The door to our balcony is locked from the outside because the exterior of our building is being renovated. And while I’ve been a little peeved to be missing out on the gorgeous views that prompted us to buy our condo, today I didn’t mind being confined. The blue hue cast into our living space reflected how I’ve been feeling the past few days, here by my lonesome.
I’m pooped. As I told John the other day, I don’t have words to explain how even my knuckles are tired.
We’re 8 weeks into our nomadic experiment, and it’s as I expected: exhilarating and exhausting.
In that time we’ve accrued airline miles and/or hotel points in Barcelona, Girona, Marbella (twice), Marrakech, Paris, Loire Valley, London (more than twice), Napa Valley, Phoenix, and Miami. And in that time we’ve gotten to squeeze all 3 of our kiddos and a bunch of our bestest friends, which has made every stop worth every second.
We’ve also learned our need for improved packing skills for extended excursions in multiple climates.
I woke up this morning to John calling me with the recap of his weekend in London with Holly. I know how much they wished I’d been there; they FaceTimed me, at length, twice yesterday to keep keep me close and relay every moment. I felt how much they wished I was with them. And, yeah, it would’ve been great to be there. But in the end I’m happy that I wasn’t. Those two made core memories that wouldn’t be the same if Mom had been present as usual.
And, I realize, I needed the break. Getting on a plane every few days is exciting. I’m ever grateful for the privilege to be able to do so. But it’s demanding on this gal’s body and soul.
Maybe this weekend wasn’t my favorite, maybe I felt a little lonely, maybe I felt a little blue. But it was just what I needed.
Plus, these knuckles need to limber up. They’ve got to get ready to pack for what’s coming next.
This week marks a decade since we boarded a nighttime flight in our home country and landed as expats as the sun rose in another.
January 2014 at Chicago O’Hare Airport
“How time flies,” one might say! To which I would reply, “Hang on, not so fast.”
Four moves. Seven graduation ceremonies (eight before this year is over). Countless travels.
Two of us became Brits, three didn’t but earned their forever right to live and work in the U.K. One kid landed in Chicago via Indiana and Colorado. Another in New York via Boston. And time will tell if the kid who stayed in England ever leaves.
We’ve acquired two more places to do laundry in locations that we would have probably never thought much about had necessity not taken us there.
We lost two dogs and gained a turtle.
Some of us got bigger, some of us got smaller. Each is stronger in spots, worn in others.
This life is full of adventure, full of opportunities to learn and love and EAT. If you’ve been an expat you know how special it is. And you also know how trying and complicated and lonely it can be for each family member at any given moment. It’s beautiful. But it’s hard.
I am forever proud of this little crew of mine, then and now and every moment in between.
Get ready for the next ten, kids. The ride’s just begun.
It’s been a few days since the kids left. John and I are back to empty nester life. It was just as odd going to the store this afternoon and only picking up a single bag of salad greens as it was two weeks ago when I remembered that three bags barely cover dinner when the whole family is home and tossed a fourth into the cart just to be safe. It was a magical two weeks having a house full of kids and their friends, full of dinners on the deck and late night movies on the patio and flip flops strewn throughout. We already miss the sounds coming from the backyard, of dice hitting the plastic folding table during heated games of Snappa and of 20-somethings cannonballing into the pool. As usual, we discovered new music from the kids’ Spotify playlists to add to our own; our songs get pretty stale when the guys aren’t around to show us what’s up. The 1,000 piece puzzle that was left on the coffee table on Sunday afternoon has yet to be completed. It’s a little slower going now that only two of us are left to work on it.
Are we sad that our house is quiet again? Not really. We still have a number of days to enjoy the peace and beauty of late summer. I don’t have to worry about attending back to school open houses, filling out endless health forms, buying cases of Clorox wipes for the kids’ classrooms. I can go for a walk or take an exercise class instead of sitting in school traffic. We’re headed to a fancy restaurant tonight (a Thursday!), because we can.
But do we adore this freedom to do anything we want, where and whenever we want? Yeah, also not so much. We’ve had some great adventures, just the two of us, weekend getaways and day trips to places we were too busy to see before, but on most weekends our biggest excitement is deciding what to have for dinner and shopping for the ingredients. Which is, let’s face it, not entirely exciting. And while I’m the lucky recipient of John’s mean grilling skills, no chicken wing will ever compare to cheering our kid from the sideline at a Saturday morning game. Planning missions on our own is still a work in progress; a few months ago we spent an entire day scouring London hardware stores for a soft-close toilet seat. Woohoo?
No, this empty nest thing isn’t the absolute BEST, nor is it utterly DEVASTATING, as parenting forums and social media would have us all believe. For us, it’s just been, well, kind of weird. But not just weird. Empty nesting can better be described by what our family of five refers to as Eleven Presents Weird.
Let me explain…
Eleven Presents Weird is a different category from “just” weird. It was unknowingly coined by our nephew when he was six. He had just unwrapped his gifts from our extended family’s Christmas morning celebration, and, surveying his loot, he turned to our oldest son Tommy (twenty at the time) with a casual observation:
“Hey. I just noticed something kinda weird. I got eleven presents.”
slight pause to ponder
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that’s bad. Or good. It’s just weird.”
Tommy was tickled by his sweet cousin’s assessment, but had had to agree. The kid had a point. Eleven presents is kind of weird if you think about it. Ten presents would have been a totally logical haul. A round, predictable number, generous but not over the top. Even twelve gifts, a clean dozen, would have made sense. But eleven presents? What the heck was that? Had someone slipped him a bonus gift? Had one gotten lost and was still hiding somewhere under the Christmas tree? He didn’t feel lucky nor slighted, no, it wasn’t that. It was just…weird. That’s all.
THIS…is empty nesting.
Even two years since our last kiddo flew the coop, I often rush home on autopilot in the afternoon greet a child who isn’t on the way back. But then I walk into a quiet house with no one needing me and hey, guess who gets a bonus nap?
We no longer have lacrosse, baseball, or theatre performances getting us up and moving on the weekends, but as John and I wander about in search of dinner fixings or housewares, if we happen to come across a cute café or quaint pub we don’t need to hesitate if it suits our fancy to walk in and sit down. We discovered one of our favorite restaurants a couple of years ago when we had woken up and plotted a long walk that would take us through the design district. We could work out AND find a bookcase for John’s office! After well beyond 10,000 steps we confirmed that most of the furniture stores were closed, but a Mexican joint on the way home had an open door and a smiling hostess. Bookcase, schmookcase; a bottle of wine and a couple of ceviches later, we’ve been regulars at the restaurant ever since.
John and I soaked up and enjoyed every moment with our kids over the brief time we were together. We loved the sense of purpose brought by waking up to a full house. We loved cooking big family dinners, hitting the beach to swim to the buoy and back, and the mounds of dishes and sandy floors that were left by it all at the end of the day. Funny how less annoying those things are when they’re no longer part of your daily life. But we’ll be together soon enough for the holidays and will do it all over again. It’s not like we’re completely aimless with the kids gone; we’ve got a puzzle to finish, after all. And we’ve also got sunsets to watch, more local towns to explore, and we have yet to find that perfect bookcase. Maybe our measurements are too specific or maybe we’re too choosy or maybe we’ve simply been putting it off for a day we need something to do.
Weird agenda? Totally. Even after two years, we’re still figuring out how we want to use the time that was occupied by our kids for so long.
But we’re appreciating the gifts along the way. Even if they always add up to Eleven.
When I made the late-night post on social media, I assumed that a few people might see it, find it amusing, and then move on. I thought about, and even started a few updates over the past few months, but each time I began writing, I kept thinking “who cares?” and dumped the details. Well, apparently, “who cares” is a lot more people than I assumed. Pretty much every conversation I have starts with:
“WHAT ABOUT THE TURTLE???”
For those who didn’t see my post about the turtle that was gifted to us, here’s a recap: On a Thursday afternoon in mid-November, I was out when our housekeepers showed up for their weekly visit. As I was en-route home in the early evening, I received a text that they had left me a gift they hoped I’d like, but if I didn’t no problem; they’d collect it when they came the following week. And sure enough, I arrived home to a sparkling clean house and a tiny turtle, the size of a small sandwich bun, peering out from a bright green bucket in our foyer.
My post closed with a picture of the makeshift “tank” I’d hastily concocted out of a plastic storage bin, some decorative rocks from our yard, water from our garden hose, and a “wish-me-luck” sign-off for later that night when John would call from London and I’d break the news about a houseguest who would spend at least the next seven days at Casa Priest.
So. Finally. Due to demand that I didn’t know was popular…A Turtle Update:
1 HOUR AFTER MY TURTLE POST:
John called, and his reaction was 100% exactly as I (or anyone who has met my husband for even five seconds) expected: sheer rage. Turtles can live up to a hundred and fifty years, and why would someone unilaterally lay such a huge responsibility on us? The highlight of our midnight conversation included this gem:
“Jesus, Hillary. How the f**k am I supposed to know if our house is f**king turtle-proof?”
DAY 1:
Also not a shock to anyone who has met my husband: John called back early the next morning to wonder if turtles are solitary creatures or perhaps should I be looking into finding this one a friend? Furthermore, his extensive late-night Google research on pond turtle habitats had him re-thinking that maybe the one I’d concocted should be revamped. I couldn’t have been more grateful for his help; I’d also spent the night doing the same searches and finally fell asleep around 3am, deflated. I scoured the pictures he’d downloaded and tried to recreate a suitable turtle Airbnb to get us through the next 6 days.
Throughout the day I added, subtracted, and shifted the garden rocks enough times that when I heard the crack, just around bedtime, I wasn’t as surprised as the poor turtle was when the water slowly drained out of the cheap plastic bin.
Exhausted from the night before and without a better option, I put the turtle in our yard. I mean, heck, it had been on its own before coming to us and would survive until I could figure this out. But. For the love. On Day One I lost the turtle. Who knew being a Turtle Mom was so hard?
DAY 2:
Of course I didn’t know that I was a Turtle Mom until one appeared in our foyer. I reached out to the cleaner who had left it there to tell her I’d already failed. She assured me that the turtle should be fine in our garden, and also gave me…
THE BACK STORY:
Our favorite housekeeper Dounia was driving to work on the careterra, aka the highway, when she saw the scone-shaped shell attempting to cross the road during morning rush hour. Being a Turtle Mom herself to a 17 year old shell baby, she threw her car into park and jumped into the middle of the highway traffic, waving her arms and yelling at the drivers behind her to STOP! As the queue of cars piled up, so did the curse words, colorful hand gestures, and blaring horns, until Dounia plucked the tiny turtle from the pavement, lifted the small shell over her head, turned towards the angry commuters and presented it to the protestors “Lion King” style. Just like that: the curses turned into cheers, the blaring horns into applause, road rage into a celebration of The Circle of Life.
Turns out people in the Costa del Sol have a thing for turtles. But more on that later…
(Back to Day 2):
That morning I had a glimmer of redemption when the turtle appeared on our driveway, by our front gate. One could argue that it was trying to escape, as it was wedged against the sliver of space between the gate and the pavement. But I also happened to note that there was no way the turtle could fit through, and, upon further investigation, that it is the only part of our property that isn’t sealed off to the outside world. Well, well, well. Might our house actually be f**king turtle-proof? Promising my little friend that I’d never lose it again, I popped it back into the green bucket and beelined to the pet store for help.
And, to my surprise, the help – even on a Saturday – was, in fact, refreshingly helpful. As the weekend store manager rang up the reptile tank, I showed him pictures from my phone to make sure I was making the right purchase. He assured me that I was, and from the photos, revealed that our turtle is “una ama” who is about six or seven years old.
“Wait…It’s a GIRL???“
The store manager smiled and nodded as he handed the phone back. My daughter Holly echoed my thoughts perfectly when I texted her the news from the Uber on my way home:
“I don’t know why but this makes me love her more.”
(She also demanded that I immediately put a bow on her, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t also the second thought that popped in my head.)
And, speaking of my Uber trip, during our requisite small talk I explained to the driver why I’d just loaded a giant aquarium in her trunk. To which she mused that when sea bass is on her family’s dinner menu, she always buys a little extra to share with their turtle. I got out of her car, thanked her for the advice, and marvelled at how fortunate I was to have been paired with a turtle owner for my ride.
DAYS 3& 4:
The turtle and I got into a routine I devised with advice from the three turtle social media groups I’d joined (of course I did) and Dr. Google. We had Tank Time in the water and supervised Garden Time to “bask” in the sun, as all the while I presented her with my best dining options. Baby kale. Fuji apple. Red lettuce. Baby bok choy. Dried mealworms. Raw shrimp. And of course raw sea bass in a shout-out to my Uber driver. John arrived home from his business trip to the most freshly stocked fridge he’s seen, possibly in entirety of our marriage. And promptly had me ripping the two skewered prawns I’d cooked the night before out of his hand. Until we could get her to eat, I informed, he was to assume everything was for the turtle.
With John finally home, once again as predicted, it took zero time for his Zero Turtle Tolerance stance to flip. I couldn’t bring myself to be as angry as I’d normally be when he pulled me to the front door during my sacred Zoom exercise class to present the turtle’s feat: She had climbed over a curb in our driveway. Now, one could once again argue that she was trying to escape as she was headed towards that little space under our gate. Instead I hoped that she was basking in adulation because I’m pretty sure I’ve only ever seen John that proud when the kids learned how to ride a bike or do long division.
An Athletic Turtle, a Proud Papa and a F**cking Turtle-Proofed Gate
Later that day I took advantage of John being home and put him on Turtle Duty while I went to the DIY garden store to look at a better solution for a water source. Even if we only had a few days to go, Helicopter Parenting was draining.
And, had it been in stock, I would have come home with the pre-fabricated, in-ground pond that the Garden Center Guy showed me from their outdoor water feature range and, of which, he joked that his turtle would be jealous. I left empty-handed but with a list of dimensions, which would bewilder John when I came home. As he pointed out, that said pond would cover the better part of a corner of our backyard.
To be fair, that back quadrant isn’t particularly pretty, nor are we using it for anything else. But what bewildered me was the burning question: Does everyone in southern Spain have a turtle?
DAY 5:
David the gardener showed up. I asked him to be careful with the his electric lawn tools, but he already knew to look out for a minuscule turtle. He and the housekeepers work for the same property management company, and he was there when Dounia had come into work, shaken and frazzled, after her heroic rescue. And he was also there when Dounia pondered where to take the turtle, as she couldn’t take on another. And he’d agreed with the whole team that Casa Priest was the right call. They’d all witnessed our grief when we lost our two beloved doggies last summer and thought that we’d appreciate another four-legged friend. They they also know that we’re animal lovers. And, let’s be honest, therefore suckers.
I asked David his opinion on whether he thought the turtle would be safe and happy at our home, especially since we aren’t in Spain full-time. He echoed Dounia that absolutely, our property is fit for a turtle. Cool, I said, and took him to the back corner of our yard to ask how skilled he is at installing prefab ponds.
David glanced at the reptile tank and cautioned me that it had been turtle hibernating season for at least a couple of weeks. This one didn’t want swim sessions or my baby bok choy. She needed a spot against our garden wall to bury herself for the next few months. In the spring we could talk about turtle garden protocol and water features. But now we needed to do what we two new empty nesters are still obviously finding hard. We needed to let go.
DAY 6:
The turtle showed up in the late morning in the backyard.
Our builder, Oscar, had just arrived to discuss some work he’d been doing on our upper terrace. From our bird’s eye view, I pointed out the turtle as she meandered across the driveway. And as Oscar described to John how he uses a cat litter box to create a “pond” for his turtle, I watched the little shell lumber into the grass. I joined the conversation for only a split second, but when I turned my gaze back to the yard the turtle had already disappeared.
DAY 7:
Thursday. The day that the cleaners had promised to take the turtle back if we didn’t want to keep it.
Except there was no turtle to take, even if we wanted them to.
Dounia had a thorough look around our property, confident that she knows how to detect secret spots that a turtle might find appealing for an extended snooze. She looked around and under each shrub and tree in the garden, careful not to disturb any of the foliage that the turtle may hide under, yet found nothing.
She agreed; the turtle had accomplished what she’d been trying to do since she ventured out onto the careterra the week before; she had shed her hovering hosts and could finally hibernate.
THE NEXT 4 MONTHS
We’ve known for the five years we’ve been in the Costa del Sol that turtles hibernate. Each year we mourn when they disappear when it gets cold and celebrate when they emerge sometime in the spring. Every time we walk into to town, we stop on the bridge over the Rio Verde to play “Spot the Shells.” The thrill of seeing our turtle friends appear like magic when the weather gets warm never fails to make us as giddy as if we were catching a glimpse of Antonio Banderas on the paseo.
But, being responsible for a turtle is a whole different game. Our turtle was hibernating (or at least we hoped), yet we didn’t know where she was, if she was safe, or if she would ever come back. I found myself in an unforeseen predicament: Who knew that when you’re missing a turtle, everything looks like a turtle?
Where you might see dead leaves, dirt, and rocks under our hedge…
…I see at least ten possible turtles milling outside our kitchen window.
My heart skipped when I was running errands in town and thought I almost stepped on a turtle…
…until I looked up and saw the funky podlike leaves falling from a tree above.
The day before we were headed away for the holidays, I left home in the pouring rain to attend my women’s group Christmas party. I returned after the storm had cleared to find nothing other than our little miss in the driveway.
I dropped my purse and ran across the driveway as fast, or at least fast as one can in high heels. I told the turtle that I was happy to see her and that I had been worried about her. I told her how strong and healthy she looked, but shouldn’t she still be sleeping?
I texted the picture to Dounia for advice, and, once again she told me not to worry. She said that sometimes big storms briefly bring turtles out of hibernation; she would soon go back to her long nap.
I knelt down and thanked the turtle for stopping by to tell me that she was okay and that I needn’t worry about her while we were gone. It was the only holiday greeting I needed.
I figured we wouldn’t see any signs of our shelled gal when we returned to Spain in February, to the disappointment of friends who were hoping for a little turtle gossip. As John kept reminding everyone, a turtle cameo would be a bad thing this time of year. But after poking fun at me for doing a “turtle scan” every time I peered out of a window or walked through the yard, knowing that there shouldn’t be anything to see, he came clean and admitted that of course he had been doing the same.
MONDAY:
My expectation was equally low when we arrived again last week to low temperatures. March is unpredictable in southern Spain. My local friend put it best last year when I told her I’d be staying the entire month: “Why on earth would you do that? March in Marbella is crap!”
Which is why John forgave me when I let out one of those gasps that at first startles and then infuriates him, the terrible noise that I make inadvertently when it suddenly dawns on me that I’ve missed an appointment or discover a black sock lurking in a load of white shirts after they’ve gone through the wash. This time, when he came running into the foyer and saw me scrambling to get out of the door that the nasty weather had made me avoid all day, he knew immediately what was going on. Our green girl had to be back.
Her neck was outstretched towards the sky, her teeny face taking in the light rain that had just prevailed over the downpour moments before. John watched me race out to welcome her, then race back in to get her snacks, at first shaking his head but then joining me for a selfie.
We figured that she’d just come out because of the storm and would go back to her comfy spot as she did in December. Still, I ventured out to the store in the drizzle to pick up a head of red leaf lettuce. You know, just in case.
WEDNESDAY:
David the gardener motioned me outside. I assumed he wanted to talk about the sprinkler I thought might be broken, but he led me to the other side of the yard and to a pet carrier base I’d left out in December. I’d picked it up when I decided to take Oscar the builder’s advice but was wary that the climb up a ramp to a cat litter box seemed too steep for a mini turtle. A small pet carrier might be a gentler slope with the piece of tile I’d excavated from an old pile of materials I’d found from when our house was built, but it had been sitting in the yard getting murky and, we thought, unwelcoming with collected rain water and leaves. Just the day before John and I had agreed that it was a lousy substitute and would be banished to the basement alongside the reptile tank. But now there she was, peeking out under the red lettuce I’d laid in the grass but which David moved to the carrier when he found her lounging in it. It turns out that turtles like to eat in water. He’s had his two turtles for six years; he would know. I feel terrible that we’ve been doing it all wrong, offering her food on the ground. But it also turns out that I did something right and my “pond” contraption isn’t lousy at all; in fact it’s just good enough. Our home is totally f**ing turtle proof after all.
David told me that everyone at his company refers to the turtle in our garden as “Suerte”, or “Luck[y]” because of her unbelievable fortune to have survived the careterra. I love how much they all love her and look forward to checking on the critter they brought into our lives every week. I admitted that I’ve been contemplating a proper but ridiculously long Spanish name for such a tiny creature, as in Maria Esmeralda Rosalita de la Concha (and whatever nickname comes of it), which has been my front runner. This unstoppable little thing will have an official name someday; one that reflects how she’s captured hearts and created a crew of people who are committed to making sure she has the best life a turtle can have. Starting with the prefab pond which will arrive next week.
TODAY:
Another Thursday; another Cleaning Day.
I couldn’t wait to tell Flores, another member of the team, about the two turtle encounters we’ve had this week. And she couldn’t wait to show me how to coax a third.
I pointed to the side of the yard that I’ve always seen the turtle, but Flores shook her head, went to the opposite side, and started rummaging through the plants. She let out a familiar gasp that sounded just like mine. “HOLA, PRECIOSA!“
I guess the exhilaration of spotting a shell doesn’t just happen to us newcomers to southern Spain. It’s part of the culture of the Costa del Sol. Which, as our new little friend has taught us, is why YES, it’s true. Pretty much everyone in our community has a tortuga story.
Caught in this candid moment, not long after the catamaran that had waited for two years to sail our family around the islands for a week left the port of Athens, I can still vividly feel all of the emotions churning underneath what appeared as an otherwise placid pose. The deep sadness, the gratitude, the finality, the strange newness of my world which had been rocked for the umpteenth time in the last year sloshed about inside my body and occasionally escaped out of it throughout the afternoon. It was hard to tell if I was tasting salt from the sea or my tears.
The night before, just hours after we had landed in Greece, we received the news from our beloved pet sitter that our eleven year old English bulldog had died in her arms at the emergency vet. Just three weeks and a day before, her fifteen year old “sister”, our standard poodle, had died in my arms at home on our back terrace. The bully, unlike her sister, had been relatively healthy by all accounts for a dog her age; in the end none of us could have gauged her will to live without her sissy. That’s a bulldog for you: stubborn and in charge, down to the last broken heartbeat. We knew that this day was imminent although we didn’t anticipate losing our four-legged girls in such rapid succession. But here we were.
I was thinking about moving our two-legged daughter into her new, off-campus house, two weeks from that day, to begin her second year of university, and how I would miss simply having her around as we did for much of the summer.
I was missing our middle son who was unable to be with us as planned because he had just moved to New York to start a dream job that he had landed weeks before and couldn’t yet ask for vacation days.
Our oldest son was with us because he’s worked long enough at his company to have earned vacation time. And while I was grateful to have six days left on the boat to hug him before his return to Chicago, I knew there were only six days before I had to say goodbye.
And amidst all of the beauty and devastation and gratitude and love surrounding me, in this moment I was also overwhelmed by my sheer luck for the opportunity to see and to feel it all. Everything had been such a whirlwind for over a year, and I finally had space to think about me. And how dang fortunate I am to not be dead. Literally.
It was one year ago that I spent all of 9/11 (and five hours of the 10th but who’s counting?), reading memorials and tributes, sat in a metal chair at the Accident and Emergency department in England’s East Midlands. (I will get into more of what happened at another time, not to call attention to my version of “Near-Death in Nottingham”, but because I learned some valuable things during my ordeal there.) Look, I knew I wasn’t in great shape when the surgeon finally removed my disintegrating appendix twenty seven hours after it burst, and even though I had faith that everything would turn out just fine, I was still flat-out surprised when I actually woke up from that operation. And, after a year of wading through complications, resting, and rebuilding, I think every day of how darn lucky I am to still be puttering about.
So here I was caught on camera by my daughter, as we embarked on an actual journey, but at the same moment, captured as I reflected on both the weight of the past months and the freedom of my next. My nest is legit friggin’ bare. As is my “next” also – all of the sudden – completely empty. It’s the first time in over 25 years that I haven’t had a life, human or four-legged, dependent on me in the day to day. (Well, John needs me around for my excellent laundry folding skills and my super-secret jalfrezi recipe that is only super-secret because I don’t measure any ingredients other than “that looks about right” to create what he thinks is utter magic, but if things had gone differently in Nottingham I’m certain that he’d probably still be smartly dressed and well fed without me.)
We saw in 2001 and have seen in the years and even days since how instantly life can change. Mine has, in a bunch of bumps and detours that my path has taken over the past year. Today, I reflect on the broader world and my own little one from, thankfully, safety and health. My heart still hurts but my body is strong and my head is getting there too, albeit a little more slowly. It’s learning to take in all that has happened, and ready to take on everything to come…Next.
John is in the city for a few hours, Holly is away until tomorrow, and I’m home getting chores chored. A few minutes ago as I was scouring a toilet, I found myself inadvertently reciting a poem to the beat of the brush scrubs:
“I had a little tea party, this afternoon at three. ‘Twas very small, three guests in all, just I, Myself, and Me. Myself ate all the sandwiches, And I drank all the tea. ‘Twas also I who ate the pie and passed the cake to Me.”
I remember my mom reading this when I was small, from the big grey storybook that once belonged to my great grandfather. And I remember memorizing it, reciting it, and even painstakingly writing it by hand on a piece of embossed stationery with my fancy black pen. That piece of paper remained pinned to the cork board in my room through my teens.
And as I was just now scrubbing away, it dawned on me that it wasn’t odd or ironic that this poem had popped into my head. This is literally the first time in over 14 months that I have been in the house alone. And while having John at home every day has been surprisingly wonderful for our marriage and having an extra year with Holly under the roof has been an unexpected gift, I’ve just realized that I don’t only appreciate, but NEED moments of solitude. As much as I live and breathe for my family, I get energy and strength from alone time too. And, I recognized that if this poem was my mantra at age 6, I guess I’ve always been this way. This is just plain who I am.
So you know what I did? I put down the scrubbing brush. I made myself a latté, walked past the pile of unfolded laundry sitting on the counter, and marched straight to the back patio. Where there’s not a single other person in sight. It’s just me. The only sounds I can hear right now are of birds singing and of my bulldog gently snoring by my side.
It may not quite be three, and this may not quite be tea. But John doesn’t come home for a little while longer and I won’t get to hug Holly until tomorrow, so I’m taking a few moments to give some love and energy to the family I’ve ignored too much this past year. Hey there. How’ve y’all been, I, Myself, and Me?
I was on track to knocking out my list with my usual, surgical precision. Get in, get out is my motto when it comes to grocery shopping. All I had left to do was grab some broccoli, pay, and be on my merry way. I speed-walked to the produce aisle, gloating at my expert ability to maintain a swift stride and safe social distance as I weaved around the other shoppers. Nothing was going to stop this mom on a mission! Except. Just as those green florets were almost within my reach, a deafening shriek pierced the air and stopped me dead in my tracks. The distress call quickly morphed into steady wail. The other shoppers paused briefly, but then resumed their browsing. Really? Maybe they were ambivalent, but this was my call to action. I simply had to find the origin of these screams. Not because I was overcome with a sense of heroism. No amount of assistance or sympathy was going to help this situation. I knew as well as the other shoppers that the true victim of this scene wasn’t even the being from whom this odious noise was emanating. I just couldn’t leave the store without catching at least one gratuitous glimpse of what every shopper in there knew to be a wretched soul. Maybe that soul was being denied a treat. Maybe it was just one nap shy of being a decent human being. But there was clearly a “Terrible Two” somewhere amidst the aisles throwing an epic tantrum. And I couldn’t help myself but to catch a peek of that woeful creature.
Without thinking I spun on my heels to wind my way back through the aisles, which was no easy feat with the one-way traffic system we have to follow in stores these days. I let the screams guide me; at first it seemed they were a few aisles over, then perhaps in the next one, then farther away again as the culprit was also on the move. After a good five minutes of stealth tracking, I turned a corner and there she was: the droning devil and her poor, stressed, exhausted shell of a mother who was pleading with her spawn to PLEASE. JUST. STOP. And, it was just as I suspected. That little lass behind the horrific hollering was precisely the cherub I knew I’d find. Her tiny lips may have been spewing vileness, but those furious rosebuds were still perfectly plump. I wanted to loop my fingers in the beautiful blonde curls of her pigtails. I could almost smell the sweet baby sweat on the back of her angry little neck. I looked at her frazzled mother, the true victim of this audible assault, and tried to show her with my eyes that I was offering her a caring smile underneath my mask. And that I understood how miserable it is to shop with a toddler in tow. And that I was, whether she believed it or not, more than sympathetic. I was in fact enormously jealous. Apparently I never made it back to the produce section, because when I finally made it home, I realized the broccoli wasn’t the only thing I was missing. I was missing being called “Mommy”.
Not that I don’t remember the trauma and humiliation of being that mom behind the tantrum. I still feel the guilt and shame of turning over a half-full, unpaid-for grocery cart to the customer service desk at Target because my protesting, purple-faced 2 year old was simultaneously attempting to fling his body out of the red bucket seat and strangle himself on the vinyl restraints; I had no choice but to extract him before he hurt himself or another shopper (and, let’s be honest, before I wrung his neck). Nor will I ever forget the horror of an entire grocery display shattering to the ground in what seemed like slow motion when that same toddler, a couple of years later, took control (I use that term loosely) of the trolley and pushed it head-on into a 4 foot pyramid of “Classic” Coke bottles. I can tell you that definitely wasn’t one of my most “classic” moments. And I still recall like it was yesterday the times that:
the 2 year old wasn’t allowed to hold the newborn by himself,
the Sassy Pants wasn’t allowed to have my camera,
that potty training just plain sucks,
and all the times everything went to complete hell…
…in a toy basket.
Funny family folklore isn’t made in the easy moments. Being a parent is hard, man. You don’t forget the tantrums. Nor the sleepless nights, the early mornings, the showerless days, the constant exhaustion. Let alone the poop theme that runs throughout every moment of every day for years. But those little stinkers truly are only small for a short time, as every seasoned parent in the history of the world can (and loves to) tell every new mom and dad who doesn’t need to hear it when they’re living in bedlam. I remember how exasperating it was to hear, “You have your hands full now, but remember this time because you’ll miss it!” when trying to load 3 screaming, squirming kids into a car. And now all of the sudden I’m the Boomer who who’s totally thinking it, even if I’m not saying it out loud.
Back in the day I would notice other moms as I drove past the local school drop off. Their kids got out of the car on their own. They could walk into the school by themselves. Some of them could even zip their own coats and tie their own shoes! And, I’d look back at my helpless brood strapped in their car seats and think, “That’s actually never going to be me.” Until that day the last of my babies strolled into first grade by herself and that was me. And then those babies whipped through grade school, middle school, high school, college. Until, one day not long ago, my oldest “baby” called us after receiving his first paycheck for his new grown-up job to commiserate about adult stuff like taxes and insurance. It really did happen too fast, after all.
And now, here we are. I’m stalking toddlers in grocery stores.
Just at the time we’re supposed to be excited to have the house to ourselves, for the freedom and promise of an empty nest, for the ability to move and live as we please and not have to scramble to find a babysitter to do so, John and I find ourselves stopping to admire a new walker stumbling like a drunken sailor, giggling at a grade schooler whistling an endless story through a toothless mug to his patient dad, and sharing an amused nod at the tween walking 10 steps behind her family because omg she can’t even with these embarrassing people. I notice that belaboured young mother in the store, and I am at the same time grateful to no longer be her day in and day out, but envious of the precious snuggles she gets in that magical space between the outbursts and tears. For all the time that we spent, not so long ago, working to survive long days with little people, we now spend dreaming and scheming the best spot to land a Grandparent Pad that will entice maximum visitation from grandbabies who may or may not ever exist. Who, by the way, certainly won’t, nor should exist any time soon. But we simply can’t help ourselves. We’re kid-obsessed now that ours have flown. It’s like we woke up one day to find that we had grand-ternal clocks that started ticking before we even had a chance to stretch our wings out of our empty nest.
Our kids have a lot of living to do before they’re going to be ready to have children of their own. They need to be mentally and financially prepared to dive into the roller coaster that is parenthood. Heck, they might decide that they don’t want to have babies in the first place. That’s cool. Honestly. But a couple of our kids have expressed at least somewhat of an interest in becoming parents someday, so it is something we think about. Of course we don’t want our kids to do something irresponsible that they would regret (quick shout out to my kids: This is your mother. I’m serious. Don’t be knuckleheads). But, if and when they’re ready to enter the best, hardest time of their lives, we’ll be right there with our arms wide open and waiting for cuddles, our sense of humor ready to notice the comedy amidst the chaos the second time around, and plenty of disinfectant on hand to help with all the messes that will repeat themselves once again. Meanwhile, as my grand-ternal clock continues to tick, don’t be surprised to spot me in Aisle 3, lingering by the lentils, hoping to catch a teeny peek of some stranger’s heavenly hellion before it’s my time to be grand.
We had clearly exhausted all topics of conversation sitting around the dinner table in lockdown last August. Six months of quarantine togetherness can do that to a family, no matter how much its members love to banter. Nobody could stand another word about pandemics or politics. There were no sports to speak of. With endless days of sunshine under our belts, we couldn’t even complain about the weather. I don’t remember who lobbed the question into the otherwise dead discussion, but, I guess to break the sound of five people chewing, someone asked, “What’s your favorite dinosaur?”
I knew my answer right away. I didn’t even need to think about it. I’d known the clear winner since I first studied dinosaurs at Greeley School. I even had proof of my favorite dinosaur. The clay figurine I made in fourth grade has been sitting on the “kid craft” shelf in my parents’ kitchen in Winnetka for the past 40 years. But, just before I could open my mouth to reveal my choice, John chimed in.
“Favorite dinosaur? That’s easy. Triceratops.”
My reaction was guttural. It was one of those times you don’t realize you’ve said something until after the words have already escaped. I slapped the tabletop with my open palm, startling everyone’s attention away from their cajun-grilled salmon, and blurted:
“THIS…IS WHY WE ARE MARRIED.“
It was the eruption of laughter that brought me back to the moment and made me realize what had just come out of my mouth. As the guys roared and our daughter scrambled to log my latest gaffe into her running list of silly quotes that she keeps on her iPhone, I’ll admit that at first I didn’t get what was so funny. Apparently John’s and my prehistoric preferences had never come up in the 32 years we’ve known each other, but learning that we’re both Team Triceratops after all that time seemed like an appropriate reason to rejoice, no? Maybe my outburst had been a little boneheaded, I agreed. But at the same time it was another little reminder that as messy as marriage can get, deep down my husband and I are on the same side. There’s nothing funny about that.
Not that it always feels like John and I are on that same side. In fact, it often feels like we’re each other’s worst adversaries, even if when we’re supposed to be working in sync. It was only a few weeks ago that the five of us once again found ourselves around the family table, this time bonding over a game of Pictionary. When it was decided that it would be Kids Against Parents, our oldest son narrowed his gaze towards John and me, furled his brow, and said, “I don’t see this going well.” And, guess what? He was right. It didn’t. Again, my memory fails to recall what word I was trying to depict, but I remember drawing a telephone. You know, the “old school” kind, with a dial, curly cord and receiver. How hard could that be to guess? I must be a really crappy artist, because I’m pretty sure he never even uttered the word “phone,” let alone “receiver” or “cord” or whatever it was I was trying to get him to say. As the last grain of sand dropped to the bottom of the hourglass without a correct guess to be had, John couldn’t have been more furious. “Why on earth would you have drawn that?” The rest of the game went much the same. I couldn’t guess any better, despite John’s incredible skill with a pen and paper. The kids won the game by a landslide. John and I put the game away in silence, unable to even glance at each other as we cleared the sketches – a literal gallery of miscommunication – from the table. When we don’t get each other, we really don’t get each other.
It’s no secret, even to our kids, that John and I are often on opposite ends of the ring. We fight. We fight about the small stuff as well as the big. We fight because I spend too much money on fancy French face cream and countless ruffled tennis skirts despite the fact that I don’t play tennis. But my cheeksfeel magnifique, and a perky skirt is always more fun than plain ‘ol shorts on a power walk, in case you were wondering. We fight because John works 7 days a week, even on vacations. And I get that’s how said vacations are paid for, but I’d love to have just one day on the beach without a business call being hashed out on the towel next to me. We fight because I don’t assert myself enough, and because John is just so darn assertive. We fight because I prefer to choose my battles with the kids and extend a curfew here and there while John is inclined to keep them on a tight leash and have them home before midnight, no ifs, ands, or buts, even if they have to sprint the last mile on foot back to the house. We’ve had some battles that have made us question if we’re really “meant to be.” There’s nothing like an international move with three kids and two dogs to test a marriage. Those first two years of living abroad are two years we’re glad we’ll never have to revisit. They included arguments that would make the comment thread on any politician’s Twitter feed look friendly. But, in the aftermath of any quarrel we’ve ever had, our conclusion is usually the same. We recognize that we approach life from vastly different angles. John dives head-first into every aspect of his day with confidence, while I timidly dip my toe into each moment (I’m still working on that). Yet while our different mindsets make us spar over money issues, parenting issues, and Family Game Night issues, we mostly conclude that we’re actually fighting to reach the same goals, for our kids and for ourselves. And for each other.
John and I believe that life is too short to drink cheap wine, even on a Monday night. We believe that being on the water, whether in a boat or, better yet, in a bathing suit, is just about the happiest place to be. We believe that Indian food is best served “no holds barred” on spicy heat, and that if there’s a Heaven, it’s filled with dogs and just-ripe mangos. We believe that our three kids are some of the coolest people on earth, and that we can be proud to have played a hand in raising them. We make a pretty flippin’ good team when it comes to “The Good Stuff.”
Which is why it was at the same time thrilling and comforting to find out that John and I are totally aligned that the Triceratops is the best of all the pre-human heroes. We are indeed “meant to be.” Hallelujah! But, in typical fashion, how we both became early fans of the beast couldn’t be more different. In John’s words, “He’s so firmly my guy!” He explains that the Triceratops was a protector. He took on the Allosaurus (who I gather was a supreme d-bag), and he wasn’t afraid to stand up to those who took from others. Which, to me, makes all the sense in the world. John grew up in a military family. He, himself served in the Navy, only resigning his commission as Lieutenant Commander to prioritize taking care of me and the kids. He’s spent his entire life endeavouring to protect others. It’s not just his work and mission; it’s his DNA. I totally get why he chose the Triceratops; it’s about the facts, man.
Now, the reason behind me choosing that same creature over all the other dinosaurs likely proves me the most shallow being to ever roam Planet Earth, but it makes sense all the same. You know that mane-like, boney bit around the Triceratops’ neck? It’s called a “frill.” And I’ve always liked “frilly” things. Long before I fancied beautifying balm from Bordeaux or flouncy workout wear, I was into bows and lace and all things girly. When I studied dinosaurs at age 9, I liked the Triceratops best because it was pretty with its ruffled collar. A Jurassic RBG, if you will. As firmly as “he” is John’s guy, she is equally as firmly my GIRL. The “cute” dino will get my vote any day. My reasons for choosing the Triceratops are less noble, less thoughtful, for sure. But they’re no less heartfelt. On that we can all agree.
John and I might not always see the same things in the same way. We know with certainty that there will always be another quarrel we’ll have to slog through. Of course that stinks. But at the same time we keep finding those reassuring moments that repeatedly prove that we really do make a great team. I’ve known that since we were first together. When we find ourselves alone, just the two of us, without the distraction of work or family or dogs or even my poor drawing skills, we “float”. That’s our word for the good times, as when we are in a boat or a bathing suit. We make each other laugh. We make each other think. We appreciate the same stuff. We honor the same values. And, for that, I eagerly look forward to the many more moments to come, which will continue to surprise us and remind us of how lucky we are to be together before we, too, someday go extinct.
No joke. No frills. This IS, indeed, why we’re married.
My Triceratops, 1980. Maybe more fancy than fierce, but forever our favorite.
Hillary had an ultrasound scan today which confirmed…that the uterus is very normal. The ovaries show no evidence of activity at all and I suspect that Hillary is quite close to her last period…
I shoved my laptop under my arm and ran to tell John. My eyes filled with tears as I burst into the kitchen. John glanced up from his yogurt and Grape Nuts, raising an eyebrow.
“What’s so funny?”
I sputtered over my words, reading aloud as my face turned into that overused laugh-til-you-cry emoji. Not that I found it funny that my ovaries had all but gone kaput, mind you. That was kind of big news. It was the way my gynecologist announced that my organs had completely checked out that had me rolling. It wasn’t enough to say that my ovaries were inactive. No, those suckers weren’t just lazy. They were doing absolutely nothing……”AT ALL“. Like, zero. Nada. I mean, those babies weren’t just wandering off dreamily into the sunset; they’d already cashed out their 401K’s and were sipping Mai Tai’s in The Maldives. Adios, Amiga! Au Revoir, Ma Chère! Ciao, Bella! Sayonara, Sister!
The report continued:
…she is at the end of her ovarian estrogen production…which means that overall things so far have gone very smoothly in what is usually regarded as the most troublesome time around the menopause…
Touché to my ovaries (cue a slow clap). They’d dropped the mic before I knew I was supposed to be listening for a punchline. I wasn’t just starting, but at the end of menopause? Leave it to me to pass through one of the most momentous events of a woman’s life without even knowing. Genius. But it occurred to me; just because I hadn’t been aware of what had been going on in my body, perhaps my doctor was giving me too much credit for me having gotten through it “smoothly”. Had I missed the obvious?
While I’m sure that this is the point where I come off as a complete idiot (a totally fair assessment, by the way), hear me out.
As I thought back over the past few years, I realized that there were a few clues to this mystery that had unfolded somewhere south of my belly button while I ignorantly carried on. For starters, I’d had the most famed menopause symptom for over 18 years. My hot flashes started soon after my third kid was born, and just kind of stayed. I was told by my obstetrician at the time that it wasn’t necessarily common but that it could happen. And I just happened to be one of the unlucky winners of that postnatal door prize. After muddling through almost two decades in moisture wicking spandex, the daily streams of sweat were hardly a red flag to this flashy mama.
And then there was the advice from my former gynecologist, the one who I had always made time to visit over the holidays when we travelled back to the states from our current home in England. Up until last year I regularly squeezed in a checkup between last-minute shopping and cheer with family and friends. While I’d given up on most of my American creature comforts and had even stopped hoarding stuff like Q-Tips and Ziplocs to bring back to the U.K., I hadn’t yet mustered the courage for anyone in London to check out my girlie bits (plus, nothing says “Happy Holidays!” like a Pap smear. Why mess with a good thing?). When I’d last seen my former doctor two years ago, I mentioned that I was feeling sluggish, bloated, and generally yucky. She ran some blood tests, deemed me “super healthy,” in fact “nowhere near menopause,” and told me to keep up the good work. I took “nowhere near menopause” to mean that I was “light years away” from having to worry about it, and completely put it out of my mind. I decided that my feeling crappy must be because of something I was doing to myself. I started by assessing my diet, contemplated the sheer volume of dairy I consumed in a day, and decided that I’d try laying off cheese and whole milk latté addiction for a bit and see if that did the trick.
That worked for a little while, or at least I convinced myself that barista oat milk was The Answer To All Things. Looking back, though, I was all but ignoring the fact that, despite all of my life tweaks, over that couple of years I never felt genuinely great. Or even a little good. Of course I had a logical explanation for each of my ailments: I was lethargic because I live in England, where the rain and 100 days of darkness don’t make it especially motivating to pop out of bed and tackle the world most days, let alone the laundry. I was depressed because my second son had followed his older brother and fled my nest, and a totally empty roost loomed as I looked towards my youngest kiddo’s high school graduation. And when we started hearing that this Covid-19 “thing” might be a real THING, it was easy for all of us to blame pretty much everything on that. As we worried about keeping our cupboards stocked and our bums wiped, I didn’t think twice about my anxiety going through the roof. I mean, everyone was freaking out, right? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who woke up every morning, assessed my level of ick, and wondered, “Coronavirus or Hangover?”
And speaking of Covid, it was because of the pandemic that I wound up going two years without a checkup “down there”. Last December, when I realized that I’d forgotten to book the appointment with my American gynecologist during our trip back, I thought, “No problem! I’ll just drop by this summer!” And, poof, there was no summer. When I finally came to grips with that fact that going back to the U.S. wasn’t going to happen any time soon, it was clear: I needed to put on my Big Girl Britches, dust off the handwritten referral from from our London GP that had been tucked away in my desk since we moved to England almost 7 years ago, and finally let a local gynecologist “sort me out.” So that’s what I did.
Two years after understanding that I was light years away from menopause and a week after the initial assessment with my new doctor, I once again found myself with tears in my eyes when she brought me back into her office to explain the results of my blood work. But this time, my tears weren’t from laughter at her description of my exhausted ovaries. Nor were they from sadness that my ovaries had retired without giving me a chance to say farewell. They were tears of relief. As the doctor listed symptom after symptom – many of which I had felt but never acknowledged – and what she could do to help each one, a wave of comfort flooded over me. It wasn’t my diet, it wasn’t anxiety, it wasn’t a pandemic; heck, it wasn’t even my consumption of cabernet. All the oat milk in the world wasn’t going to fix me. It was my hormones (or lack thereof) that had made me feel rotten all along. And there was something that could be done about it. This holiday, instead of consolation from a magnificent mammogram or beautiful blood work result, receiving the missing pieces to the puzzle that had eluded me for so long was a pretty amazing gift.
The doctor’s final report contained gorgeous words like normal, reassuring, and satisfactory. It confirmed that the book was officially closed on my ovarian estrogen production. All’s well that ends well. But it also contained one last phrase that gave me a final chuckle:
…Having spoken to [Hillary], I think she has actually been very stoic with a lot of her symptoms that have been gradually creeping in…
Now, while I appreciate the compliment, when I think of the word “stoic”, the picture that comes to my mind is that of a decorated war veteran who put life on the line to save countless others, not a middle-aged, menopausal mom in leggings and a puffy vest who gave up an occasional cheese plate and 3-a-day whole milk latté habit. And though it makes me giggle when I think about my doctor’s choice of words, I can’t help but reflect on all that time I muddled through my days feeling awful and be optimistic as my body becomes more and more inhabitable. I’m glad to have re-learned the lesson at age 50, that if something doesn’t feel great, there’s probably a reason. And there’s likely something I can do about it. I need to put those Big Girl Britches on every day. And I need to pay attention to what’s going on in my body and have the humility and perseverance to press for answers when it’s telling me something’s wrong; even when I’m distracted by kids, a husband, or a pandemic. My body is a lot more useful not just to me but to all of us, and dare I say more pleasant to be around – and in – when everything’s working as it should.
Do I regret being on the other side of menopause without being clued in to having gone through it? Sure, I might have been less hard on myself over the past couple of years had I known what was going on. I’ll admit that I would have benefitted from more self love. On the other hand, if I had focused on what was happening I probably would have dwelled on it and been more annoyed. And as for leaving my childbearing years behind, that’s fine too. While it would’ve been nice to have a fourth baby, I couldn’t be more humbled that my now oh-so-tired ovaries produced three spectacular humans. They’ve earned their rest; their work is done. And they did pretty well, if I do say so myself. So, no. I’m not mourning a thing. Not at all.
By the time the ball sank into the hole at the “sudden death” shootout, I couldn’t have cared less who walked off of the golf course wearing that dang green blazer. If you’re ever lucky enough to be invited to The Masters Tournament, as my husband and I were in 2005, I’ll give you a tip: BRING SUNSCREEN. I’d naively left mine in our Atlanta hotel room, and quickly learned that the Georgia sun is capable of burning rain, a heck of a lot of fog, and the top layers of skin on this ignorant spectator. As the crowd erupted in cheers, John reached his hands out to double-high-five mine in celebration of Tiger’s win. I interlaced my fingers in his, pulled him close, and implored, “Get me outta here.” I spent that evening splayed out on our hotel room bed, begging the fan to cool me and dousing my singed skin with aloe. We hopped a plane the next morning and I haven’t been back to Atlanta since.
The day after we returned from Georgia, I gingerly laid the straps of my spandex top over my scarlet shoulders and beelined to my gym. Never mind that throwing punches in a kickboxing class might not have been the best remedy; I knew the sweat might sting but I’d find relief in the company of the people who, like me, showed up, day after day, for more than just a workout. We came to get stronger, of course, but also to help each other navigate babies and breakups, illness and in-laws, and everything in between, including my stupid 2nd degree sunburn. And it worked; I walked out of the gym that day feeling more soothed by my buddies than any balm I’d been slathering on my blistered torso. I’ve always been more inspired by the people in a group fitness class than by the pursuit of a perfect body. I’ve done every kind of group fitness class, in whatever city, state or country I’ve lived, and it’s always the same: Whether I’m sprinting up an incline at bootcamp or holding a pigeon pose at yoga, the one thing that my group fitness classes have in common is the people: My Crew.
In March, when the pandemic shuttered the doors to the pilates studio where I’d found my latest haven, I was less upset about the potential expansion of my waistline than I was with the indefinite loss of my community and, frankly, what was often my only daily human contact. With the kids all but grown and a husband who travelled for business most weekdays, my life as a housewife was already pretty isolated were it not for my daily escape to an exercise class. I was skeptical that interactive online classes would be a decent substitute; there’s hard science behind the energy that’s transferred between people in a shared space. But I soon found that it wasn’t just a comfort to flee to the dark panelled living room of our old English rental home to exchange lockdown tales, lament greying roots, and burn off some steam with my local Crew. It was a lifeline. We were doing our best to stay connected as normal in a time which was anything but. And while I was content in the new routine, things were about to get even better.
As each monotonous day spilled into the next, I started noticing something downright exciting. A beloved fitness instructor from the place we call our second home came out of sabbatical to offer a Zoom class. All of the sudden I wasn’t just working out alongside my local British Crew; my Spanish Crew began making regular appearances in my living room as well. Then I saw some of my favorite teachers from the U.S. offering live classes on social media, and I found myself working out with old friends that I haven’t seen in years. My American Crew was in my Quarantine Casa, too! Each day I marvelled to think that there I was, tucked away at home, physically apart from but beautifully connected to dozens of my favorite workout buddies from around the world. And I didn’t think it couldn’t get any better than that. Until it did.
One day, frustrated that the time difference between the U.S. and the UK didn’t allow me to take a friend’s class, my need for a workout overruled my desire for personal connection and I jumped onto a Zoom with a teacher I’d never seen. And the exact thing happened that I’d been so skeptical about at the beginning of the pandemic: The energy of a complete stranger came right through my computer screen, and I felt as if I was right there in a studio in which I’ve never stepped foot, sweating and shaking, exhilarated and inspired. I opened the link and took that teacher’s class again a few days later. And then again. And again, until I realized that I wasn’t the only one repeatedly joining from afar. I began noticing the same faces popping up, day after day, in those squares on my laptop. It was just like every time I’ve joined any new class; before I knew it those unfamiliar faces became friends, only this time not because we were in the same place every morning but because we showed up from living rooms, kitchens, hallways, and backyard retreats, across cities, across states, and across an entire ocean. As I’ve continued to log in, bolster and banter with my new group of friends, it’s not lost on me that I would never have had reason to know this other Crew that’s helping me slog through the pandemic were it not for the pandemic itself. I wouldn’t have recognized any of their faces had I passed them on a street beforehand, but you can bet that I’d know each one of them if we were to cross paths today. Which I hope to make happen someday, once we’re able. I mean, I’ll probably never be invited back to The Masters, but there’s no question that I at least need to make it back to Atlanta and actually step into the studio that I only now know on a computer screen, but which has become another one of my favorite escapes. I owe my wonderful new instructor a huge in-person hug, not just to thank her for the fantastic workouts, but for the Crew that’s come along with them. Don’t worry, my shoulders will be ready for that embrace; this time I won’t forget my sunscreen.
My Corona Crew could be someone else’s online book club, playgroup, or weekly happy hour; I just happen to be drawn to a bunch of fitness junkies. If I can make meaningful connections and even expand my group of friends though the magic of the internet during this trying time, seriously anyone can. It isn’t just a silver lining to this whole debacle. That, right there, is pure gold.
The Empty Next 