When I was a little girl, I loved spending my summer evenings swinging in our backyard. After dinner, I’d sit on the swing and pump my sneakers in the air, swinging higher and higher, trying to touch the twilight stars with my toes. The clouds looked like cotton candy, the brilliant blues and soft pinks streaking across an endless sky. As the sun faded, Mother Nature’s soundtrack intensified: frogs croaking, the breeze blowing through oak tree branches, crickets rubbing their legs together like violin bows and strings. Life was simple. Me and the swings and Mother Nature. I was content with the clouds and the crickets. I danced on the top of our wooden picnic table perched in front of our backyard oak tree. I hummed “Once Upon a Dream” from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty as I twirled, holding the tree’s branches in my fingertips as if the oak was my Prince Charming. I made crowns out of dandelions and wishes on the Magic Bridge, a dip in our ditch where my aunt encouraged me to make a wish as I crossed to the other side of the field. I picked bouquets of goldenrod and mouthed Spice Girls songs in my bedroom mirror, clothed in sequined dance costumes and unapologetic sass. I ate red, white and blue popsicles that stained my lips and mouth cherry red. Nowadays when I picture that girl wearing the dandelion crowns and sequined skirts, I feel protective. When I see my friend’s daughters wearing underwear on their head and laughing at the library and being silly and charming and THEM, I feel protective. Because I know what eventually happens: We grow up. Some grow up sooner than others. Some—due to circumstances or situations beyond their control— grow up sooner than they should. Society steps in and tells us that dandelions and goldenrod are actually weeds and are bad for allergies. Cotton candied skies turn so dark you can’t see the stars anymore. Sequins lose their luster. Whole hearts become broken. Lessons are learned. Wounds become scars, shiny and permanent. It’s part of this whole journey to adulthood-thing we must go through. Nobody leaves this world unscarred. I look at these younger generations of girls and know what they may face as the years go on, and a slow fire burns in my belly. A passion to help equip teenage girls and young women with positive messages to inspire self-confidence and strength to believe in themselves, to heal, to move forward. Because we’ve all been stuck. We’ve felt lost. Unsure of who we are and thinking back to the days of dandelion crowns and summer sunsets and swings when life felt more simple and you felt more like you. In 2009, I graduated from Central Michigan University with a degree in Interpersonal Communication. I took classes like Nonverbal Communication. Interpersonal Communication. Family Communication. I learned theories about people and why we act the way we do. I loved those classes so much I went on to get my master’s degree in Communication from CMU. My master’s thesis research focused on breakups; specifically, I interviewed how young women about their breakups and why they often changed their appearance (got a haircut, tattoo, new clothes) after a breakup. My thesis—those interviews—is one of my most favorite life experiences so far. So much so, that the research doesn’t ever leave the back of my mind, even after five years since writing the thesis. Those girls—their responses, their interviews, their strength—continues to inspire me. I am working on a new writing project. The goal is to publish a resource for teen girls and young women going through a breakup, as that is where my history, interest and former research focuses were targeted. That is where my passions remain. When girls and young women are alone in their bedrooms, feeling like their heart will never be whole and the pieces will never fit and the world will never see the sun, I want a resource to exist because we’ve all been there. We’ve all been snotty and red-faced and feeling so dang ALONE. I don’t like asking for things. I don’t like bothering people. I feel odd making requests. Uncomfortable feeling vulnerable as I lay my passions out on the table. But through this blog post, I make this request now, and I ask you to please listen with open ears and a willing heart: Can you help me? Maybe you are a teen or young adult woman who went through a hard breakup recently. Maybe you went through a challenging breakup that left you lost and confused as a teenager or young adult. Maybe you know someone—a daughter, a friend, a friend’s daughter, a niece, a granddaughter, a student—who has had an experience like this. I want to hear their—your—stories. Your breakup experience that was significant to you. It doesn’t matter if it happened years ago or last week. Names will be changed. Everything will be kept confidential and between you and me. You talk; I’ll listen. It doesn’t have to take place in person. You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to. You can stop the interview at any time. To be honest, there’s no guarantee any of this will see anyone’s eyes besides mine. If you feel uncomfortable talking about a past relationship, don’t worry. I completely understand. But your story or experience may help someone else going through something similar right now. Your story may be relatable to another girl or young woman feeling the same feelings you felt. Even if you think your breakup experience isn’t “interesting” or “different” or “unique,” if you felt it had an impact on you, it IS unique because it’s yours. We all have a story, and I believe it is our sharing of stories that often inspire connection. Growth. Healing. If you are interested in participating or want to learn more, feel free to email me at: lindsayhenrywrites[at]gmail[dot]com. “And the day came when the risk to remain tightly closed in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom.” -Anais Nin
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I said I would document this whole process, the good and the bad, so I need to keep my word: I got my first rejection from a literary agent today.
Not gunna lie: It stings. It feels like pouring hydrogen peroxide on a wound you didn't know you had. The thing about hydrogen peroxide, I guess, is though it stings, it's cleaning. Healing. Keeping the infection out. Of course, the doubt monsters are trying to set up shop in my mind. And I'm trying to remind them that they don't get to be permanent residents. It's been a couple of hours since I read the email. The "punch in the gut" feeling is fading. The sun is shining outside. Clocks spring ahead this weekend because of daylight saving time. So I'll move forward, too, as I add another experience to 2016: I have experienced rejection from a literary agent. Alright. On to the next. xo, Lindsay Please God let me make it home. Please God let me make it home. Please God let me make it home. I repeated these words as I navigated my vehicle on snow-covered roads on Tuesday afternoon. The clock read 4 p.m. when my co-workers and I left work early. Closed the building. Cancelled evening classes. We used our scrapers to brush our cars like teeth, watching the piles of snowfall away from our headlights as the wind cut through our bones and flushed our cheeks with cold. As I began the drive home, I quickly realized the roads weren’t just covered in snow. These roads were layered with snow, white and powdery and thick like butter cream frosting. As if Mother Nature decided she’d take up baking and whipped together a frozen vanilla butter cream treat with extra powdered sugar for the Mitten State. Only the butter cream is snow and powdered sugar is more snow and the sugar is ice and the vanilla is my fear, though my type of fear is the opposite of plain Jane vanilla. My fear is thick and antsy and anxious, drilled into me from years of my dad questioning my driving skills. Now I questioned my driving skills, too, as I stared down these country roads with the drifting and the blowing and the snow that looked like layered butter cream frosting. I wasn’t in the mood for dessert. So I prayed to God with the radio off and my knuckles white as I gripped the steering wheel. I prayed to God to please get me home as the windshield wipers made squeaky noises and the snow made groaning noises when it compacted and caved under the belly of my low-sitting car. I sounded like my car was eating the snow, with its low front grill and the grumbling like an empty stomach getting filled and the slowing feeling as I drove, as if my car wanted to savor the snow like a dinner dish. I wondered if snow was my car’s favorite thing to eat. Mother Nature saw we were getting too comfortable with Michigan’s surprisingly mild winter, I thought as I attempted to stop at a stop sign, then slid right through it like my car had no brakes. Mother Nature must have seen we were resting on our laurels. She heard my husband Adam and I laughing as we gazed at the unused shovel we bought back in November. The full salt bags in our garage. The photos I took of green grass and uncovered pavement on February 20. Less than two weeks ago. We got too comfortable. That was our mistake. Though I’ve lived in Michigan my entire life and get that it snows here, I still get anxious when schools cancel and businesses close and meteorologists stand in front of purple and blue-covered Doppler radar maps. I feel out of control and uncertain, haunted by that time in high school when I drove a 1989 burgundy Mustang with cow-covered seats and hanging dice in the mirror. I loved that car, but that car did not love Michigan winters. On my way to school one winter morning during senior year, my tail end fished and the wheels slipped. Next thing I knew, the beautiful plastic green mailbox of our school’s superintendent was broken and down on the front yard, lying on its side like a knocked out boxer. My car had a dent and my legs felt like jelly as I knocked on the door to tell the superintendent yes, I just hit his mailbox. Whoops. With each road that I crossed today, the conditions changed like a backwards dinner menu. There was the butter cream dessert road, but then there was the road with lumps of snow broken up by smoothness where people had been before. The contrast of the smooth and the lumps reminded me of mashed potatoes. Other areas of the road were crisper and clearer thanks to other vehicles paving their way through first. An appetizer. A realization dawned on me as I drove home, though. I saw the lumps of snow, the smooth tracks, the drifts and the wind. I braced myself as other cars drove by me going the opposite way. Other cars passed each other, kicking up snow like a horse kicks up dust. With my hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, frustration filled my veins as I made my way home, mile by mile. I just wanted to be home. I felt envious of other people driving large trucks with big wheels and four-wheel drives, their full gas tanks and high confidence levels. My fingers tightened as I braced myself to approach a group of cars driving towards me in the other lane. I was nervous they would swerve or I would swerve and we would collide and it’d be a mess of snow and metal. Just stay in your lane, I thought. Stay in your lane. And with those words, I realized the irony of the situation. “Stay in your lane” is a phrase I’ve seen a lot of lately, and it really is great advice. We can’t control how others live, or how much “better” they us they are, or how much “farther ahead” they get. All we can do is stay in our lane. All we have control of is ourselves. On my way home today, I had one job: Make it home safely. That responsibility rested on my shoulders alone because I was the only one behind the wheel. Other cars passed me. Other trucks plowed through the snow much easier than my snow-hungry Ford Fusion that sits low and groans as it plows through the snow. I couldn’t trade places with any of the other drivers on the road. This was my journey to take. It was up to me to get me home. Frankly, it didn’t matter if other trucks were bigger or faster or other people were navigating their cars easier than I did. I had to stay in my lane. And that’s how it goes for life, too. At the end of the day, we are safer and more secure if we focus on our own journey. Amy Poehler wrote a line in her memoir that I love: "Good for her, not for me." What may be best for someone else is certainly not best for others. You do you. As I turned onto my lumpy and drifty road, I said to myself, “Stay in your lane” when I drove past a UPS truck. One left turn later and I pulled into my driveway, grateful to be home. Grateful for this metaphor and the reminder that all we have control over is ourselves, and even then, much like the weather, circumstances can affect how we navigate life. But it’s all part of the journey, I suppose. The irony? As my garage door creaked open, the dry pavement welcoming my car to come in out of the storm, my car groaned again. I tried to inch forward, but the wheels would not budge. My car is stuck in my driveway right now. Stuck directly in front of the garage. Safe from others, but not the elements. My car is unable to move forward. It is sitting outside, parked in the middle of the storm. I think there’s another life metaphor here, but I’ll save that for another day. Stay warm, friends. xo, Lindsay Yesterday I received some encouraging (!!!) news in regards to my manuscript that I am attempting to get published. Check out the video.
So the next step for me is to get signed with a literary agent, which is much more in-depth and difficult than it sounds. How does that work, you say? Here’s what I’ve learned so far, rapid-fire style: LITERARY AGENTS
-A useful website called www.querytracker.net where writers can search for literary agent names, who their clients are, what genres they represent, etc. -Searched online and Twitter using the hashtag #mswl (which stands for Manuscript Wish List) and identifying in the results who said “contemporary realistic Young Adult” is a genre they are interested in -Twitter in general: Many literary agents are active on Twitter and often give tips about writing, publishing and what they are looking for, which is helpful. Plus Twitter can somewhat be a way to get a sense of an agent’s personality, (though I realize online personality or way of saying things is not always the same as face-to-face). -The Book of Everything Publishing, aka WRITER’S MARKET. This resource book comes out every year and lists all literary agent names, agency names, contact information, submission guidelines, etc. -Literary agent websites -Blogs that feature interviews with literary agents, such as www.literaryrambles.com Based on my research (we are talking hours and hours of research to identify who may be a good fit for me and my story), I created a list of literary agent names that I feel may be a good fit for me/me be a good fit for them. So what happens after you identify potential literary agents to represent you and your work? Like fishing, you gotta hook ‘em. QUERY LETTERS When a fiction writer finishes (yup, we’re talking actually completes the story) their manuscript, the next step is to query agents. The verb “query” is defined as “to ask a question about something.” Basically, a query letter is a one-page letter (nowadays it is an email) with one purpose: to grab the literary agent’s attention to want to read sample pages of your manuscript. This is not easy. You have one page to describe a story that is close to your heart. Your manuscript pages have your blood, sweat and tears on them (metaphorically speaking, hopefully). But the query letter is a test, in a way: Can you determine the important parts of your story? Can you reflect the heart and plot of your story in a few paragraphs? Can your main character’s voice come through in a few sentences? Can you effectively identify what genre your story is in, why the agent should care about the story and the main character, the stakes, why your story is unique? Are you being clear instead of leaving the agent confused at the end of your letter? Literary agents not only expect you to submit your manuscript to multiple agents, they want you to submit to multiple agents. Like I said, it’s all about finding the right fit for both the agent and the writer. The reason query letters are so important is because agents receive thousands of query letters. One of the agents on my list recently shared her 2015 statistics. You guys, this agent and her colleagues read and responded to 29,000+ queries. 29,000+. Of those 29,000, wanna know how many debut authors this particular agency signed? Three. So yeah. You need to put your best foot forward, in both your story and your query letter. Another method gaining traction for submitting manuscripts is online “pitch” contests via blogs or Twitter. This is how I received a manuscript request from an agent yesterday (see video above). The agent reviewing the pitches (requirements: title of manuscript, word count, genre, 100-word pitch, first 100 words of the manuscript) is one of the agents I had on my list of possible good agent matches, which is why I submitted. But overall, one of the most common and popular way to submit to an agent is to write a query letter, which I am doing, as well. Rejection is part of this process. It just is. Even J.K. Rowling, author of the amazing Harry Potter stories, was rejected. I’m not saying this to make light or excuses of inevitable rejection; I am saying this because it is a fact. I do want to be honest in this journey, so I will continue to share the good and the bad. It’s all learning, it’s all growth, and though it’s an emotional rollercoaster, I suppose riding the rollercoaster is better than sitting on the park bench watching.... xo, Lindsay Hi friends.
Hi Mom. Here is an update in Lindsay’s Journey of Achieving Her Dreams. Navigating this road to getting published is like driving a tiny clown car with stick shift on a busy highway loaded with semi-trucks. I have no idea how to drive stick shift, and I do feel like a clown sometimes. In winter of last year, I turned to my husband one evening after a day of frustration and said, “I think I’m going to hang it up. Writing. I shouldn’t feel so anxious and uncertain before writing. I should skip to the keyboard with butterflies floating behind me.” I thought that if God made me to be a writer, the writing should come easy every time. I should be excited every time. I should have sweet words flow out of my fingertips like nectar. Every. Time. I’m not sure why or where I got this notion. But in my angst and frustration, I went looking for nuggets of inspiration–-quotes, tweets, blogs, anything—from other authors via social media. My search led me to this important conclusion: All (if not most) authors and writers feel this same self-doubt and uncertainty at one point or another. This realization was a huge game changer for me. I thought I was the only one who often felt anxious and nervous to write, who dragged myself to the laptop, questioning if I could do this and the quality of my writing. But lucky for me, I saw amazing young adult authors and others I admire like Sarah Dessen and Emery Lord and and Jessi Kirby and Elizabeth Gilbert (she even wrote an amazing book called BIG MAGIC that addresses those anxious feelings) share their frustrations and uncertainties about their craft. They were honest and lighthearted about their difficulties. I realized I wasn’t alone, and when you realize you aren’t alone in your feelings or situation, you often become empowered. Relieved. Inspired. I continued to drag myself out of bed in the mornings or go to coffee shops on weekends, plugging away at the story and soothing myself with self-talk on days when the doubt tried to creep in. I’m grateful for other authors who shared their vulnerabilities because their vulnerabilities allowed me to feel more secure in mine. The truth is this: I have anxious writing days more than I don’t have those days. But then there are days—or moments, honestly—when it’s not as hard and it doesn’t feel like I’m in a clown car and I do think my story has potential. I love those days. Those days give me gas for the engine. Shonda Rhimes, the creator of hit shows like Scandal and Grey's Anatomy, recently did a TED Talk (it’s amazing; watch it here) and calls that feeling “the hum.” And so, I press on and find the hum and remember that this is my dream and writing is one of my favorite things. Anxiety and uncertainty are just parts of the process for me. It is what it is. Nowadays, I am in the editing stage with my manuscript, getting it in the absolute best shape I can so it is ready to go out to literary agents. A literary agent is an agent who represents writers. Their main objective is to sell a writer’s written work to publishing houses (nationally and globally), as well as to producers and film studios if possible. Honestly, I’ve been in the editing stage for quite awhile. To give you context, the first time I had a finished manuscript (meaning I had completed the first draft of the story from beginning to end and held the entire printing manuscript in my hands) was Memorial Day Weekend 2015. I took some time away from my manuscript after that (borrowing Stephen King’s advice) to give myself distance in order to gain perspective. I picked the manuscript back up after getting married in November, and I’ve been full-steam ahead ever since. From the first draft I printed on Memorial Day weekend to now, I’ve created six to eight drafts. The core of the manuscript and the story has remained the same, but the first draft involved a lot of cutting and editing and re-wording. I have never tried to get published nor completed a novel before, so I am taking my cues from writers I admire. Stephen King’s advice to writers is “Write with the door closed, edit with the door open.” Darcy Patterson wrote, “The function of the first draft is to help you figure out your story. The function of every draft after that is to figure out the most dramatic way to tell that story.” The quote that I often repeated in my head as I wrote my first draft was by Shannon Hale: “I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build sandcastles.” So right now, I am trying my best to create and smooth out these sand castles. Often in journalism and the publishing world, word count > number of pages. My original manuscript was over 81,000 words (300-some pages) and the target "sweet spot" word count for a young adult manuscript (according to literary agent Jennifer Laughran in her very useful blog post here) is 45,000-75,000 words. So I cut 11,000 words from my manuscript, sifting through scenes, asking myself, “Is this scene needed? Can I say this in a more efficient way? How does this add to the story?” Like a hair stylist, I clipped and cut, smoothed and straightened, fluffed and finished until my manuscript was in a the 68,000 word count range (about 245 pages). I haven’t edited alone. Another tip I’ve picked up along the way from successful writers (and once again Stephen King’s book/autobiography titled ON WRITING) is to give your book to beta readers once you feel you’ve gotten your manuscript in the best place you can. Beta readers are non-professional readers who “pre-read” written work specifically to look for errors or confusions and to provide feedback. When novelists write, often times they become so immersed in the story, they don’t see the forest for the trees. Beta readers offer a fresh perspective, finding those trees and showing them to the writer. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a handful of amazing people with diverse and different perspectives who have provided helpful feedback and insight on my story. There were several mistakes with my manuscripts that the beta readers identified so far, and I am very grateful for each of them (THANK YOU, BETA READERS!) They are helping me smooth my sandcastles. Once I gather all of the beta reader feedback, I will make edits accordingly. Then it will be time to send out to literary agents, an intense process I will outline in another blog post. It’s surreal for me to even be at this point. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Book publishing is an intense process that involves many steps and many people. There’s room for error. There’s room for doubt. There’s room for subjectivity. Good writing doesn’t mean it will get published. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. xoxo, Lindsay I was 4-years-old when I wrote my first book. (Does it count if I told my preschool teacher the story and then she wrote my words down? That's a form of ghost-writing, right? ) Let's say it counts. Even as a shy-ish, blonde-ish, little girl wearing headbands with large bows and printed jean dresses, I had a tendency to process my emotions through storytelling. When I experienced one of the first "traumatic" events of my mere four years that fall, I spun the tale with an imaginative twist to my preschool teacher, Mrs. Schexnaildre. She wrote my words down for me. And so, my first book was born. Then another. And then another. Sitting in a tiny chair using my tiny voice, I "wrote" (and properly illustrated with orange stamps, of course) three books in Mrs. Schexnaildre's preschool classroom. I lovingly refer to the trio of stories now as "The Bear Witch Chronicles." Three Things These Tales Do NOT Include: 1. Princesses 2. Princes 3. Love Three Things These Tales DO Include: 1. Witches 2. Bears 3. Coffee Take a look at this picture. You tell me if I was a bit scarred from that experience: What's up with the witches fascination? Right? Looking back now, it's clear to see little Lindsay was trying to make sense of all the lessons (and scares) life had to offer: Lesson 1: Beware of the Wicked Witch of the West. She's Legit. Sort of. I was obsessed with "The Wizard of Oz" film. I loved Dorothy and her snazzy red heels. I was dazzled by Glinda the Good Witch and her pink ball gown and her bubble mode of transportation. The Scarecrow was funny and the Tin Man was sweet and the Lion was gruff and tough. But the Wicked Witch of the West? Nope. Little Lindsay was NOT a fan of that Wicked Witch of the West. Her green face scared me. Her scowl spooked me. Her cackle haunted me. "She's not real," my mother reassured me. "Don't worry." That October, my parents took me to a family Halloween party. All was well until it wasn't. I remember sitting in the yard and looking out at the long driveway. I remember a figure clothed in black running down the driveway with a long broom and a black pointy hat and a green face. I remember immediately realizing the Wicked Witch of the West had found me at the Halloween party. Insert instant tears. Terror. Fear. Fright. Sobbing. I clung to my mother, who brought me inside with the other terrified children. Turns out the "Wicked Witch of the West" was a neighbor getting into the Halloween spirit. Sitting safe on my mom's lap in the living room couch, I still remember the neighbor's green face smiling at me in her black cloak, broom in hand, reassuring me, "It's okay! I'm nice! See?" It was all so terrifyingly confusing for me. Three whole books worth. Lesson 2: Teddy Bears Trump Witches Obviously. Hence why I still own my oversized Mr. Hersheys the Teddy Bear. Lesson 3: Celebrate with Coffee One of my favorite lines I've ever written is in the story "The Teddy Bear that Ate the Witch." Following the teddy bear's adventure where he defeats and eats the witch, he celebrates by "Going home and having a cup of black coffee." As Teddy should. As we all should. Because a good cup of coffee is a great way to round out a day. Especially if that day involves witches. There's lots of morals to the story here, but at the end of it all, I'm glad Mom saved these masterpieces, and I'm proud of little Lindsay for voicing her fears. Here I am, more than 20 years later, still trying to do the same. Have a great weekend! xo, Lindsay I was in the sixth grade when I first learned about Harry Potter. At the time, I was really into watching the Rosie O’Donnell Show (random, I know), and Rosie kept raving about this book called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Rosie’s stamp of approval was solid for me, and I decided I needed to read this Harry Potter book, too. That week, I was able to get my hands on the second Harry Potter book in the series—Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets—though at the time, I thought I was reading the first book. It didn’t matter, though. I was hooked. I went to the library and checked out the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, falling more in love with the story now that I got the whole picture. From then on, Harry Potter became a permanent fixture of my life. I went to book release parties. I bought all of the books and reread them countless times. When I interned at The Saginaw News during the summer of 2007, I even convinced my editor to let me go to the movie premiere at midnight and write a column about my adventure. Don’t get me wrong: I’m aware I’m not nearly as hardcore as many other fans out there. But over the holidays, I was playing around on my phone and recorded my mom answering random questions. The video below is solid proof that for years, I’ve been:
xo, Lindsay On December 31, one of my best friends had a baby. A girl. Her third. Despite being a week overdue, the baby is tiny. New. And perfect (maybe I’m bias…but it’s true). Here's a picture of us, about a month and a half before she had the baby. The baby came on her own timeline. If it were up to us adults, this baby would have born when she was due. Like she was supposed to (Because babies listen to us, right? They come exactly when they are supposed to, right?) Wrong. Obviously. This baby had other plans, as babies do. She let us know who was in control here. “The baby is going to be a social butterfly,” I told my friend a few days before, when it was looking like the baby would arrive around New Year’s Eve rather than Christmas. “She wants to come out when there’s a party and lots of people.” Sure enough, New Year’s Eve came, and the baby was still hanging out in my friend’s nice, comfy womb. (I mean, I assume it’s nice and comfy, as far as wombs go. Not that I would know what my friend’s womb is like.) I’m making this awkward. STOP IT LINDSAY. I texted another friend that afternoon: “I’m sitting here eating cheese puffs on the couch, and our friend is about to have a baby. Life’s weird.” Life IS weird. My friend had a baby on December 31. On the flip side of things, my mom was working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit taking care of other people’s babies who aren’t as healthy as my friend’s newborn. My cousin and aunt were in New York City in December 31 to ring in the new year. The Michigan State Spartans were in Texas, playing a pretty ugly football game. I was inhaling pineapple and ham pizza with my new in-laws and husband, watching aforementioned sad Spartans game. People got engaged. Announced pregnancies. Threw confetti and streamers. Sat with their cats (I did that later on in the night, much to my parent’s cat Tabitha’s dismay). All on the same day: December 31. Different memories. Different meanings. Like it or not, we have entered a new year. I know a lot of people “aren’t into resolutions.” I get that. I’m not that sold on resolutions, either. But I do enjoy a new beginning. Everyone needs a new beginning at some point. And it doesn’t have to be, you know, coming into the world on the last day of the year like my friend’s baby (but that’s pretty cool). It’s a chance for us to start over. To have our beginnings coincide with the beginning of a new year. As for me, my resolution is more of a challenge: put myself in new situations. Hence this website, for one. Letting everyone know that I have a dream of getting published and I am pursuing that dream, for another. It’s not easy to be vulnerable and put yourself out there. It’s not easy for me, anyway. I’m a stickler for certainty and comfort zones. I have this perfectionist problem and this lack-of-coordination problem and then there’s the “What if I embarrass myself?” anxieties that trip me up sometimes. This whole thing can be downright scary. BUT I SHALL PRESS ON. I will forget about the times I tried new things and completely flopped. Like when I went ziplining in Mexico and couldn’t stop myself when they told me to, so I got nervous and grabbed the zipline rope and abruptly stopped. Like, STOPPED. Middle of the Mexican jungle-stopped. Dangling alone with people ten feet away in a tree-stopped. I didn’t just abruptly stop one time and then figure it out on the next go-around. I dangled mid-air in the middle of the zipline three times. THREE TIMES. When I tried paddleboarding in Frankenmuth, I went very slowly and got behind my pals. I couldn’t figure out how to steer. When an unexpected large boat (like multiple levels-tall) came down the river, I panicked and went straight into the riverbank amongst the mud and muck. My saving grace was our friend Kristin, bless her heart, who switched my paddleboard for her kayak. Had she not switched with me, I think I’d still be out on the river, floating on the paddleboard, woefully shouting “HELP ME!” at random intervals. When my husband and I first tried kayaking, we didn’t go on a small test run on quiet waters for thirty minutes. We went on Lake Michigan, one of the largest fresh-water lakes in the world, for two hours (no clue it was going to be two hours) to get to this landform called Turnip Rock. Three minutes in the water and once again, I couldn’t figure out how to steer and hit the marina wall repeatedly. I went slowly. My arms burned. I paddled so much water INTO the kayak that I could have created my own Michigan lake. My legs were soaked and my eyes were stinging with tears of frustration. Let it be known, though, that we made it, though. To the rock. So yeah, my record with trying new things isn’t the best. I mean, I don’t expect to be great at things on the first try, but I’d like to aim for something a little bit higher than horrible. I’d settle for decent or mediocre. But I seem to consistently hit REALLY BAD. My husband says I pick the wrong things to try. “It’s water sports, I think,” he tells me. “The steering and the paddling.” He’s good at trying to make me feel better. This year marks new beginnings and trying new things. I will work on steering, should the experience require steering. And with whatever it is that we try, I’ll probably go slowly. And that’s OK. I’ll just do what my friend’s baby did: Make ‘em wait until I’m ready. Side Note: Here are the pictures from the aforementioned failure adventures, which only provides more proof that a picture does not always reflect the context of a situation. xo, Lindsay I wrote the following back in November, ten days before Thanksgiving. I never intended to share this post, as this isn't really my story to tell.
I wrote this blog for myself...minutes after a good family friend/neighbor passed away and I came home to an empty house and a broken heart. Sitting alone on the couch, I needed to make sense of the jumbled emotions tangled in me. Honestly, I don't even know if I needed to make sense of the emotions....I just needed to let the emotions OUT. I felt lost and had the laptop on my lap and the words spilled out and over me, sloppy and cold and thick, like day-old coffee in an overfilled mug. After writing, I shut the lid of my laptop and told myself I wouldn't share with anyone. The topics were too personal, too difficult, and involved feelings of men that aren't one to share their feelings with anyone. I didn't read the post again until New Year's Day. Cleaning files from my computer, I stumbled upon "Till Death Do Us Part..." Reluctantly, I let my husband read the post. "You should show this to them," he urged. "John should read this." Yesterday, I gave this blog to John to read, which he did.. And I was told to share it. So here it is. This blog includes the experiences of two amazing men in my life. I am fortunate to know them. xo, Lindsay Eleven days ago, I got married. Our wedding day was everything that everyone says a wedding day should be: love and laughter, nerves and excitement, happiness and new beginnings. I wore a beaded ivory dress and my husband wore a tan tux and my dad and I hugged each other tight as he gave me away. We danced and kissed and cried. We ate vanilla cake with butter cream frosting and I wore silver sparkly tennis shoes and the bridesmaids held bouquets of autumn colored roses. Crimson. Orange. Peach. Everyone said it would go by fast. It did. Everyone said to soak it up as much as you can. I tried. Everyone said to make sure you take time to eat. I succeeded. Eleven days ago, I got married. Two days ago, my new husband and I returned from our honeymoon, a weeklong affair in Cancun. Our tan lines still linger, the intoxicating buzz of love and strawberry daquiris run through our veins. These past few weeks were chock full of happiness bubbles floating around our heads, bobbing up and down with bliss. But an hour ago, I got a call from my mom. “He called,” she said. “She could go anytime. Can you come say goodbye?” The bubbles popped. Our neighbor Karen had been battling cancer since March. What started as a shingles diagnosis and a trip to the doctor to check things out had progressed to cancer in the brain over the past year, its tendrils wrapping its way around this person who was so much more than a neighbor, but family. Karen’s heart was huge, always giving, caring, loving. But her huge heart was slowing down, it’s steady pump now a weak flutter. Her husband John had called so we could come say goodbye to the woman who represented so much in our lives over the years: a friendly face, warm baked treat, silly prank or advice about Michigan birds in the backyard. Our friend. Sometimes, all you can do is be there. But sometimes, being there is the most important thing you can do. So I went. A year ago to the week, we were making a similar trek to the hospital to say goodbye to my dying grandpa. The third week in November—ironically the week before Thanksgiving, a holiday centered on gratitude—has been a difficult time for my family, to say the least. As my mom, brother and I walked into our neighbor’s house, my parent’s house visible from the back porch, I took in the glassware decorations on top of the windowsill. “My Grandkids Made This” magnets. Diet ginger ale bottles scattered near the kitchen sink. This house was lived in. Memories were made here. And then I saw John. Wearing a red zip-up sweatshirt, white Hanes T-Shirt and baggy grey sweatpants, his eyes looked tired as he smiled, telling us he appreciated us coming to say goodbye to his wife. I had no idea how he was keeping it together. “How’d the wedding go?” he asked, pulling me into a hug. They couldn’t make it due to the necessary hospital visits. When I told him the wedding went well, John nodded. “How long have you and Karen been married?” I asked him. I sat beside his wife now, my hand holding her hand as she lay in the bed, her eyes closed, her breaths raspy. Their son and daughter sat on couches, updating my mom on the medical details. It would be soon, the hospice had told them. “We’ve been married 49 years,” he said. “And she put up with a lot with me, much more than I put up with her.” “You make a good team,” I nodded. “Yeah, well, these kids nowadays who get married?” he started in his gravely voice, “They have one fight and then they want to divorce. You gotta take the bitter with the sweet. Sure, you’ll have your good times and your bad times, but if it’s not abuse or nothin’, I say it can be worked out. She put up with a lot with me.” John looked down at his wife, and I wondered what was going through his mind. 49 years. They met in high school and got married at 19. A man’s man through and through, John loved to hunt and fish, often making the activities a top priority. “I did my own thing and she put up with that,” he said. “She took care of me.” In the past nine months, John took care of his wife in every sense of the word. He cleaned her. Took her to her appointments. Bathed her. “I pulled down her pants while she held the counter and the railing so she could go to the bathroom,” he said. I thought of the vows I had spoken to my own husband, not even two weeks ago. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. I have a co-worker and friend also named John. In his mid60s, John is gruff. He has salt and pepper hair and drinks black coffee in a mug. He can build anything, paint anything, fix anything. He swears and smokes and makes sassy jokes at your expense, but it’s his own type of affection. He's one of my favorite people. Earlier this year, his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. As the disease progresses in her brain, his wife’s personality changes hourly. She smokes like a chimney, then forgets she even likes to smoke. She makes us blush with her comments and laugh along with her sporadic glee. She gets angry with her husband for staying away at work too long and she wakes up in the middle of the night to throw clothes out of the drawer. To calm his wife, John takes her for drives. “I’ve put 5,000 miles on my truck in the past few months because we drive so much,” he told me. Earlier in the summer when the sunshine was still shining and the grass was still green, John took his wife out for picnic lunches. They’d get sandwiches at Subway or Arby’s and eat and sit and be together in the world. She liked the flowers outside, he said. Now, John stays up in the middle of the night to make sure she’s safe, missing hours of sleep to ensure her well-being. When his wife tells him to take her somewhere, John listens and follows her directions as he drives even if he knows his wife has no idea where she is. Earlier this week, John brought his wife in to work to say hi to us. I noticed his wife’s nails were a bright, aqua color. “I love your nail polish,” I nodded towards her fingers. She grinned like a school girl. “You wanna know who does my nails?” She pointed to John, who cracked a smile. “He does.” John is a brute of a man. A man’s man who makes witty jokes and smokes cigarettes and can fix anything. But he can’t fix his wife’s disease. So he takes her on drives and paints her nails aquamarine and stays up to make sure she’s safe. He is a tough guy who is soft and caring in the way that men are for the women they love. After leaving our neighbor’s house to say our goodbyes today, I came back to the duplex I just moved into with my new husband. My phone rang as I sat down on the couch. “She passed away,” my mom’s voice echoed in my ear, her voice shaky. I looked at my wedding bouquet on the counter, still perched in the vase I put the flowers in the day after our wedding. The autumn roses had dried, their petals now fragile and thin. Society teaches little girls that Prince Charming rides white horses and slays evil dragons before they can hurt you. It teaches teenage and 20something girls that the right guy is the one with smooth pick-up lines and money for drinks and random texts once in a while. But Prince Charming is neither of those things. Prince Charming is a fabrication of fairy tales and romantic comedies. Love’s seeds may scatter during the happy moments of newly wedded bliss. But love’s roots are deepened during the difficult, the tragic, the uncertain. Love is in aqua nail polish, in bathroom trips, in angry outbursts. Love blossoms in the messy and dirty and difficult. As I sit and mourn the losses and love of those I know and those close to me with their own loves and losses, I think of my husband. I think of our vows. I think of what true love really means and what it really looks like. What it sounds like. It’s not in the galloping of white horse’s hooves and the clinking of drinks and ringing of text messages asking to “come over tonight, baby.” It’s showing up. Again and again and again. No matter what life throws at you. Till death do us part. I told my parents I launched a website and am going to dedicate time this year to get my manuscript out into the world. They had questions. A lot of questions. And pen name suggestions....Well, Dad had pen name suggestions. One pen name suggestion. P.S. Sorry I turned my phone the wrong way. I am not living up to the expectations put on my Millennial generation. FAIL. |
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