Life, Work & Wonder

Tag: parenting

  • My Love Of Mondays

    For much of my life, I’ve felt genuine relief on Mondays.

    When I was a kid, weekends could be exhausting. Mom and dad were tireless do-it-yourselfers and socializers, and weekends often meant going store to store to store (before Home Depot was a thing) and then night time was often going to their friends’ house for dinner. So Mondays — ESPECIALLY during the summer — I just felt the strongest sense of relief.

    Then at some point I became a parent, and weekends meant play dates, or birthday parties, or various school or kid functions. It was a privilege to spend weekends this way, but also so very demanding in a variety of ways.  So when Monday came I just felt the strongest sense of relief to drop the kids off at school then to just focus on work.

    In recent years, weekends haven’t meant insane schedules so Mondays are less meaningful. Except this past weekend we were so busy (with mostly fun things) going from event to event to event, and today it just felt so wonderful to wake up knowing that it was Monday, the chaos of the weekend is over, and I can start rolling up my sleeves and focus on work while taking a break here and there.

    So (perhaps?) much of the working world dread Mondays. But for me, for much of my life, the irony of Mondays is that yes they mean school or work but in a strange way they also mean freedom. The escape of chaos and back-to-back events and to just focus on the job at hand. Which now that I think about it is why I’ve always strived for careers that provide some level of autonomy, and why I detest workplaces that over schedule internal status meetings. I guess ultimately I just crave some control of my calendar during the weekdays in general and Monday in particular as a mental break of sorts

    So here are to jobs that provide us with some level of autonomy and control. And to weekends. But also to Mondays, when maybe just maybe we regain some control of our lives after hectic weekends.

    Note: Filed happily away in the First World Problems file. How blessed I am to have first world problems like over-scheduled weekends.

  • I’m Grateful That Online Chess Is A Mirror For me

    I love playing online blitz chess.

    Sometimes in life we need a mirror.

    To tell us how we’re doing, how we’re coping, because sometimes even the best of us need a little outside perspective to keep us grounded. For me, that’s occasionally my spouse, who thankfully isn’t afraid to point out my bullshit in real-time when it happens. But a spouse shouldn’t also have to always be our mirror.

    Which is why I’m so grateful I have chess.

    When I have a few minutes and only a few minutes to kill, I play online blitz chess. I like that it’s quick (a maximum of 20 minutes but often less than 5 or 10 minutes), forces me to think, and also provides some competition against strangers (I don’t like competing against friends and loved ones since I feel guilty when I win).

    Despite my chronic fatigue I am restless and impatient by nature, so I want a quick unpredictable game and so play aggressively since it creates a faster game with fewer moments of predictable sloggery. Sometimes playing aggressively means I win quickly, and just as often it means I end up looking pretty silly.

    This is where the mirror is.

    When my head is clear and I’m feeling okay with my current daily life, I win a lot more often than I lose. I beat some pretty good players, often by checkmate, and my score climbs to the 1000s (which isn’t great for a serious player but is okay for a hack like me). When I’m tired or stressed or pre-occupied with something in life? My score plummets. Today it was in the 800s and sinking fast, and I am making some pretty foolish errors.

    This means I have some things going on in my life. Or in my mind. Which in fact I do since I’ve had a busy week of commitments while also trying to send our youngest off to camp for three weeks which created some chaos in our house as we got her ready. I’ve also been working a lot for not a lot of money (a risk of my career).

    When life gets stressful, and my chess score plummets, this means I need to be extra mindful. It probably means my cortisol levels are up, and heart rate is a little higher than average. Which means I need to fight coping techniques. Maybe take some perspective that this too will pass. Or take a night to order some pizza and chill. Or take a nice walk next to the creek near our house. Or to just take some deep breaths.

    I think a part of being a healthy human being for working persons like me (I have no clue at all what life is like to be luxuriously rich and/or entitled), is being self aware. Of knowing when we’re under stress during a particular day or week or even month. Then doing what we can to take extra steps to bring the stress levels down.

    Sometimes (like this week) I’m not aware that I’m feeling more than average stress. In those weeks I’m grateful for a mirror. Sometimes that’s my awesome spouse. But thankfully — like today — it also is online blitz chess.

  • The Quietly Perfect Holiday: Is There Any Better Holiday Than Labor Day?

    What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

    For much of my life, I’d have to list Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve as my favorite holidays. But in recent years I think my penchant for Labor Day has exceeded my historical love of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

    Labor Day is a guilt-free holiday that is placed in one of the most beautiful times of year in the Seattle area.

    So many of our holidays (Thanksgiving, President’s Day) fall in the gloom of Seattle’s rainy season. Or they (Christmas, July 4th) have expectations or are just plain loud and overbearing. Or they (Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day) have some guilt associated with them. Or (New Year’s Eve) I’m just plain exhausted from the demands of the previous month.

    But Labor Day is different.

    Families and Friends don’t expect us on Labor Day. Budgets aren’t destroyed shopping for food and buying presents. It is a day to reward us for our hard work and not to remind us of someone else’s sacrifice. It’s quiet. And September is usually perfect weather in Seattle what with the continued sun and 70 degree days.

    Childhood and parenthood can taint Labor Day, since it usually commemorates the beginning of a long school year ahead. But my kids are older. And my own school experience was decades ago. So that particular emotional taint of Labor Day is over. In fact, for me, Labor Day has just become the perfect expectation-free holiday.

    There aren’t carols written or sung about Labor Day. Labor Day doesn’t usually conjure strong memories of past times and places. But it’s a special day nonetheless. And it has become in my older and wiser years my very favorite holiday of the year.

  • It Ain’t No ‘Call Me Ishmael’ (AKA The Opening Sentence Of My Autobiography)

    You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

    In another life I was a teacher.

    And for some reason I thought it would be awesome for the kids to teach them, “Moby Dick.”

    Who does that? Who takes a 17 year old high school student, someone who has their ENTIRE life ahead of them, and says, “I’m going to teach you Moby Dick!”

    I did.

    Those poor kids.

    And to their credit they didn’t rebel. They didn’t mock me (at least not to my face) or refuse to read another word. Day after day they came to class, had a smile on their faces, rolled up their sleeves, and worked on their assignments.

    I remember the last day of the unit. I thanked them for being patient with me through the book. That it had been a long slog but that they’d stuck with it and I was grateful for that (because students WOULD rebel if they don’t buy in to a unit or a teacher). Then we watched the movie, the one with Patrick Stewart. When the opening line of the movie was “Call me Ishmael” the students cheered.

    That was one of the great moments of my teaching career. Because they had actually stayed with me during Moby Dick AND the powerful opening line to Moby Dick had actually stuck with them. Resonated (maybe) with them.

    “Call me Ishmael.”

    It’s such a great opening line. Simple. Direct. Even layered and symbolic (Ishmael also means “wanderer”).

    For me, that is the great opening line of any novel, one that can be aped or matched but never surpassed. And, for me, when the students cheered when that line was said in the movie was one of the great professional moments of my life.

    I’m asked, “What would be the opening sentence of your autobiography.”

    And to that I’d say, first, there is no sentence I could ever write that would match that book. And, second, I can’t say anyone would ever care about my autobiography since I’m just an ordinary person who has had mostly an ordinary life:

    • My dad was a banker who wore a tie, my mom was a CPA.
    • I went to public schools in a mid-size city.
    • I was mostly a B- student, I played sports but neither terribly good nor too terrible, I had some friends but no more than an average person.
    • I’ve had a middling career that was neither terribly good nor too terrible. I know for a fact I was pretty exceptional at strategic sales early in my career, but am very mediocre at it since 2011.
    • Now 50 I’m neither rich nor poor, and just like most 50 somethings am trying to figure out which side of the Hill Of Life I’m on (the up slope or down slope).

    In short, I’m pretty average in every way. And that’s just fine by me.

    So, I guess, my opening sentence(s) would be, “I’m pretty ordinary in every way. And that’s just fine by me.”

  • High School Was The Most Secure Time Of My Personal Life

    Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

    I’ll never forget the last week of eighth grade.

    I skipped (with my parents’ permission) all the eighth grade ceremonies. It was an incredibly sunny week. And I just felt so much relief that I never had to go to junior high school again.

    I think most Americans look back on middle school with less-than-warm-and-fuzzy feelings. For me, it was an especially hellacious time of life. I was a late bloomer, meaning I was the smallest kid in the class, which overall I didn’t mind except I played sports and although I was more coordinated than most kids I was always battling for playing time against coaches who preferred bigger kids. Being a late bloomer also meant I looked like a 4th grader in a sea of kids who had overdeveloped bodies, which made the social circle kind of tough. And I was also an extremely hyperactive and talkative kid, which basically meant all my teachers despised me. It was two years from hell, actually.

    When that last week of junior high school hit, I swore that high school would be a different experience for me. That I’d try to find a way to blend in more.

    Whether it was because kids were more mature in high school, or I’d figured out how to blend in more, my high school experience was a much better experience.

    I got decent grades. Had my fair share of playing time in sports. And kids more or less left me alone. I was just a regular kid who went to school for seven hours, did the bare minimum of homework to get Bs, and then really really enjoyed my after school hours.

    I read a lot of books (ironically, rarely ones assigned for school). Played a lot of games. Played a lot of basketball. And spent a LOT of time laughing with (not at) classmates and friends.

    Although my time in actual class bored the heck out of me, I loved those years. I had extra spending money from part-time jobs. I had my friends. And I didn’t have a lot of responsibility, not like in the adult years when life is mostly drudgery for anyone who is wholly devoted to their family.

    With the exception of maybe a year or two in college, I’d never again know a life like this. It was a wonderful time. And at graduation — when most of my friends were celebrating — I remember feeling pretty mixed, because I knew (from watching my parents’ burdens) that a good time of my life was closing.

    Life is amazing. And there are always pockets of joy within any phase of life. But it was actually difficult to say goodbye to that time of my life that included high school.

  • For Me, The Best DIY Project Is No DIY Project

    Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.

    Spring 2001.

    I was in the midst of a major (and expensive) home remodel which involved improving the basement and actually finishing the top floor of a three story house. In the midst of all this, it was decided to also paint the main floor bathroom.

    I was 33. I had a lot of energy. I had a young family (two young children) with a stay at home parent (their mom) who needed every ounce of savings we could spare. So I decided to take on the painting of the main floor bathroom. It didn’t matter that for four years before this I had tried and failed at numerous home improvement projects that we ultimately had to hire to be rebuilt. This was painting. How hard could it be?

    For two nights, after work, after dinner, after story time and teeth brushing time and putting the kids to bed time, I went into the bathroom and I painted. I’d change my clothes, get the brushes etc.. I taped all the edges, and carefully carefully carefully rolled and brushed the paint on the floor. I don’t remember why it took so long, maybe it was because I put on two coats of paint, but I believe I painted for two days until 1am, perhaps eight hours in total. I’d go to bed exhausted, get up at 6am the next morning, put in another full (stressful) day at work, then repeat the process.

    When I was done, the bathroom looked — terrible.

    Truly terrible.

    I hadn’t taped properly so the paint edges looked like bright dragon’s teeth. There were drips all over the place where the paint had been too think so sweated down the wall. And the paint had been applied spectacularly unevenly where some spots were pretty bare.

    Despite my exhausting effort that cost me probably eight hours of sleep, we ended up hiring someone to re-paint the bathroom walls. In other words, my effort was a complete waste of time.

    I had to admit to myself, that no matter my intentions, no matter how many books I read or videos I watch, I am not a DIYer. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just not good with tools or projects like that, in terms of aptitude, efficiency and skills.

    We like to say, where there’s a will there’s a way. But that’s not true at all. Just like there are lots of people in this world who will never run a 4.4 forty no matter how much they devote themselves to that cause, there are people like me who will never be a skilled or acceptable DIYer. My brain just isn’t wired that way.

    So, for me, I’ve learned that I can waste my time trying, or I can just pay the money upfront. So that’s what I do.

    For all this reasoning, I’d say my best DIY project was that bathroom since it showed me the mirror. But the truth is the best DIY project is — for me — no DIY project.

  • Living A Different Life Than My Parents (AKA My Parents At My Age)

    PROMPT: What were your parents doing at your age?

    I was always 5-10 years behind my parents.

    By the time they were 20, my parents were married (to each other 🙂 ). They started careers at 21, having kids (me) at 21 and they owned a house by 22. Later, they upgraded their house by age 27, started earning decent money at 30, and making great money at age 40.

    Me?

    I was married (for the first time) at 25. Started my career job at age 29. Had kids and a house at 30. And started earning decent money at age 35.

    Always I was about five or ten years behind them. And that was okay.

    By some miracle I caught up to them by age 40.

    At age 40 I had some lucky breaks in my career, and I too suddenly started making pretty great money, just like my parents themselves had done at 40. Mom was proud of me, telling me that I was farther ahead of them by age 40, but the reality is we were about even.

    Then life took me on a different path for me.

    I got lung disease at 43. What started out as some fatigue and breathless when I exercised at age 40 was diagnosed as potentially-fatal lung disease when I was 43. That irrevocably changed the course of my life.

    Whereas my parents spent their 40s having fun and accumulating money for retirement, I spent my 40s managing my health and holding on for dear life to my life and my career.

    I spent countless hours in the doctor’s office. I lost a job, then found and lost another job. Meanwhile, after 5 years of trying to push and horse whip me back into my past successes despite my lung disease, my (now ex) wife lung gave up on me and moved on, first emotionally and then completely.

    By 50 my parents were living their greatest life and could retire at any time.

    By 50 I was job hopping, making half what I’d been at age 40, job hopping, managing my health as a second job, and hoping I could scrape enough together to retire by age 70.

    In short, by age 50 my parents had been a LOT better off than I was.

    And that’s okay.

    I’m not my parents. My life is not my parents’ life. I was blessed because life could have just used my lung disease to kill me, but instead it spared me and I learned that I am a survivor, a battler, and surprisingly resilient.

    And, overall, happy. Happier than I was at age 40, for sure.

    I’m remarried. I won’t retire rich but by age 70 I’ll be okay.

    In short, I was behind my parents, then caught up to my parents, then life pushed them ahead while knocking me back. And all in all I’m grateful. Because at the end of the day, all that matters to me is carving out some joy, managing my stress, and being alive.

  • Super Bowl Not An Excused Absence? (AKA Where’s The Humanity)

    Two.

    That’s how many Super Bowls the Seattle Seahawks have won in my lifetime, and I was alive and well during our first season in 1976. (It’s also how many Seahawks games I’ve watched over the past 10 years — the NFC Championship and the Super Bowl — although I do root from afar and read about them every day in the sports journals).

    So it’s a special occasion for a city to win the Super Bowl, and there are projected to be a million delirious Seattle-ites at the Super Bowl Parade today.

    The Seattle Public Schools announced that schools will be open as scheduled and the Super Bowl Parade is NOT an excused absence.

    As someone who attended Seattle Public Schools as a student for 13 years (K-12), then taught in Seattle Public Schools for a year as a substitute teacher and administrator, and who now volunteers for a charity that helps deliver food to kids in need at schools, I think it’s AMAZING they’re keeping the schools open. Because there are families and kids who need the schools to be open as a safe space for eight hours.

    But wow oh wow. To not EXCUSE attending the parade? Making kids miss a memorable experience? Or making them fight through overpacked busses or closed streets to get to school? Where’ the humanity in that? Why not keep the schools open but also be understanding if kids can’t make it to school that day because of the parade? That would be the double-awesomeness of humanity.

    We live in a world where there is increasingly less humanity. Where wealthy people lay workers off while pocking more money. Where companies lay off human beings for robots. Where people hate on each other over political beliefs? Why not show a little extra humanity when we can by having a place kids can go to but not expecting them to be there on what is a special day for their city?

  • PROMPT: What’s My Favorite Thing To Cook

    What’s your favorite thing to cook?

    How much I admire people who love to cook.

    Larissa enjoys cooking, especially for the people she loves. She does not mind after a busy day of work migrating to the kitchen and investing an hour surrounded with pots and pans preparing a meal. For me, that is utter hell.

    I remember when the kids were young. My ex-wife was never ever around. Ninety percent — or more — of the days she was gone early and still gone late, volunteering, on a trip somewhere, or (supposedly) working although she never seemed to bring much money home. Which meant the cooking was on me. I cooked the breakfast, and prepared the lunches for school, and then when it was evening preparing dinner was on me.

    How much I hated to cook.

    I disliked cooking before the kids were born, but that dislike became utter disdain after the years and years of drudgery in the kitchen when raising a family.

    I remember after a long day of work, and it was 5pm, and I needed to help the kids with their homework, and I needed to prepare a meal, and I didn’t know where in the heck my (now) ex-wife was other than she wouldn’t be home, and just being sooooooo worn out. I would make myself a drink, and make myself an espresso, and I would drink the drink and drink the espresso and think, “I can do this. I can do this.” And then I’d do it. I’d make tacos or burritos or chicken or quesadillas or burgers, then the kids and I would sit and eat and laugh about various things (we were always telling stories and laughing, and that memory makes me smile just typing it here). Then I’d clean up, help them with their homework, read them a story or watch a movie with them, then we’d go off to bed to start it all over again the next day.

    When I’m asked, “What’s my favorite thing to cook.” All those memories come roaring back. And I feel so much love for my kids. And resentment toward my ex-wife. And so much gratitude (and admiration) for my wife who cooks so often for us. And so much gratitude for my parents, who prepared meals for me for nearly 20 years.

    But most of all, what I think is this: my favorite meal to cook is any meal I don’t have to cook at all. 🙂

    DISCLAIMERS:

    • This was written 100% organically without the help of AI.
    • I hate to read what I’ve written, which means this was at best quickly scanned for blatant errors. I apologize for any and all typing errors.