I wrote about how on Sunday we did things like Build Bears, eat popovers and lose our son in the mall for five minutes. I felt like a human again.

Well, let’s say that if Sunday was a hill day, yesterday was a valley.

But throughout the day today we climbed, each in our own way.

Since (how I mentioned previously) the other story is not my story to tell, I will tell you that while I woke up this morning not feeling great, I ended up feeling better and better as the day went on.

I danced with my son, all around his bedroom, to Ed Sheeran’s sick Grammy performance of “Thinking Out Loud” (featuring John Mayer, Herbie Hancock and Quest Love). We both felt so happy. I thought to myself, “Have I ever felt this happy before? Certainly I must have been happier than this little moment.” but I really was so filled with joy.

And then the best friend who made me an “aunt” texted to say that she was driving around, and asked if we would like company for an hour.

Yes!

So I got to see my little niecey and watch my son try to hug and kiss her, too shy to ever actually make contact.

And there were some other snapshots of tiny, wonderful moments (tasting an amazing date, fresh from Israel)

and some crappy moments (listening to my daughter cry because the ziplock bag that holds her little plastic My Little Pony dolls broke).

I was glad to just be able to chill with my husband, tonight, with some TV or a podcast. First, I would be able to catch up on my Bravo and E! shows while he went rock climbing.

And then, and yes, I am purposely being vague here, he got home and we held hands, as a team, and he had to face a source of stress in his life, and I made my intention, ahead of time, to not let myself become enraged.

I am an extremely calm person. Extremely. You would think that because I am so emotional and dramatic I would be having outbursts left and right, but I have raised my voice maybe a handful of times in the past decade. I never yell.

But, tonight, I failed at meeting my intention. The rage crept up inside of me, as a mixture of protectiveness and disgust, and I tried to just breathe through it.

Another thing I am is a lazy person. I don’t say this disparagingly. I am not lazy-minded, nor am I a lazy mother, but in general, I would rather be relaxing than running.

But after we dealt with the stressful situation, and I sat there, rage coursing through me, my husband told me that he had just heard a really cool new band on the radio. Saint Motel.

And he was excited about it, so I sat on the couch, under my blanket, the E! channel frozen on my living room TV, as he plugged the song “My Type” into our stereo.

And all of a sudden, almost instantly, I started to shake my head. It was super catchy!

We both sat for a minute, moving to the beat of the song, and then I realized, I wanted to dance.

“Do you want to dance?” I asked my husband.

“Sure!” he said.

We could dance it out.

And so we had a crazy dance party in our living room

and all of a sudden my rage evaporated.

I actually danced it out.

I think that this vignette would make for a better scene in a movie than it does for a blog post, as this story is more of a scattered diary entry than a moving call to action or personal confession,

but I think that’s OK. I give myself permission to share with you the fact that I had two dance parties today,

with my two main men,

and that they made me happy.

And, as so many of you have said, just take life day by day, sometimes even hour by hour, so that is what I am doing. And this hour is an hour to dance party.

So that I shall do.

And, because it needs to be said, I am absolutely no longer Marnie; after this past week’s episode of Girls I am, 100%, no going back, Jessa. She rocked my world this week.

See? This is totally a quirky diary entry.

Dear Diary,

Today I made up a few games with the baby and he ate two poptarts, a cheese omelette and a kale smoothie for breakfast. I also got to see my niece in one of my very favorite shirts that once belonged to my daughter. I got to hear praise about my husband and echo it.

I listened to Ben Stiller on Howard Stern and I found about this new band called Saint Motel.

I had the best date ever. Oh, and by date I mean the pitted kind, from Israel. It was outrageous.

I got angry, but then I danced it out.

XOXO Love Always,

Jessa

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Dearest Loves,

For someone who loves words, I am having trouble finding the right ones; this is the hardest love letter I have ever had to write.

I guess I shall start with “I love you”. I love you for caring about me and for supporting me, when I am fun to be around, and when I am a mess.

Some of you have held my hand at my darkest hours; There are some of you whom I have never met; Your presence in my life is my charm, which, as I have mentioned before, is probably my favorite word (in all parts of speech).

For years–during my postpartum, but even before that if I am really being honest–I have felt lonely, sometimes. I felt like an other. As my soul friend said to me recently, “We are each others’ other.” I felt as though I had more fears than other people, more anxieties, more insecurities, more failures, more doubts, and the list goes on. But because of you, my loves, I don’t feel that at all anymore. Not one little bit. I feel like I am a part of something, and that something is so beautiful and pure and good. And for so long, I wanted to be beautiful and pure and good. And your presence in my world is showing me that I deserve this love, even when I find it hard to believe.

Today, my daughter and I were cuddling on the couch in the basement, just talking as we stared at the beams of the unfinished ceiling, and she asked, “Mom, if I tell you something, will you give me a time out?” Never really a good intro, but I told her that she can always tell me anything. “I think you are really sweet because you never yell. Sometimes daddy yells, but I like it better because you don’t yell.”

“That is because I am someone who stays calm,” I explained to her, which is true. I don’t yell.

“Am I calm?” she asked.

“No,” I answered, honestly. “You get upset and when you do you cry and sometimes you scream when you cry and it is very loud and it hurts my ears.”

“Am I a cry baby?” she asked.

“No, you are not a cry baby. But you aren’t calm.”

“I have never seen you cry sad, mom. I have only seen you cry happy.”

Obviously, that is not true, as I am sure that in the past year she has seen me at very low points; but for some reason, the image that sticks with her is a happy one; she sees me as emotional, but also well.

And an enormous part of my wellness is because of you, dear loves. Your support, your empathy, your compassion, your generosity, your thoughtfulness, your kindness, your bravery, your companionship, your cheerleading…

You keep me going, even when I feel like everyone and everything else is trying to knock me down.

You see, life is life; it gets hard sometimes. But your presence also makes my life good. Fun. You make me laugh with silly posts and texts, you hold my hand while spilling secrets in bed, you let me squirt sriracha into a martini while we laugh so hard together that we can barely breathe.

When I experienced inpatient hospitalization and then, later, another serious treatment plan, I confided in you that I was worried about being able to keep it all going; my health, my duties at home and my blog.

And what did you do? You all offered to help. To bring my family meals. To write guest posts for me. And that is when one of you coined the term #teamMEA.

Mommy, Ever After is my third child, and you are like the amazing playgroup that I met because of having given birth to this baby; the kind of playgroup where the friends around you in the circle on the floor are your friends for life.

Jim Morrison said, “Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself – and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is.”

And that quote right there means a lot to me (and not just because I trekked through a hailstorm in Paris to visit his grave). As I have gotten older, I have learned the difference between true friendship and that which is not. And it’s OK to have acquaintances. They serve their purpose. It is better to have people to say “hello” to than a bunch of enemies.

But you, my loves, are not the latter. You are my true friends. You care about me and I care about you. You love me at my lowest. You lift me up when I feel most lost. You cheer for me the loudest.

So, what I am saying, loves, is that you’re stuck with me.

For your love, I will be eternally, endlessly grateful.

Because of your love, and a few feathers, I will be able to soar.

Love, always,

B

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And it’s funny, because some days that seemed really bad ended up turning out ok;

Then, on other days that started out so joyful, storm clouds moved in and things fell apart.

This week I learned that I was capable of strength that I did not know I had; I often see myself as so fragile, but I am not.

This week I learned that there are some people in our lives who are always going to disappoint us.

This week I learned that my people step up to the plate in ways I could never have imagined; I received help from people 16 months-85 years old; My tribe was there for us beyond belief and my new community has turned out to be so much more incredible than I could have ever imagined. #teamMEA.

Sundays are always hard. I think that’s a pretty universal thing–the Sunday Night Blues, we call them–

but today is a bit harder than other Sundays, as I have a big week ahead.

I have been running a very long marathon and this week I find out if I am able to cross the finish line.

Or not.

Today I saw a quote by C.S. Lewis on the Facebook Page of Italia Gandolfo of Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management, the agency by whom I am represented. I know that as a writer and person, C.S. Lewis is many things, but instead of getting involved in anything religious or political, I will remember him as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, books I read in elementary school, and that remind me to keep believing in the fantastic.

Because in times like this week, you can do all that you can, you can try your best, you can plan, you can work as hard as possible, you can run that marathon with all of your heart, but sometimes, more than anything, what you need is faith; just the ability to believe that success is possible.

And so I choose to believe that this past week brought me closer to my people; it has shown me what I am made of and made me feel more grateful than ever for the love that is in my life.

And as far as next week…I am not sure how it is going to go,

but I believe, with all of my heart

that there are better things ahead.

The post to believe appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

As we headed back for my test, my heart racing, my stomach turning, I admitted to the bubbly, kind tech that I am a bad combination: I am claustrophobic and a hypochondriac. She laughed, in a warm and kind way, and assured me that there was nothing to worry about. “I just have bad anxiety,” I told her, as I was putting my belongings into a locker by the MRI room.

We got into the room, she put a fresh sheet of tissue on the table and then she said, “Before you go in, I just have to tell you a story. Long story short…” and then went on, and I am not exaggerating, to tell me a ten minute story about how her son started to get weird neurological symptoms, including screaming fits, twitching, the inability to balance, sleep or brush his teeth and she was sure he had a brain tumor, being an MRI tech and all. AND, he also had anxiety. They took him to many hospitals and finally, through a special program, he was diagnosed with Encephalitis, the source of all of his symptoms. Including the anxiety. So basically, she spent ten minutes telling me why I should be more worried. I actually got a bit woozy at one point and sat down (there is only so much you can hear about the blood and brain) but when I finally got in the MRI machine I actually started to laugh. It was so ridiculous that I just had to laugh.

2. Speaking of my MRI, I had to take out my new ear piercing, just two days after I had it done, as there is no metal allowed. I tried to put it back in last night and it didn’t work well. So my husband re-pierced my ear. I feel like this might not have been a great idea.

3. Today, someone pointed to my son and asked, “Oh, so you’re the babysitter?” (Score!)

4. This week, I received the most incredible support from the most incredible friends, near and far. I felt very loved and for that I feel very blessed. I was able to ask questions, ask for help, tell seemingly endless and boring stories at times, and other times, I did not have to say anything at all.  #friendshipisthickerthanblood

Speaking of friends, this, the whole dress debacle that seemed to dominate the internet last night, caused me great anxiety. I asked my one bestie, the neuropsychologist, why our brains would make us see things so differently (she saw gold and white; her husband, my husband and I all saw blue and black). I tried to explain to her what white looks like to me: I said it is a light color, whereas black is a dark color, like the sky outside at nighttime. She asked me if I saw marshmallows as black; I asked my other bestie if this was a sign of the apocalypse. I was seriously scared. Thank gd she has a survival kit.

5. This morning felt like a mom-win.

I made three different breakfasts for three different dependents, because my one child does not eat strawberries or muffins and the other won’t eat blueberries or eggs.

and then there was this one. Have I mentioned that we hand make all of her meals?

Then, I packed a lunch and decided to write a note for my daughter that she could read by herself (because she’s really taking off in her reading and it is so cool!) So I tried to make it easy, and use a picture like they do in the BOB books.

Except, I can’t draw. My husband makes the most amazing lunch notes, but this morning it was on me.

Let me see if you can figure out what I was trying to convey with this masterpiece here:

Finally, my last moment of heart-exploding pride came when it came time for my daughter to leave for school.

I mean, the newsboy cap; the kiss; the chunky thighs; the love.

And those are a handful of things that are on my mind.

So, what color did you see?

(Just kidding. I do NOT want to know.)

The post A handful of things appeared first on Mommy Ever After.

If you check out my about me page, you will see that I have a literary agent who is working to shop my book to publishers.

I wrote the original proposal back in May; I was in a different place and a different state of mind and a different phase as a writer. I actually re-wrote my proposal recently (or, more accurately, edited it heavily) so that it would read more like a narrative as opposed to blog posts being slapped together.

And do you know what is so nice? All of you who have asked me to “Please write a book!” and have told me “I can’t wait to read any book you write!” That is so flattering and touching and I promise that if I do get a chance to publish the book I am envisioning, it will not just be “Mommy, Ever After” with 900 blog posts that you’ve already read, crammed together to make it look like a story. I have new things to say. Trust me. So many new things.

In any case, as I mentioned before, the book structure in my proposal is in 3 distinct parts:

“A Happy Story”, “A Hard Story” and then, finally, “A Hopeful Story”.

Under those broad sections, I wrote some sample chapters and outlined others. Under “A Hopeful Story” the phrase I used to describe my relationship with my friends is “The Power of Friendship”. It seems kind of trite now, so I may have to do some more editing, but the message that I was trying to convey has only solidified and strengthened in my mind since I first outlined that chapter.

The development and tightening of my friendships was probably the most defining part of last year (when talking about things happy and hopeful, that is). I say this all the time, it should become my tag line, but my friends have become my family. I end text messages to my girls, saying “#friendshipisthickerthanblood”. But I really mean it. I can’t even begin to tell you all of the things that my friends did for me last year; from childcare support to emotional support, gifts and care packages, company and companionship, and gentle hugs when I was suffering and tough love when I needed it most.

But, I think that to better illustrates just how great “The Power of Friendship” is to me, I should just talk about one, single day. How about today?

Today was supposed to be a special day; J‘s dear college friend who subsequently became my dear friend, had planned a trip to visit us. We were all so excited.

I woke up this morning, late, feeling sick. My nose was stuffed, my head was pounding and I felt nauseated (an odd combination of symptoms). It may have something to do with my ear infection. In any case, I could no longer keep our fun day of activities and plans.

So here is what happened instead:

Our friend still came to town and both girls got to my house this morning just after nap time. And since that time, I have barely lifted a finger. They have taken care of my children, gotten me matzoh ball soup from the deli, picked up my prescription drugs from the pharmacy and taken my daughter out on a special date. Imagine, a friend from out of town, coming all the way from another state, just to take care of a sick friend and her two little kids. But it is her joy. That is the thing. This is actually funny; as I am typing this she just emailed me (as my phone went kaput last night) to show me a photo of my daughter and I thanked her and this was her exact reply. And I quote: “For what?? Literally for nothing. You don’t know how much this is making me happy.” What did I ever do to deserve this kind of kindness?

And that is just ONE example of friendship today. I woke up this morning to an amazing email from one of my new and most cherished friends who feels like she has been my friend forever. It said this:

“Anthem of 2015?
“One day at a time…sun gone shine” “

And included this song link.

This woman is a busy mother, has a tremendous amount on her plate, but took the time to think of me and send me some happy inspiration. What did I ever do to deserve this kind of thoughtfulness?

Finally, Twin had forwarded me a beautiful article about affirmations and it is such an interesting perspective and makes me want to try it (it is from a site called Daily Om) and in her email she wrote to me about how much she loves me. What did I ever do to deserve this kind of love?

And these are just a few examples and the sun hasn’t even set.

So much defined 2014, but I am slowly starting to let the good outweigh the bad. There was a time I thought that it was impossible. Then, there was a time when I was terrified to try to improve.

But now, I want to be better. Because look at all that I have to live for.

So for now, keep your fingers crossed for me that this illness is short-lived, that my book finds a publishing house that is the perfect fit and that my friends always, always know how much I treasure every little thing about every little thing.

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