This is The Life!
Yes and Yes and Yes. Love and Love and Love. Crying in the Summertime. Plans or no Plans. Her last Text. 7 Things That Help. 7 Invitations That Will Help.
If you are crying a lot this summer…
If you are waking up in the middle of the night, hot and wondering why all your dreams are nightmares. If your children are fighting more than normal. If you are trying to focus on health but it’s summer and there is pizza and ice cream instead. If you really really want what you want but you resist it. If you’re scared your food isn’t safe to eat anymore, or there will be a flood or fire or they will come for your neighbors or you won’t have health care or you’re sad that you’re not shocked by all the cruelty. If you have to explain this cruelty to your children and you want them to feel safe as long as possible but you don’t feel safe. If you are so down but you can’t explain it. If you know you should read and get your ass to sleep but you watch the 1% Club instead. If you are questioning every decision you’ve ever made. If you are longing to be somewhere you’re not. If you’re resisting meditating. If the doctors are rude. If other drivers are mean. If you’re always and never getting your period. If your list is so long you have multiple lists. If it always feels like a full moon in your belly. If your grief is bubbling up to the surface and staying there. If you forget what you’re doing while you’re doing it. If your husband asks you to hand him his phone and you hand him a fork. If you feel like it’s all amazing and you’re so grateful but you’re so devastated and it’s all for nothing. If you’re scared of dying from a disease caused by the stress of it all. If you keep checking your email but don’t know why. If one half of you wants to level it all up and go for it and the other half wishes you could just mother your kids while they actually want to hang out with you. If you know it’s all about slowing down and cooking healthy food and then you go out for dinner again, and again. If you can’t seem to finish a project and wonder why you’re holding yourself back. If you keep not calling your friends even though that’s the only thing that will help. If you’re considering moving out of the country or not paying taxes or creating a bunker or even getting a gun. If you try to control and judge and call it love because you still don’t know how to love yourself. If you clean the house instead of write. If you avoid playing music because every song makes you cry and dance and scream and get goosebumps and you’re so alive but it kinda scares the kids even though they need to see this part of you. This wildness. This freedom. If you feel anxious, scattered, excited, creative, lost, foggy, agitated, weepy and you seriously only just want to float in water with your eyes closed listening to the breeze in the trees as those tiny birds fly so so high up there in the cloudless sky - all alone-
-I’m right there with ya.
Somehow this summer is nothing like I planned. Of course it’s not. Because I’m not supposed to plan. Simplicity was my word for this season. But nothing is clear. I’m having so much creative energy but I can’t focus it. I finally actually want to write! But the girls don’t want to go to any of the amazing summer camps I signed them up for last freaking November. Yes, they make you plan your summer in the winter.
They’re both sleeping in my bed every night and none of us are sleeping well but it’s still delicious. They don’t want to do anything. They resist taking showers with all their might. They won’t get out of the house or out of the car. They’re always hungry. They’re tired. They make up songs and laugh and play on the trampoline as the sun sets and the crickets start chirping and then they start battling as Pokemons and they scratch or hit each other and cry and fight and then play some more.
They are having a fucking summer god damn it and no one can stop them.
I wish I could give myself permission to do the same, but there is this weight. This weight of needing to accomplish and finish and expand and level up and grow and get organized and clean the closet and work out and make sure they’re reading and and and. This weight of having a summer so we can be rested and ready for the school year that I am completely and totally dreading. We need a year off. A life off. A summer. I haven’t had one yet. Or maybe I just don’t like summer as much as I used to - as much I wish I did.
Summer was the season I spent bare foot as a child on my grandparents ranch, riding my horse way way way far out into the pastures. Its the happy place I go to in my meditation. The ranch was swept away in a hurricane and my grandparents are dead. I’m still here though, so is the little girl I was, long tangled hair, tan, feeding my horse watermelon, being happy alone because I’m never alone in nature.
I’ve been waking up really early to write in the quiet hours before everyone needs everything and dirties the house and needs more food and forgets to flush. I can’t stop seeing all the jobs that need to get done when we’re home. But I’ve been really trying. I like weeding the garden. I like checking on our veggies. I like checking on our bees. Then I wonder why I can’t do more better stronger better and compare myself to everyone else who seems to cook every meal from scratch and know how to sew and even crochet and they say no when they mean no and yes when they mean yes and I just cry in my car and workout to avoid being still and quiet and intimate because honestly I’m sad and I don’t know why but I do! But I’m tired of talking about it. Especially with my husband.
We have this list of fun activities we are supposed to do this summer, but we keep forgetting. We did get a new couch, though! Game changer. And we did go to Mexico! Very fun, except for the skin infections. And honestly, my family loves being home and I love being gone. So there will always be that. I will always long for that water even when I’m swimming in it.
We are going on our unplanned road trip in August, but I’m secretly planning it so I can see my people in Oakland and LA. I already booked the minivan. I miss my people and I miss who I am with them. It’s hard to make friends. It’s hard to be a good friend. When is our commune happening?
I’m excited for Unsent Love Show, honestly, because we can be together and some of my favorite humans will be there and it’s gonna feel good and that matters. I’m trying not to panic about no one coming because everyone is away on their spectacular vacation or has turned on their automatic email notification to tell me they are resting and playing with their family for the summer. Good for them.
I have to figure out a way to do this work without it impacting my body so profoundly. I care so much. Before every show I can’t stop peeing and can’t sleep. When I write I can’t dream without dreaming about the piece so I wake up to write it all down. I’m just a restless ball of love jitters fear and feelings and stories and worries that I won’t do it all before I die. No wonder my kids are acting like this!
Maybe it’s ok. Maybe nothing’s wrong. Maybe this is a very uncomfortable time because we’re all growing - the garden, the kids, the bees, our business, our projects, our marriage. Maybe out of this darkness we will actually remember we’re made of light and help each other? I guess it’s just messy and complicated because we’re figuring it out in real time? I just wish I enjoyed this part a little bit more.
Not to plan or anything, but next summer, I will not plan anything!
8 Things That Have Helped Me This Summer:
1 - Going to my friend’s house early in the morning to feed her chickens and water her garden and sit and have coffee and talk shit before the sun got too hot. Soon we will trade honey for eggs and that makes me happy.
2 - Re-reading Octavia Butler novels in bed as the girls sleep next to me with the fan on high and the cat curled up by our feet.
3 - Seylah sat down with her playing cards and potato chips after swimming today and said, “Ahhh this is the life!” Yes it is baby girl. This is the life. Our life. This was before she went to her drum lesson and Nya went to her guitar lesson and I low key hope they’ll be in a sister band but no pressure girls - don’t live my unrealized dreams, do you!
4 - My mother in law just called as I sat here writing this and I almost tried to pretend I wasn’t crying but then I just told her everything and let myself cry with her about it all. It really will all be ok. She’s right. Thank you thank you thank you.
5 - Seylah and Nya seriously deciding which parent they like more:
“Mommy. You’re more important than daddy. Like, if you died, we’d suffer. If he died, we’d be fine. But we like the stuff he likes way more than the stuff you like. Like, you like nature and meditating and being outside and swimming and he likes video games and TV and AI and 3D printing. So. Yeah.”
I love their honesty. I hope it never ever goes away, even if it hurts my feelings.
6 - Going to Beat the Bomb. I recommend it for a different kind of family fun day. We rode our E-Bikes that day in the sun throughout the city and got ice cream and made fun of each other, and that really helped. Sometimes we can have a Sunday fun day even when none of the work is done.
7 - Reading a story of my own at Sip N Tell in Fort Collins. I reminded me that I love hosting but I also love reading my own work. I drove there alone and back on a Wednesday night in a massive lightning storm on the I-25. I read a raw, personal wild story and it wasn’t ready and neither was I, but I did it anyway. We’re never ready. Fuck it. It felt amazing. I’m editing it now so I can share it with you!
8 - Going to the Productivity Club at Lighthouse in Denver. High recommend if you write and need community and accountability. It’s fun. We do pomodoros and then go for a walk and it’s just so helpful and I’m actually writing and meeting people I really like. Imagine!
Now! 7 Invitations that will hopefully help you!
1 - If you’re here in Denver, our Unsent Love Show is Friday July 25th and I would really really love to see you there and hug you. I realize this is my work to do during these times. Yes, we’re supposed to be alive for this. Yes, I can keep creating spaces for us to come together and practice listening, being together and writing! All endangered arts and humanities, mind you. With all the funding being cut, we really have to do this with each other, for each other. I mean it. It’s not just about getting AI to do more work for you so you can do more work. Sometimes it’s about just showing up in person to one thing and being there. Easier said than done, but we can try.
2 - Speaking of love messages - my laptop and phone both stopped working last week because they were so full. Full of text messages. I had Saxon go through them because my moms texts are all in there and I’m not ready to read them and definitely will never erase them. I did finally sneak a peek at the last text I sent her and the last text she sent me - deep breath as I invite you to read this - note her photo is Gracie, her doggie that passed away shortly after she did:
Ouchies. Yes and yes and yes. Love and love and love.
3 & 4 - On September 26th we have our Unsent Sex Show and our Unsent Death Show on October 25th. Please join us. We’re launching a live stream option soon so you can watch Unsent Shows from anywhere. More soon on that!
5 - In the meantime, if you haven’t subscribed to our Unsent Show Podcast, honestly, please go ahead and do that. It’s fast and free and helps us grow. Thank you lovelies!
6 - We also have our Three Things Women’s Monthly Meet Up which is now the 3rd Saturday of each month. Come to bring 3 things you need help with and 3 things you can help with and let’s reimagine mutual aid and community. It’s fun and nourishing. Reach out if you’d like to join our group!
7 - If you ever want to come over for tea, or pull a weed, say hi to the bees, or cry laugh with me on our new couch, reach out. We don’t have to plan it. This is impossible without each other. Practice asking for help and actually accepting it. Cuz next thing you know it will be next summer.
Love and boom,
Britt aka BB aka Baby Luck
PS - July 13th marked 2 years since my mom passed. Nothing feels easier about it with time passing. But here we are. Love you mom. Wish I could tell you everything I just wrote. Yes and yes and yes. Love and love and love. This is the life.