March updates

Emerging from winter

I’m struck by the realization that my life right now might be the best it’s ever been.

My twins are almost 18 months old and this feels like a moment of peak cuteness, where they are still babyish in many ways but also fully-fledged toddler people. Every day, they exert more preference and will. Despite the chaos, it is getting easier to savor this special time.

Appreciating, enjoying. Turning down the feeling that I need to rush to do something else. It’s one of the ways I see myself changing - slowly, but thank goodness it is happening. I’m getting better at being ok with having plans and intentions that don’t pan out. And sometimes, things do come together effortlessly, maybe because I stopped trying to make it happen.

The last few months - they’ve been busy, intense, agonizing at times. My business/coaching work has ramped up, and it’s been a source of real fun - somewhat unexpectedly. I haven’t managed to prioritize my other creative projects (including writing here) as consistently as I thought I should, but year after year I’ve gone through alternating phases like this - favoring either my business or my musicals and artistic work as a primary creative outlet. I’m trying to be more accepting rather than judging.

And I have made some important moves creatively, in particular finding a new mentor who is helping me with my two shows (resulting from the writing workshop I attended back in January - I had a feeling it would lead to something).

I’m noticing that with regards to my writing and creative work, fear and self-judgment still pop up, especially around starting up again, and then around sharing. When I sit down to write, often it feels like I don’t remember how to put words together. There’s a painful awkwardness and trepidation that what I wrote will embarrassingly self-indulgent, and it will not have a point. These are old, familiar thoughts and concerns, and it’s interesting to see how present they can still be. Good to know.

Something I’ve thought about for these last few months that just gets more and more true is that I’m constantly surprised by how much and how often I need to keep changing in response to my children changing. Obviously babies change and grow at warp-speed. Everyone knows that. But I’ve been caught off guard again and again by a realization that I need to change somehow.

It could be a routine (now we try meals in the high chairs AND at their little table), it could relate to the items we use (no more bottles, oh and we need bigger shoes), it could be updating my mind’s list of what I (mostly) no longer need to be worried about (walking), what I still need to be worried about (small rocks in mouth), and what I newly need to be worried about (reaching stuff on counters). Just when I feel like we are settled in a new normal, they change and then I need to change.

It makes me think about how I probably have many more opportunities to transform myself or some aspect of my life - separate from my kids - than I am even aware of. Most of them I’m sure I don’t notice. But this has been a season of a lot of change, and recognizing that it is destabilizing but I can handle it. And usually, something better is on the other side of the change.

Speaking of change - a week ago was our previous nanny’s last day, and that was hard. There were a lot of tears, from everyone involved. We seem to be through the thick of it and into a new childcare chapter that seems to be working, that might even be better. It’s a huge relief. I mostly cleared my schedule for a few weeks to be present for it, so this time has felt surprisingly spacious. That’s a nice change, and I’m thinking about how to hold on to it, rather than letting my schedule get overly full again.

That’s basically my update. Things are going really well. I have some new workshops I’ll be sharing soon. Our lychee trees our flowering and we have small mangos growing everywhere. My kids are experiencing the joy of eating mulberries fresh off the tree, which was something I remember looking forward to a year ago around this time. Apparently today is the first day of spring, so it all seems well-timed.

There’s been a lot brewing under the surface and I hope to share more soon.