, and when I see actual human people post it… I just can’t help but think “What happens when you realize that someone you LOVE is gay? Which side do you choose? Is your mental agility enough that you’re willing to take that information and change? Or do you double down?” I have stared, awake in the dark, at my ceiling wondering this very thing for too many nights.
• We started the show Shrinking and I’m loving it (Harrison Ford!) but I think if I’d watched it even last year I wouldn’t have felt comfortable. This is a show of people just being messy, but owning it and talking through it and saying sorry and forgiving and becoming more thoughtful and making a different mistake next time to perpetuate the cycle. It really resonates with this new emotional chapter in my life where I am, for the first time, not afraid to make a mistake. I’m not afraid to get called out. I’m not afraid to say “I messed that up. I am sorry.” And it’s all because of Harrison Ford. (No, it’s years of therapy and boundaries and trying to listen to what I actually want.)

I’m more-than-cautiously optimistic about summer. We have snacks and popsicles and a fun new cooler—it’s a speaker! We have summer camps and a sweetheart nanny and several dope trips planned. It’s a good thing my word of 2023 is Story because I have certainly turned a page this spring, and I’m so excited to see what the next chapter brings.