Opening the Pickle Jar

This is dedicated to all the mom's who get up every morning, 

Both Single and Married Because we HAVE TO...

Often when people meet me, read about me, talk to people about me or well, I don't know just interact with me the first question is just like that movie "How does she do it???" Well, I'm here to tell you a day in my life starts and stops at a full on sprint whether it is directing the orchestra of chaos that is 6am wake up call in a house full of Nintendo welding boys or the carefully choreographed number of meetings I have to get through between the hours of 9am(the time my youngest is tossed from the vehicle at school) until 3:30pm when I try really hard to not forget the alarm that has gone off three times reminding me that he is STANDING ON THE CORNER waiting knowing I will be late... Oh man, poor guy yet again.

When I sat down tonight to write the clock is striking 1AM, my house is silent. My husband's audible snoring is coming from the bedroom but I can't stop thinking about the last few weeks and the last few months and just everything. Recently, a friend told me she had in conversation told someone, "I want to be like Kristin when I grow up." I laughed out loud and said I want to be like her to.

I'm a busy lady, and I often am either scolded or praised on a number of scales for the life and decisions I make. Often people think by looking at my Twitter feed or my Facebook posts that I live a glamorous and agreeably filled life, I'm here to clarify it is really quiet in here a lot.  And that is completely ok. I can say that because for me being alone was something I got use to, as a young mom single at 20 with a 2 almost 3 year old I had very little in regards to friends and so I was alone alot.

Though my world has changed and it is nice to be recognized at the grocery story and I'm happy to stop and talk to every Tom, Dick and Harry (though please don't be offended if my husband walks off because oh that is so not him) I'm still that Mom. I still wake up fighting the same Mom battles you do. I can often be heard on any given day of the week stating, I'm getting the Fricken Mother of the Year award today peeps.  Because as was the case last week, Logan some how managed to try and cut his finger off while I had a business meeting in my living room and it took my Boss (whom was Deaf) to indicate that something was the matter. Like I said Mother of the Year.  But on the other hand, I am the mom other mom's call and say, "FYI, you got a good kid." Yep, I know. I'm blessed.

I think as women we forget its okay to not be okay sometimes, recently a friend took a moment to speak candidly about her life. I was touched that she felt free enough to talk to me and I was honored that she heard my words.  In a new place in her life, I had been there and done that.  And it took me back to a moment when my best friend gave me $25 out of her wallet and said JUST GO DO SOMETHING FUN. I had sat down on her floor to cry over something to me CATASTROPHIC, and that's it we can hold everything together 362 days a year. I'm giving us some leeway ladies, 3 days a year I'm sitting on the floor and I'm say HELL WITH YOU ALL. It doesn't make me the weakest business owner, or bad parent it in fact makes me HUMAN. I wonder where along the way it became unacceptable to have a BAD day.

Did something get changed in our constitution???? Did my mom never have a bad day???? How has an entire generation of people decided that we are just to big and bad to not need just a moment. I don't know that I know the answer. I remember being younger, taking a day off just cause now taking a day off is planned, taylored and managed to the last moment, a sick day is an inconvenience that I will end up working through from the bed with a humidifier and a box of Kleenex because being out of commission for 24 hours seems like the most obsurred thing ever.

I guess what I'm coming to realize is that life is short, for 1,000 reasons a member of our family is sick, our
job is over working us, we don't see our families enough. 1,000 reasons that make it really hard but in my world I have 1 reason to wake up every morning early on in my life, on one of the worst days, actually the day I discovered my best friend died and I couldn't understand anything. That feeling of profound loss had taken over, I had to do something, I made a promise to Traci and to myself everyday I was going to learn one new thing. It didn't matter if it was simply the best way to open a pickle jar I would learn a new thing everyday. And so the next morning when I didn't want to get out of bed I remember that promise, I remembered I needed to get out and learn something. I don't know that everyday's lessons are as profound as others but everytime, everytime, everytime.

I have said it a million times and I'll say it again, Life isn't what you get, its what you make with what you got.

Traci taught me lessons she never knew she did, and I lost her far to soon. She created a legacy with in me and with in her boys that will forever stand strong. Being okay with life and the ups and downs is the best lesson she ever taught me, and to listen when you see the bumps in the road.

To all those who get out of bed when they don't think they can, YOU AREN'T ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!