Life. Can. Suck.

Sure, it can be great too. But there’s no denying its suckiness at times.

Last year, Brandon and I started planning the kid-free, work-free trip of our dreams to Hawaii for our 5th anniversary and my 30th. We were already exhausted with the business and the whole becoming-parents-overnight thing.

Real talk: while you wouldn’t have seen it on Instagram, I truly felt like I was hanging on by a thread most days.

“Why is she so angry?”

That was the question that constantly went through my mind as I sat in my Race and Ethnic Relations class a decade ago as a junior in college and listened to my black professor.

I was born a natural suck-up, and professors usually liked me. But this professor didn’t seem so easily enamored. To be honest, she just seemed angry. I noticed that most of the time she heard a white student’s perspective, she held her breath and her voice became a little more frustrated when she responded. I noticed most of the time a black student spoke, her voice seemed to soften and her shoulders relaxed.

It really bothered me.

Written a couple months ago when I went all the way to Canada to hit the “reset” button. This is what I’m striving for in 2020. Want to join me?

*S E L F C A R E*

It’s one of those blog topics that automatically makes me want to barf it’s so millennial. Then again, I love boots and Starbucks, and I upload pics of my dog to Instagram daily, so I might as well fully embrace the millennialism. I’m currently sitting in Ontario, Canada, with my phone off drinking a pumpkin spice latte (see previous millennial note). I drove here yesterday to try something for the first time ever: explore and relax somewhere random – alone.  

So far today, I baked myself a huge breakfast, sipped a mimosa by the lake, explored the southern tip of Canada at a national park, and ate an oven-fired maple bacon butternut squash pizza (say that five times fast).

Full disclosure: about two hours ago, 26 hours into this getaway of mine, I inhaled a deep breath of Canadian air, and cried a little. 

It wasn’t a long or dramatic cry – just a couple tears. But those tears held immeasurable meaning.

I’ve felt the urge to write for a lot of months now. But when I start thinking it through, I realize I don’t think I have anything profound to say. Nothing funny. No great life lesson. I just have words that I want to get down and for some reason, share on this ugly, pink blog of mine. I don’t even want to proofread it, so sorry in advance. This is really more therapy for me while I sit at a coffee shop for some much needed alone time. Right now, I’m just taking it one day at a time. And today seems like a good day to reflect.

We are nine months into this adoption journey. We finalized just three weeks ago, and Kayden is officially a Sok.
We couldn’t be happier to check off that box legally. When we said yes to Kayden in January, before we even met him, he was already our son – but the formality of adoption has been helpful for us all. Especially Kayden, who understandably doubted the day would actually come.

I finally threw in the towel on trying to sleep around 3 a.m. this morning. For some reason, it’s just one of those nights when it’s not going to happen. No-sleep nights don’t happen that often, but when they do, I really don’t mind it after I eventually give in and get out of bed. Actually, I find it rather peaceful to be awake when most of the world around me is asleep.

Then 4 a.m. hits and I get this automatic, tiny wave of excitement, followed quickly by another wave of sadness.