But, right now my daughter is downstairs watching a Disney Princess movie as she decompresses after school and I have been trying to think of the right way to articulate what I want to convey with this post, and all that keeps coming into my head are the lyrics from the Broadway version of “Beauty and the Beast”. Human again.

So let me give this a try.

Life around here has been extra tough

tumultuous

trying

tiresome

lately. But, because this is not actually my story to tell, I am not going to do so; You can just take my word for it.

If these past two years were a mountain climb, I can say that we fell down the mountain many times and even when we got back up we were faced with things like unexpected hail storms and serious injuries. But This past week, man. This past week has been the part of the mountain where all of a sudden the incline becomes impossibly steep and trees appear, creating a canopy so dark that it is hard to see the surroundings and there are snakes. Lots of slithery snakes.

But, something amazing happened. I am scared to even type it, for I don’t want to jinx anything (we all know that I am incredibly superstitious) but this week, my lungs were able to adapt to the altitude, my legs were able to manage the tough incline and my eyes could see keenly through the darkness.

This is not to say that I have reached the top of the mountain; Actually, if I think about it, I don’t think I ever want to reach the top of the mountain. My goal is to keep climbing, to keep going up and up and getting stronger along the way, seeing more and more of the world around me as I get so high.

In any case, something kind of miraculous happened for me.

For the first time in a very, very long time, I felt like a human again.

March of 2012-October of 2013 I was a pregnant woman.

November 2013 I started with the severe postpartum depression and since then it has been a journey of battles and falls and sickness and weakness.

I have felt so fragile. Sometimes, I have been incredible fragile emotionally, and other times, I have been so very fragile physically and then, at the worst of times, it was both.

I have felt like this delicate shell of myself, going through the motions of life, which were too hard to begin with, and feeling so much like an other (which, by the way, I do embrace).

But, this week, I felt human again.

I can’t explain the shift, but it is perceptible to those close to me as well.

This week I was able to attend several social functions, despite incredibly stressful things going on in my personal life. I was able to work hard professionally and on my journey towards healing.

I enjoyed my friends and my family and life in a way that I haven’t in years. Literally, years.

I stopped losing weight for the first time since September. As I mentioned in the highlighted post before this, I am incredibly sensitive as to avoid any triggers for my readers. But let’s just say this. I stopped the loss, stabilized, and have gained a couple of pounds. This may seem like a small victory, but after having lost weight every single week consistently since September, this is huge. For me, it is huge.

And I am going to keep going because I have to keep going because I want to keep going.

When I was out for my one of my oldest and very best friend’s 30th birthday party on Saturday night, I got to sit next to two of my other very best friends and enjoy delicious food and laughter as we reminisced about the past. My friends, who have been very worried about me, didn’t worry about me as I sat next to them, that night. It isn’t that I am all better; I am far from it. But I am better. I feel human again.

For the past six months I have had a uniform, mostly because my normal clothing has not fit; Black leggings, a long tank and a sweater. This past week I branched out, wearing clothing in my closet that I have never touched before, trying new things, finding a new personal style. I wore a silk blazer with over the knee boots one night and a one piece, black lace jumpsuit the next.

The shift in me was never so palpable as it was yesterday, Sunday, as my family of four went to the mall.

This may seem like a mundane activity, but for us, it was a huge accomplishment for many reasons.

And not only did we go to the mall, but we went with no agenda. I had no timeline, nothing was off-limits. We let our kids create stuffed animals at Build-A-Bear and my husband and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes.

“Crying happy.”

We went shoe shopping for my daughter, and as both of my kids walked around, I pushed a stroller that contained one Rainbow Bunny and one Superman Bear.

My daughter said, “Mommy, it’s like we have three kids, but I’m the nicest one.”

I was reveling a bit in my new status as a human being, as we were getting ready to pay for my daughter’s shoes.

“Can I ask you a secret question?” My daughter leaned into me. “Is this the place with the popovers?”

“No,” I said. “That is Neiman Marcus, but if you want to go there, we can go there for a special, late lunch.”

I was able to go with the flow, something that has never been easy for me.

And then…

My son got lost.

My son got lost on the top floor of Nordstrom.

My son, who does not know how to effectively communicate, wandered off on a busy Sunday and was nowhere to be found. My husband ran to get security so that they would lockdown the store and I held my daughter’s hand as we searched and asked people if they had seen a little boy with strawberry blonde hair and glasses.

I consulted with all of the salespeople, and I did not feel anxious; I felt numb. I felt nothing.

In my head I thought, “Oh my god, someone kidnapped my son. What is going to happen to him? What are they going to do to him?” But I couldn’t really feel anything. I think that if I had felt, I would have crumbled, fallen off of the mountain to the very bottom.

I might not have survived.

After the scariest five minutes of our lives, an associate brought my son, his face formed into the saddest pout, into my arms.

I lost my son and was lucky enough to find him. And when my daughter asked if we could still go out for popovers, my husband and I both said that we could. We were shaken, obviously, but we could still function. We could keep going. We could keep living. We were human.

And so, the four of us sat down for our first meal out of 2015 (truly) and we toasted to our little family…over little mugs of chicken consomme.

And we toasted to the fact that it was the 9th anniversary of our first date.

And this little boy was his normal, happy self.

I had this feeling of pride as we left the mall yesterday, 4 hours after we had arrived, because we had done something that we hadn’t been able to do in years; We went out, without a plan, and actually enjoyed it.

Needless to say, I gave my kids extra hugs before bed last night, but I think that the crazy day brought my husband and I closer and that felt good.

This whole idea of being “human again” wasn’t something that I was able to articulate at the time, but today, when I thought about things, I realized that this transformation had occurred, subtly, but profoundly.

Today, I took care of my son, without childcare help, which, again, may seem like nothing to most people, but for me, it was an accomplishment. And, it was a joy.

So now, a day later, I feel a bit stronger. I feel like I have found my voice, with which I can advocate for myself. And I just watched my two kids dance to “Loving Cup” as my husband played the Exile on Mainstreet album through the speakers, filling the house.

Songs swirling in my head, emotions still being teased apart and understood, but all I know is that for the first time that I can remember, I feel human again.

And to feel human again is the greatest feeling,

as now I can keep climbing up my mountain, stronger, more skilled, and with a gratitude and an appreciation for the small things–

an unexpected field of wildflowers,

a break from the sun on a cloudy day,

a family sing-along–

and a-climbing I shall continue to go.

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Except, I wasn’t quite ready to get up, nor was I feeling my best, so I decided that while we were “up” we could snuggle on the couch watching music videos for a good hour before starting our real day.

I will share with you our playlist, but I have to say, it is going to seem painfully unoriginal, as I have recently written about most of these songs, but that’s how things work in our house (and, presumably in the house of anyone who has children; a song gets stuck and is everything until the next song comes and takes it’s place. There was a six month David Bowie streak during my pregnancy with my son–my daughter was obsessed–which means that I can no longer listen to “Starman” without feeling queasy).

So, our morning soundtrack sounded a little bit like this:

Uptown Funk, our go-to dance party song of the moment,

which led us, by way of Mark Ronson, to “Valerie” as it is a song I sing with my band, both acoustic and electric,

which took us to “Summer Nights”,

followed by “You’re the One that I Want”, both from Grease, which is still in her top two favorite musicals of the week;

I asked her if we could listen to “Somebody to Love” as it a) now has a special meaning to me and b) is an amazing song;

She was allowed to choose next, and picked this song, something she listens to with her dad on the way to school;

Then it was Elvis Costello’s “Oliver’s Army”, which I am shocked that I have not previously written about; I almost can’t believe it to the point that I am skeptical of the accuracy of my search function on this site. “Oliver’s Army” defined my family vacation car rides with my parents and sister. We both thought it was called “Oligazombie”.

Then, for my son, his favorite song (I’ll let you figure out the one about which I am referring; he is decidedly less fickle than my daughter. He finds a song and sticks to it).

And watching my kids dance, and watching them experience music, something that is so important to me, was the perfect way to start the day.

May your day be filled with a lot of funk, somebody to love, a minimal amount of lumps, no zombies and, of course, that bass.

By the way, the featured image for this post is a photo from about 25 years ago, when I first got into “Oligazombie”, Queen and Musical Theatre; Since it’s #tbt and all, I figured I’d go with it.

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1. I am not at all in touch with today’s current music scene. I know about Sia’s “Chandelier” because of an SNL skit sent to me by a friend, I have heard of only about half of the mainstream artists and know very little of their songs. I am exposed to some new music by being in the band, but that is primarily because some of my band members have elementary-school aged kids who are really into singers like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. I could not identify Iggy Azalea in a lineup. Judge as you will.

2. I am a firm believer in dancing it out.

Yesterday, we were all feeling a little blah, and I suggested a dance party to help the mood.

Dance parties are our thing.

My husband was not enthused. He actually said that he didn’t feel like it. So I obliged…

for about 45 seconds.

And then I grabbed the remote control to our big living room TV, the XBox1 controller and told my system to “Go to Music”.

Let me back up a few weeks. At Our New Year’s Eve party, one of our friends told me about his favorite new song, “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. He said that it was so fun that he listened to it on repeat 10 times while getting ready for the night out. He brought me into the Living Room to play it for me. And then, a few hours later, he and I did a choreographed dance to the song, trying to mimic the music video. I’m sure we were amazing.

In any case, since that night, it has become a really popular song in our house and in our circle. One of our best friends sent out a group text the next week, admitting to his obsession with the song. My husband has been playing it in his car. It’s just a catchy, fun, feel good song and Bruno Mars is so talented. His dancing! I think he performed the dance slightly better than we did, but I may just being hard on myself.

In any case, yesterday my husband was mopey and the kids were like this, so instead of leaning into the funk that everyone was in, I decided to, instead, go “Uptown Funk”.

You just kind of can’t not dance when this is on.

So my husband held my son in his arms and I swung my daughter around in mine, and we had a family dance party.

We danced it out.

And you know what?

It worked.

Because dance parties work.

And, ‘Cause Uptown Funk gon’ give it to you.

Hallelujah, indeed.

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