Seven a.m.

“Seems like it works for everybody, right? It’s early. I’ll be home early, and then we can all do something together.”

Sure.

Except there’s a problem.I don’t get four to six hours of alone time.And I’m starting to resent it.So I’m picking up golf.And I fucking hate golf.Nobody mentioned this part in the parenting books: nothing is 50/50. You can divide responsibilities. You can marry a good man. You can have a husband who changes diapers and does bottles and knows the pediatrician’s name and actually participates in raising his own children.

And still, somehow, motherhood comes with a thousand tiny invisible strings tied around your wrists. Mmothers tend to carry more of the physical, mental, and invisible work. And for a long time, I could explain away why I was the one carrying more. Of course I couldn’t go anywhere those first few months. I was healing from cesarean surgery. Of course I couldn’t disappear for half a Saturday. I had a newborn. Of course the little free time I did have went to the gym because I was desperately trying to build a strong version of myself again. Not even for vanity. I wanted energy. I wanted my body to feel capable again. I wanted to recognize the woman standing in the mirror.

Of course it was okay for him to go.Because when he got home, we could all do something together.Except somewhere along the way I realized: I don’t want to do something together.Not every time.Sometimes I want to do something that makes me feel like me again.And yes, I feel guilty saying that.To a degree.

I genuinely believe people should have hobbies. I think learning new things makes you interesting. I want my husband to play golf, grow his business, see his friends, go to the gym, play pickleball, and have an entire life that exists outside of being somebody’s husband and somebody’s dad. I love him! He was my friend before any other label. His fulfillment and happiness is apart of what makes this house a home and it’s important.

BUT I also think it’s absolute bullshit that somebody gets to casually leave the house for four to six hours on a weekend.

So.

Do I know anything about golf?My seven-year-old has won a couple of tournaments, so I get the gist.It’s hard.It’s expensive.It takes an offensively long amount of time. Am I personally interested in golf?

No.

But I am deeply interested in finding out what it feels like for a woman to walk into the kitchen and say:

“Hey, honey. Seven a.m. tee time tomorrow. Gotta go. Here are the kids.”

And then just— leave.

No elaborate preparation. No mental inventory of bottles, snacks, nap schedules, sunscreen, clothes, activities, and whether everyone has everything they could possibly need in my absence.No guilt.No apology disguised as an explanation.

Just a tee time.

Because what I refuse to do is quietly follow the generations of women before me who sat down last at the end of the day. Women who poured so heavily into everyone else that eventually they couldn’t remember what filled them.I don’t want to surrender so completely to motherhood that one day I look around and realize I have become incredibly good at taking care of everyone except myself. That is where some of this anger comes from.

If I’m being fair, golf didn’t create the anger.

Golf just happened to walk into the room after I had been sitting on the sidelines for a year and a half. Before this baby, I miscarried.Miscarriage is crippling in ways I don’t think you understand until you’re standing inside of it.There is grief, obviously.But there’s also negotiation.

Was this supposed to happen?

Should we try again?

Can I emotionally survive trying again?

How old am I?How old will I be if this takes another year?

Is my uterus up for another round of let’s grow an embryo and hope for the best?

Eventually, you gather whatever courage you have left and decide to do it again.And I did.

I got pregnant.

Then I was diagnosed with a low-lying placenta.Just like that, nearly every physical coping mechanism I had was taken away in order to protect this tiny life I desperately wanted.

Move less.

Be careful.

Don’t overdo it.

Take it easy.

Gentle.Gentle.Gentle.

I understood why.I was grateful.And I fucking hated it.Those two things can exist together. I was carrying a baby after losing one. What a blessing. I knew there were women who would have given anything to be in my position.So I felt pressure to be grateful correctly.

Be lightly active.

Eat well.

Stay calm.

Don’t stress the baby.

Be a kind human while feeling like you’re suffocating inside your own body. I felt trapped. Meanwhile, life continued happening around me.My husband went golfing.Played pickleball.Went to the gym.Worked.Built a business.Met friends.Moved his body.Walked out the front door.And I missed that freedom so badly it physically hurt sometimes.

I would sit at my son’s golf tournaments cheering him on with tears in my eyes.

Not because I didn’t want to be there.

I desperately wanted to be there.

But I also wanted to be the caddy daddy.

I wanted to carry the bag.

Walk the course.

Feel tired because I had done something.

I wanted my body back in the world.

Instead, I was on the sidelines.

Pregnancy can put you there for nearly a year. Then surgery. Then postpartum.A year and a half of watching life continue around you while being told: “Be gentle with yourself right now.” Or my favorite “this too shall pass”. Please stop minimizing my CURRENT emotions with a Pinterest saying.

There are only so many times you can hear that before you want to throw something.

After my C-section, I was eventually cleared to walk outside for five painful minutes a day.

Five.Minutes.

I treated those five minutes like an Olympic event.I’d brace my core and wrap my stomach like a mummy because if I only had five minutes, I was going to make them the most effective five minutes humanly possible.

Everything hurt.

You can’t sit up normally.twist.can’t bend down.can’t casually pop out of bed.

Your abdomen feels foreign, tender and disconnected from you. The. somebody hands you an eight-pound baby and places him directly over the incision.Motherhood has impeccable comedic timing.

Then came the NICU.

We spent months there.There is such an underrated privilege in walking out of a hospital with your baby.I didn’t know that until I couldn’t.Every morning I put myself on a schedule because I knew if I stopped moving, depression would catch up to me.

Wake up.

Pump.

Get dressed.

Hospital.

Repeat.

I can still feel the chills on my feet from those hospital hallways. Hand sanitizer gives me flashbacks to scrubbing in to hold my small brave baby.I can still feel my upper body shaking as I lowered myself into the wheelchair to go to floor number seven.I can still picture the medical binders my husband would prop up around me to create some pathetic version of “privacy” so I could breastfeed my baby.

Machines humming.

Monitors chirping.

People coming in and out.

My body no longer felt private anyway.

Nothing did.

It was one of the most painful experiences of my life.And during that period, my needs became irrelevant.Not because they weren’t real.Because I had bigger problems.Way bigger problems than whether I felt like myself.When we finally brought our baby home, there wasn’t some magical moment where everyone said:

“Okay, Mom. You’ve been through enough. Go disappear for six hours.”It was back to mom mode.

Learn the newborn.

Figure out feeding.

Figure out sleep. What is sleep?

Emotionally support my six-year-old so he knew there was still space for him inside this enormous transition.My husband went back to work.We built another routine.Eventually, seven months later, it was my turn to crawl back toward myself.I found a gym with childcare.Glorious.For three months, I slowly rebuilt the feeling in this body I used to call home.A little stronger.A little faster.A little more capable. Today, I’m eleven months postpartum.My body has healed.The pregnancy and postpartum fog has lifted.I notice sunsets again.Daily roadblocks feel like inconveniences instead of catastrophes.

I have patience.Energy.Strength.I am almost physically where I was before. So why do I still feel like something is missing?

Because I miss me.

Not the old me. I know better than to chase her.

You don’t get your old life back after motherhood. You add layers to it.More depth. More wisdom.More responsibility.More people you love so intensely it terrifies you.I’m not chasing some younger, freer version of myself who didn’t have children.I’m craving the FULL VERSION of myself.The woman who can go for a run simply because she can.

The woman who sees an art class and thinks, That sounds fun, instead of immediately opening the family calendar in her head.

The woman who can decide she wants to try something and doesn’t first have to calculate what her absence will cost everyone else.

Which brings me back to golf.

I don’t care about golf.

I’m not particularly interested in becoming an advocate for Callaway and their all-boys-club antics.But I am extremely interested in refusing to subsume myself into the framework of motherhood. I deserve a life outside of my children.We all do.I want the freedom to walk through the door after work and casually announce:

“Hey, honey! Tee time at seven tomorrow with the girls. I’ll be back around one.”

And I want that sentence to sound as boring coming from a mother as it does coming from a father.I want to be clear about something here.My husband is one of the best of them.

This isn’t an essay about a shitty husband.

I don’t think this is an individual-man problem.We live inside a system that decided long before either of us got here what motherhood and fatherhood were supposed to look like. A husband disappearing for a long Saturday tee time?

Normal.

Expected.

A wife leaving her husband home with the children for six hours every Saturday while she pursues a hobby?

…

Awkward silence.

Exactly.I’m not naive enough to think I’m going to solve that framework in one marriage.But I can certainly fuck with it. So apparently I’m a golfer now.Not because I love golf.Not because I’ve suddenly developed strong opinions about my handicap.But because after a year and a half of watching from the sidelines, I want a tee time of my own.Maybe that’s what this was about all along.

Not golf.

Permission.

And I’m tired of waiting for someone to give it to me.

See you at seven.

Sincerely,

A golfer without the spirit or the scorecard.

Xx Melo (my government name is Kristin btw)

My dad worked in an oil refinery and made enough money to support a family of five. My mother only had a fifth-grade education, and for most of my childhood, she didn’t have a demanding career.

Then my dad got injured.

I watched my mom work various jobs during the day while going to school at night. Looking back, I think that’s where a lot of my financial anxiety comes from. This realization that everything can be good,you can have everything you need, feel completely safe and then life happens.

And suddenly, you’re completely jarred.

When I met my husband, I was in college and he was doing the very normal twenty-something thing of, I don’t exactly know what I’m doing with my life yet.

Eventually, he went from a normal hourly job to working for the railroad, which came with a huge salary increase. The kind of jump most people don’t experience until they’ve spent years climbing a corporate ladder.

But to me, that kind of income felt normal.

I grew up in a Texas refinery town where nearly every family had someone like my dad. There were kids graduating high school, making six figures, buying giant Texas trucks and putting down payments on houses in the same neighborhood where I grew up.

Then I moved to Houston and realized, Oh. You guys all have normal hourly jobs. FedEx and stuff. Interesting.

When my husband got that railroad job, I think part of me regained the safety I remembered from childhood. Almost subconsciously, I thought I could recreate my mother’s life.

Okay. We’re back to easy breezy.. then we got older.

And eventually we looked around and realized how much money we were burning senseless shit.So after many YouTube videos, books, podcasts and probably an unhealthy amount of financial content, I realized I was going to have to do something every millennial hates:

Pick up the phone.

So I did.

I called Fidelity and asked what it would look like to open a Roth IRA.

And that’s where my journey into financial discomfort began.

The more I learned, the more I realized we needed to become extremely intentional. My fear around money and my financial anxiety made sense given what I had experienced, but understanding why I felt that way wasn’t enough.

It was still my responsibility to learn.

I could no longer comfortably say, My husband handles the finances.

While I’m traditional by nature, I’m also deeply unconventional. At my core, I’m disciplined. I like a plan. I want as much control as reasonably possible over whether I reach the goals.And money was no exception.

I’m sharing this because I think, for young couples, and particularly if you come from a culture where traditional gender roles are heavily reinforced—a woman becoming involved with the finances can somehow feel combative.

you’re questioning your husband.

you don’t trust him.

you’re implying that he isn’t capable of taking care of you.

At least, that was the framework I was sold.

And it’s completely inaccurate.

When you marry someone, you’re a team. You’re building together.

The financial responsibility shouldn’t fall entirely on one person.

You should both know what’s coming in and what’s going out. You should know roughly what you spend on subscriptions every month. A general idea of what groceries cost.

And before you walk out the door Friday night, you should know how much money you actually have to play with.

One thing we’ve fortunately been able to do (and this is definitely an American problem )is resist increasing our lifestyle every single time our income increases.

We easily could.

Instead, we had enough fun spending money in our twenties that now, in our thirties, we’ve realized we need to be much more intentional about where our money goes.

Rather than buying a home right now, we’re moving abroad.

Rather than letting excess money sit indefinitely in savings, we invest.

Rather than building another business completely from scratch, we’re exploring buying one.

it is so easy in your thirties to inflate your lifestyle until you become completely disconnected from how much money you’re actually spending.

And eventually, distracted becomes debt.

That scares me.

America—and American Express specifically—are more than happy to assist with this by apparently looking at me and saying, Sure, Kristin. No preset spending limit. Have fun.

Which is particularly dangerous when you live in a beautiful neighborhood surrounded by million-dollar homes, multiple cars, private schools and every accessory imaginable.

Do I want the shiny things?

Absolutely.

I just want them under my budget.

Which is why I have to leave America.

Just kidding.

Mostly.

I wanted to share this because I think it’s incredibly easy to reach your thirties, look around and convince yourself that you’re behind.

I don’t think anyone has this whole life thing figured out.

There’s a learning process to everything.

We don’t come from money. We don’t have generational wealth waiting for us. We’re trying to build it ourselves.

And doing that requires a little humility.

It requires making the calls.

I’ve literally started conversations with financial professionals by saying:

Hey. We’re a high-earning couple. This is the amount of risk we’re comfortable taking. We don’t know money. We don’t come from money. But we’re here because we want to learn how to grow it.

And that honesty has given me access to some incredible resources.

I’ve learned.

I’ve become more comfortable with money.

And, maybe most importantly, I’ve become more comfortable talking about money with my spouse.

That’s probably the baseline for everything we do now:

We are a team.

There’s no putting the entire financial burden on one person. There’s no standing across the kitchen saying, Well, YOU spent too much.

No.

We have the same spreadsheet.

We have the same budget.

We have the same goals.

And if we want to get where we say we want to go, we both have to be disciplined enough to reverse-engineer that goal even when there are a lot of fancy, shiny things around us trying to convince us otherwise.

So if you feel like you can’t get out of the red, or you’re trying to save but keep dipping back into savings: I get it.

Life is expensive.

But start somewhere.

Learn what retirement and investment options are available to you. If a Roth IRA makes sense for your situation, learn about it. If you can consistently invest $100, start there. If you can do more, great.

The point isn’t pretending everyone has the same amount of disposable income.

The point is developing the habit of intentionally putting something toward your future.

Then make a spreadsheet.

Talk to someone who understands money.

Use the tools available to you to actually look at your spending and figure out where the hell your money is going.

Because having a budget is essential.

Knowing exactly how much money you can spend this weekend without waking up Monday morning wondering what happened is liberating.

It’s very easy to say, Whatever, I’ll throw it on the card. I’ll pay the minimum.

And then suddenly that cute little Friday night dinner is still haunting you fifteen years later.

That is not the energy we’re giving.

America may or may not know how to manage its money.

But in this house?

We’re learning to do things differently.

I’m from the south where southern hospitality isn’t just about hosting it’s a lifestyle. You greet everyone. “Yes ma’am” , “no ma’am”, “please and thank yous” are always exchanged. That is until you enter the city limit. Houston is the humid version of NYC with less foot traffic. You don’t speak in the elevator, greeting each other is a rarity and there’s unspoken rules to it. hold eye contact for two seconds so that way you can both convey your green light is on. Aka my AirPods aren’t playing a message at the moment go ahead, let’s break the silence. You acclimate quickly because who wants to be a burden? Like any other environment you learn the culture as you go and after a while you’re no different than every other power house walking through the tunnels with you.

Wake up at 5am. Workout. Coffee. Emails. Commute. Parking. Meeting. Another meeting. Lunch at your desk. Work more. Meetings.

A highly productive yet socially depleting structure. When I moved abroad for the first time I remember my mother going over the basics.

“Remember to greet everyone! Doesn’t matter where you go. It’s rude if you don’t.”

The culture shock of Portugal was the one that took the most time. “Hola Bom dia!”

The respectable response “Hola! Bom Dia! Tudo bem?”

Which translates to “hello, how are you? Everything good?”

Do you think it stops there? No, prepare yourself for an honest response. I couldn’t believe it. My whole life I considered myself a kind/ friendly person but was it all performative? A byproduct of my environment? Here was a human being actually asking me how my day was going and I was irritated because I had somewhere to be? Again- a time for me to acclimate. My walking pace needed changing too! I was much faster than the local Algarve town I chose to make home. I found myself getting flustered just walking to the store. Why is everyone walking so slow? I had no idea capitalism was still alive and well in my soles.

It took some time, but I acclimated and began to look forward to walking to get my coffee and stop for fifteen minutes to catch up with Rafaela, the front desk manager at the gym I was going to. From there my daily social circle grew. The woman at the chocolate museum we’d pass by everyday, the same face at Delta Cafe where I’d have my usual tosta mista. Is this what is like to have a community? I was gutted when we had to leave. I sobbed all night. I enjoyed my days there, thoroughly. I knew so much about everyone. I celebrated birthdays with these people. I knew about their families, where they were traveling next, I could lend an ear when they needed it. I had no extended family there and still finding my footing they were all so warm to me.

Am I not an introvert? Was my anti social personality a lie? I had actually become really good a bantering for twenty minutes over nothing! Where was this energy when I was dating in my 20’s? I would’ve snagged my husband sooner!

What I crave the most is community. I like being apart of something bigger than me. I enjoy witty banter and seeing photos from someone else’s life as they grin from ear to ear. I like when people ask how my kids are doing and what we have coming up. It’s nice. So I’ve taken apart of the Portuguese culture with me. I’m back in the hustle and bustle of the city. Don’t make eye contact because you will talk to me. Anytime someone responds with “eh doing okay” no no no you come back let’s talk it out. I can see the old version of myself in their reaction. The eyes bugging out the wiggle motion of their knees to cue me into rushing. Some do rush off but some have stayed 😊 and for me, that’s a start.

Mr. Barry at my sons school crosswalk, Walter who I see everyday in passing on the Rice Loop, June who doesn’t drink coffee but works at the best coffee shop in the neighborhood, my dear sweet friend Laila who I owe ten brunch dates too but only see walking in the neighborhood. I stop and talk because these people add something to my life. I’m building a community. So I’m writing this to encourage you to do the same. If you see the same faces in the same places ASK THEM FOR THEIR NAMES. Get to know them on a regular basis even if it’s just small talk it does wonders for your mental health and you never know what impact it will make on there’s.

We’re all just human passing through slowing down and smiling.. creating a connection again can make the path a lot more interesting!

Sending you love,

Xx Melo

Heres the part of the movie where I give you cliche quotes supporting that narrative

• It’s not like I wake up and start drinking tequila

• Nothing REALLY bad has ever happened, I’m not hurting anymore

• I’ve stopped drinking before and I didn’t get withdrawal symptoms.

I can continue on but for the sake of holding your attention I won’t. From the age of 15-25 alcohol was an accessory in my life. If I had a tough day, I’d have a glass of wine to relax. When I achieved a milestone I had a glass of champagne. Tailgating and cheering along for a team? Beer me. I never gave it much thought. Did I have some moments where I didn’t feel my best the next day? Of course! But it wasn’t something I needed to examine.

My first pregnancy rolled around. The first time I realized how much of a crutch alcohol was for me. I had a rough day, where’s my outlet now? For once I was forced to sit in a still sober body. Even as someone who was actively studying the brain I had never thought of my own habits. What have I trained my brain to do? How has my tolerance evolved? Within three months the inflammation in my body had left, my skin was better, sleep was better, I felt lighter. I started running again, started writing again. How was I going through life half functional? What feeling was I trying to outrun? Where was this fictional space of euphoria that my brain just kept going for another glass?

Your brain doesn’t care about the label you or society decide to give it. Your brain is a pattern reader.So much of our habits are around reward and comfort. We break our morning fast with breakfast. Comfort. We have a sweet treat after dinner. Reward. We pour a glass of wine at 5 p.m. Relief. Repeat that pairing often enough and your brain starts taking notes: This is how we unwind. Alcohol equals relief. And this is where alcohol gets complicated for me. While your brain is learning the reward, your body is absorbing the consequences. Alcohol temporarily alters the systems involved in reward, stress, inhibition, and mood. Your executive functioning is responsible for things like impulse control, decision-making, and emotional regulation becomes impaired. That initial relaxation or mood boost is also temporary. As alcohol wears off, the nervous system has to compensate, which can leave some people feeling more anxious, irritable..low.

And if you’re someone who is already more vulnerable to problematic alcohol use, anxiety, or depression *raises hand* your brain may not play nicely with the coping mechanism society has normalized.

That’s the part I think we miss when we reduce the conversation to: “Am I an alcoholic?” Your brain isn’t asking that question.

It’s asking: Did this make me feel better? Should I do it again?

And every time the answer is yes, you’re giving it another piece of data. Another permission slip to continue a habit that quite literally poisons our body and leaves us on a vibrational low. Which is why I’m becoming less interested in whether someone qualifies for a label and much more interested in the pattern:

What job has alcohol been hired to do in my life?

Because once it becomes your reward, your exhale, your celebration, your social lubricant, your sleep cue, or the punctuation mark at the end of a hard day, changing your relationship with it means more than simply removing the drink.You have to teach your brain another way to get what it was looking for.

This is the climax of the movie. Cues uplifting music to the scene where the main character has a life altering revelation about drinking

*Buzzer sounds* The simple answer. Stop drinking entirely. I have ADHD. For someone whose baseline experience involves more internal friction, the volume in my brain lowers. Racing thoughts, internal chatter, sensory and constant mental movement alcohol has become a mental state shift. And THAT is what I’m working towards undoing. How am I doing that? Well I went to fleet feet and got fit for some running shoes of course.

The 5pm-8pm window of struggle.

For the past few weeks I’ve logged my emotions. What am I feeling and when. Where do I struggle. What’s the timeframe where I go from overwhelmed to wanting to crawl out of my skin because I’m so overstimulated? If you’ve ever had the luxury of being at home with your young infant you’ll recall the stage of body to body contact in the summer can add an extra layer of stimulation you might not always love, but your baby absolutely needs. At home the invisible work can make you want to live on the hammock instead of inside where the laundry hasn’t been folded. I can continue on as I dig the monster truck out of my heel as I type this.

The beast is still inside me. I haven’t found the golden strategy to fixing myself but I’m getting there. Working towards it. I started cycling every morning. No excuses. I started lifting again (it helps it heals). Somatic therapy does wonders for me and if this is something you struggle with or wake up with a sense of pent up energy GO RUN. GO LIFT. Get it out. Do it tired, do it when you don’t want to. Alcoholism was labeled by the AA association before we had neuropsychology. Before we had nuanced understanding. Data on postpartum depression. Labels in itself can become dangerous and I don’t think they’re always necessary. I think we can look at habits and say “I don’t know if this is good for me anymore.”

There was a time in my life where I was very much in survival mode and all my nervous systems knew is fight or flight. I’m in a different place. I’m not here to demonize alcohol just here to be vulnerable and put my hand out as we walk towards a more aligned place. What I crave in this world more than anything is peace. To lift myself and my life up to God and be the absolute best version of myself and that requires doing the true work. I know my relationship with alcohol needed to be evaluated and saying that out loud gives me more power to continue to do so! I don’t have to be perfect but I do strive to be in control. Conscious of my actions. My life is full of mess and chaos but I WANT TO BE HERE. I want to experience all of it. Just finding ways to ride with the waves instead of crashing into them.

Keep getting better every day my friends. You’re not alone and you are not a label. (This is not medical or health advice just a personal observation of my own experience.)

Xx, Melo

This is the part where I express my love and admiration for both parents and reiterate the most important part of this entire hoopla: People cannot give you what they don’t have.

I dont want to generalize however it’s not classified information that Hispanic households lean on the more authoritarian side of parenting. My home was no different. There was no fluid communication. My dad was the head of the household and what he said goes. Socially acceptable events at my age were off the table. I dont say this as an opportunity to peel apart his parenting style, I say it to set the tone. And his tone was the only one that mattered. He was loving in his own way, but instilling fear and remaining emotionally disconnected was apart of his rearing process.I remember writing him a letter during their divorce period. Trying to explain the guilt I felt for going to live with my mother , how stressed I felt trying to navigate college, my emotional struggles of anxiety. In blue pen he scribbled on the bottom left hand corner:

“Do I have to be here? No.”

I was eighteen. While society labels you as an adult I was just a kid trying to figure it out-crying out for help. I never brought it up and he never mentioned it. That was the theme of our conversation style. When I was about ten my mother was diagnosed with a mental health disorder. We all went to family therapy cues audience applause , all I can recall is something triggering my dad in group therapy and him storming out. My mother was in tears and like his little toy soldiers we all walked behind him. We never spoke of it after.

The next five years was chaos. A series of traumatic events caused by alcohol,substance abuse, mental health episodes, with a sprinkle of physical violence. It was a really dark period for us. The coping dance usually went a little something like this: stay silent as if nothing happened , walk on eggshells for a few days, wait until something happens to laugh together and move forward. Brushing it under the rug was a behavior we were all practiced at. My childhood wasn’t terrible she said after paying for therapy but it was one in which I felt emotionally isolated. Left to figure out a lot of things on my own. Again, my parents grew up in much more emotionally disturbing environments, nonetheless they didn’t have the tools so there was no possible way to give them to me.

FAST FORWARD TO AGE 25

Time moves on I wrap up college, I take a break, I work, I move, meet the boy, fall in love, get married and have a baby.

This is the midst of COVID and all we have is iPhones . I can’t write daunting paragraphs of my childhood trauma without talking about the amazing parts. My dad is an incredible man. Emotionally stubborn? Sure! but I used to like that about him. A simple southern fellow. Doesn’t talk a lot but when he does it’s usually witty and uplifting. Although he’d been dealt a pretty tough hand in life, you can always count on him to have a good laugh with. He had a green thumb, loves music, good movies, fishing, hunting. He’s been physically disabled since I was five, but honestly if you ran into us at dinner you wouldn’t know . Charismatic doesn’t even cover it. I’ve never introduced him to someone who didn’t later ask “Hey hows your dad doing?”. his energy was infectious. My dad and I used to do things together versus sitting down and talking. It’s the way he showed his love. Museums, concerts, movies, parks, nature walks, travel, if there was a sight worth seeing he would knock on my door “Hey want to go to the observatory today?”. Why it’s 1pm on a Tuesday and I’m an unemployed freshman in college so yeah dad, let’s roll. He was just like that. Yes he lived with chronic pain, but the man would physically push himself to walk uphill, go to the gym, go see and do as much as possible. He fought through the pain. Being around him made it difficult to complain. How could I when the physically disabled man isn’t? So fast track to Covid. I call him. Communication isn’t our forte so the first calls were a bit slow. Then we picked up momentum to FaceTime. We would talk about every detail. What’d you eat today? Show me the plants you bought. “Look what I bought on Amazon today instead of paying my student loans.”. Things like that! My best friend was here all along only now he was unshackled by the man he thought he needed to be to raise a decent human. During my pregnancy we really bonded. My husband worked at the railroad at the time, so it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be there for me most days, he made more money when he couldn’t. My dad really filled those gaps. Back then my mom was still struggling so she wasn’t able to be there for me in the way a girl needed. Every phone call my dad tried really hard to hold that space for me and it meant so much. At the hospital he was the first one there.

CUT TO PRESENT DAY

So now we’re almost six years in this new phase of our relationship. We travel together. He comes and stays with us often. My six year old has an incredible relationship with him. We are in it okay? In it to win it. For those six years I felt like I was on top of the world. How great is this? Three boys who love me unconditionally. If I had known I was going to mess up the dynamics this bad, I don’t know if if I would’ve done it. I mean I would have had to for my own sake but I should’ve done the slow burn to get more time. My husband, my son, and myself move to Portugal (another story for another time). We break the whole family down over it. Everyone is encouraging but no one wants us to go which is completely understandable. A few months go by, I’m FaceTiming him that I’m feeling a little blue and he comes to visit us in Portugal. We take him to Spain, we live it up! I feel so blessed to have experienced that with them. As time progresses so does my dad’s health. We have some vulnerable conversations about his future living plans and start talking on a deeper level. How are you doing mentally? Do you feel lonely? Etc. Probably one of the first times I got the balls to ask how he was REALLY feeling. I had always told my husband that if my dad needed somewhere to go or somewhere to live I’d want to be that person. He agreed. So we propose the idea to my dad. It takes a few conversations before my dad does the serious “So how would this work?”.

THE CONVERSATION

The visits grew longer over time as did the phone conversations. Suddenly I was getting whiplash from my childhood. I found myself back in a state of hypervigilance. Reading his behavior before speaking. You never know if you’re going to have a good day or bad day, it was dependent on his level of pain and how well he slept. His passive aggressive behavior struck me far more strongly than it did when I was a kid. Little things just started stacking up and the light bulb went off. If we’re going to live together, I’m either going to have to face the giant and tell him what I’m feeling or live walking on eggshells in my home forever. And not just me, my husband and children would have to follow suit. I couldn’t let that happen. I had come so far. WE as father and daughter had grown so close I’ll just tell him how I feel and he’ll understand this is the part of the movie where the main characters idols become shattered.

Another day goes by and I figured we’ll go out and do something. I ask him to grocery shop with me but before we go inside I pull a casual hey can I bring something up? I mention it gently “I love you but we need to work on our communication.” It was as if I told him I was inviting his ex wife to dinner and she’s inside the grocery store waiting for us. He looked pale and my dad’s a pretty well tanned guy. His left eye twitched. His eyes were scanning past my face. You could see his brain buffering in real time like a caveman who just discovered fire and was completely gobsmacked. What is this communication you speak of? Type of look. His silence was deafening. “Right?”. I said. “Because I’m your child, but I’m not A child. If this is going to work we need clear communication so our expectations are in line and we all work as a team. It’s important to me.”. He said okay but not much after. Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! I could see he was visibly annoyed and left the next day. A week past we get on the phone and the energy is off. He’s completely detached from where we were almost as if he rebooted his system to Sargent days when I was growing up. He says something passive aggressive and for the first time I call him out on it. I unfold and tell him he can’t talk to me like that. He raises his voice, I get louder, he calls me sensitive. I tell him he lacks emotional intelligence. Its wasn’t our best moment but I had did it. After 35 years I had spoken up and told him how hurtful his behavior felt. How small and unsafe it made me feel. If he was going to come live with us I could not put my own children through that. That was the breaking point. Every time I reached out he would have an excuse.He did a few “phone is dead I’ll call later.” messages. I believe even at one point he did the ol’ “My phone is cold and not working. Call you tomorrow.”. Really? My six year old gave up FaceTiming. After a few months I started making excuses for him. I didn’t need my six year old getting secondhand trauma from this nonsense. I wrote a letter. I sent a voice message. I’d leave voicemails. I started emailing him random facts about what day it was. “Happy National Secretary’s Day please find yours and call me back I’m sorry.”.

For the first three months I couldn’t stop the mental rehearsal..feeling conflicted about speaking up. “Did I do the right thing?” “Should I call him again?” “Was it worth it?”. I reached out for months. At first I thought it was a silly disagreement. We never disagree. He just needs some time to cool off. I was “daddy’s little girl” the favorite according to my siblings. He just needed some time to process what I said. Apparently those fourteen words were strong enough to hit his ego in the wrong way and completely cut all contact with me. I finally sent the bunny out of the hat text “ITS AN EMERGENCY CALL ME BACK 911!”.

He called and couldn’t look at me. I told him I was pregnant with my second son. Something I was hoping would soften that heart of his but no. Triangulation was a common form of communication in my family. Myself, being the middle man, for many years. It’s funny when you’re on the outs you realize you’ve had dirty hands too. I never should have “filled him in” on my siblings lives he should’ve picked up the phone. My sister tried to intervene (boundary setting round 2 another story for another day). I had hosted every holiday since I was married. Ten years of opening my home and feeding my entire family even when I didn’t have the means to. Every vacation was organized and funded by the people in my family unit. I poured my heart into my dad, my sister and her kids for over a decade. Now I’ve set a boundary and I’m not only met with silence but full blown isolation.

I had a high risk pregnancy and delivered early. We spent months in the NICU the absolute HARDEST MOST PAINFUL EXPERIENCE IVE EVER ENDURED. Way more than my dad cutting me off. He never called. Never checked in. I’m lying I got a “your sister said baby is in hospital sorry to hear that.”. I didn’t have time to be mad at either of them. My newborn wasn’t at home with me and I was fighting through so much more mentally. It was clear to me. The most important thing was and still is my own family unit. My baby turns one in twelve days. I don’t know if my dad will ever come around and meet him. I know my oldest son doesn’t ask about him anymore and that makes me feel worse but.. here we are. There’s a lot of truism out there. Words pieced together with no nuance or context but we’re supposed to just live by them.

“You don’t know how much time your parents have here.”. That’s true. I also don’t know how long I’ll be here I either. I love my dad. I respect my dad. My intentions were never to hurt him or hurt any one else. I’m a different person than the kid he preferred silence. I need boundaries. I need clear communication and to feel safe with the people around me. It’s not an ego thing, it’s a mental health, break generational traumas, my kids WILL BE ABLE TO SPEAK TO ME type thing. I don’t know where I go from here other than to continue on. Praying, enjoying my kids to the best of my ability and create a healthy strong space. So do boundaries have consequences? I was shocked at how impactful they were and how many fully functioning adults feel the need to “pick a side.” The truth is those aren’t my people. Society wants us to believe we have to accept this form of behavior because “it’s family”. But that’s unhealthy and incorrect. People that love you will have the uncomfortable conversations because you’re worth it. They value you and they have the ability to self reflect and meet you halfway. Unfortunately for me my dads love was conditional and when I didn’t respond or behave the way he needed me too that was it. Which is okay. My door is always open if he has a change of heart but for now I’ve found peace and a profound appreciation for what I have and the people around me.

Wishing you all healing and happiness

Xx,

Melo

My husband spent ten years in a field where shift work dictated our life. He smiled through exhaustion and sleep deprivation for years. we knew whatever field he was about to enter in had to give him back his time. This is the chapter we’ll call starting from scratch. A lot of late night talks between the two of us. I had never felt us both so raw and vulnerable. We spent some nights rewriting how we could’ve done things differently. We had a baby, we were both in our thirties, what the heck were we doing with our lives? This story is getting sad quick cues uplifting music

What it did allow us to do is ask ourselves, in the most honest way, what do we want our lives to look like? Not just as individuals hitting the reset button, but as a family? What do we want. After a short list, glass of wine and Reddit rabbit holes I came across Portugal. Safe, clean, by the ocean, and ranked one of the best places to raise your family. The key to a happy marital ethos is one person has to be batshit crazy and the other person has to be a problem solver. My husband has never listened to one of my ideas and told me I’m crazy. He’s always indulged my nonsense which is great. It took a few YouTube videos and some serious thought but within a few weeks he was fully on board. For the next four months we began, what I like to call, trimming the fat off our home “aka my mother in laws upstairs area”. Everything was being donated and labeled. We had four suitcases and an Airbnb in Porto waiting for us. We decided not to tell anyone before the moving date got closer. I didn’t want to hear anyone’s feedback good or bad. I had my own chatter going on in my head that the last thing I wanted is to be deterred by someone else’s opinions that weren’t my own.

It was the morning of our big move and our connecting flight was cancelled. A great way to start. We ended up stay the night in Boston and purchases new flights. You can imagine the financial anxiety ramping up after just piecing together my life and trying to do things right. But there went the money and off we went. When we landed in Portugal our journey began. That next morning my body went into shock, a familiar feeling at this point. I was trying to give my three year old a bath and couldn’t figure out my new euro appliances. If I can’t figure out how to work the water how will I survive? What’s next? Dramatic? Yes. But so was the storyline of my life. Then you say out loud holy shit. I have no home. I have no things. I don’t know the language and I don’t have a car. Was this a setback?

It wasn’t. Over the course of a few weeks we started to really find our groove. Finding a gym, walking to our new little restaurants. I could lick the cable carts from my window that’s how dreamy our first place in Porto was. I mean I was there! In the thick of it! Living out my euro dreams. I couldn’t imagine moving back to the states what the heck was I thinking? This place was great. My husband had a different experience. He was new to his field, new in this space and still recovering from our ptsd of a career change. We were always at a place where our son’s speech was becoming a concern. Verbal looping began and although he was reading at writing.. otherwise very much on development, as parents we were becoming increasingly concerned with what resources we could provide him. Our time in Portugal was coming to an end. Without a Visa in place your time in Europe is limited. We knew we had to go back to the United States. A few months in Montenegro to get things in order and we were back in the states.

Here’s some things I wish I would have considered as someone who is now on round two of their international tour.

1. Make sure the country you’re considering has the city infrastructure you’re accustomed to. From Porto we went to the Algarve area. Absolutely beautiful, but we spent our entire lives in Houston and oddly enough we missed what a metropolitan city has to offer. Education options, healthcare options, etc.

2. Your honest learning capability when it comes to the language. Portuguese was difficult for me to understand. I should have invested more time and effort. You don’t have to master the language but basic skill level will help you an enormous amount it day to day life. When we visited Spain our experience was extremely different in the best way. I was able to ask more questions, build social connections, and my son was able to make friends quickly. A huge factor for us is mental health and the overall wellbeing of the family.

3. Be okay with a trial run. We were so convince Porto was the place, but weather wise, city infrastructure, just our daily lives look different than what we felt we could commit to longterm. Not a loss. We love Portugal! But there’s a lot of boxes that need to be checked that you’ll learn along the way and that’s okay. Show yourself some grace and take it all in as a learning experience.

Finally. Remember why you’re moving in the first place. We moved back to my dream neighborhood and ran back into the same question. Is this our forever home or can we truly see our family elsewhere? Now having experienced both we know that living abroad is for us. I could look at my experience as a total wash, but it wasn’t. We traveled so much while living in Europe. I made friends with some fantastic people. My nervous system had never been more stable. I was able to let my kid be more independent and overall the pace of life is something we’re committed to. So if you’re considering donating everything and packing up I say do it! You’ll never be this young again and the world is beautiful just waiting for you to explore. If you have the privilege to move abroad, yes! The answer is yes. No regrets and I’m excited to be moving into my forever home in a place where I’ll still be learning the language simultaneously.

Xx, Melo

My parents, for lack of better words, partied a lot. Alcohol, binge drinking, substance abuse are somewhat normal in Hispanic culture. Nothing strikes you as abnormal til you get older and realize hmm maybe it’s NOT normal to be blacked out at a one year olds birthday party. That being said my relationship with alcohol started very early. I grew up in a city thirty miles outside Houston. I wouldn’t label it as rural but there definitely wasn’t much to do to keep us busy. Alcohol was fairly accessible and with me entering the most sensitive parts of my young adult life ,my journey of bad coping mechanisms began.

There’s a sense of shame and blame when it comes to victims of sexual assault. What was she wearing? Why was she drinking? She should have known better? Why didn’t she speak up? It was 4pm on a Saturday afternoon when a group of us were invited to a house party. A friend of mine and I took a drink out of a white styrofoam cup and that’s the last thing I remember.

Trigger warning.

I could feel someone’s cold sweating body next to me. My arms were forcefully pinned behind my back. I couldn’t breathe. I was panicking but couldn’t move. I could hear three familiar voices laughing as I tried to fight back. I woke up with my girlfriend, at the time laying next to me. I had realized they had drugged and attacked us both.

This is the part of the movie where I heroically act swiftly. Where I clean up myself and my friend..I call the police and tell them exactly what happened and phone my dad right after because what happened to the two of us that night was wrong.

Not because I was underage drinking. Not because I shouldn’t have befriended a new group of testosterone driven young men. But because I was a woman who did not want to have sexual intercourse with any of those vile human beings and I DEFINITELY did not want to have flunitrazepam in my body.

I don’t remember seeing but do remember feeling objects being forced into my body. The smell of sweat. Blood. Heavy forceful pressure of my head down pushed down. There’s snippets I recall of feeling suffocated.  Dirty nails in my mouth. Mostly I remember fear. DEBILITATING FEAR. I woke up that next morning a fragile shell of myself. My voice shaking trying to wake my friend so we could leave. My hands trembling as I dressed myself and walked down this cold, dark, wood paneled hallway with my friend still struggling from the drowsiness to walk. It felt like the scene of a horror movie. Before I opened the door I saw their mother staring at me with a stale expression. Almost as if she knew something had happened. This would be the brave character moment where I’d cut to the scene of shouting. Scolding her about the evil scumbag of sons she was housing. Til this day I know she knew, heard, or was aware that something horrendous happened.

I don’t remember driving home, just the deep bass of my father’s voice reprimanding me. At this point of the divorce, I had tried to live with my mom and that was a bust. So I was back in my dad’s new house with SOME bend in the rules. I think I stopped being afraid of my dad in my 30s. I can count on one hand how many times he actually hit me (most of them I deserved) but it was definitely a tactical move to make us all understand and obey the law. He was furious that day. It wasn’t like me to stay out late and not call. Staying over night somewhere without a phone call? Let’s just say my summer was over with one month left of it.

Now this is the part where the audience would ask. Why didn’t you just tell him? Why didn’t you just tell your dad? It’s not his fault, but my dad wasn’t the best at communicating. In fact, we didn’t. He didn’t. He was naturally reserved. Quiet. When he spoke you listened. He was a caring father and truly he did his best but I didn’t have a safe space to talk. That wasn’t a thing back then.We didn’t talk about the hard things we just brushed things under the rug and moved forward. I love my dad. He had just gone through so much trauma of his own. How could I let him know that his little girl was dumb enough to trust these idiots, take a drink from them, and be scarred forever? All his efforts of “keeping his little girl safe.” Just went down the gutter. My father had been physically disabled since I was five. We all knew not to work him up with our bullshit because stressed= back spasms and what kind of shit was worth that mess?

Then there was a layer of small town girl syndrome. No one wants to be known as the girl who cried rape. I vaguely remember watching some video in high school about sexual assault and the “laws” behind it. Once they do your pelvic and physical exam you make a report to the police but you have to do it with 24 hours so they can collect bodily evidence.” NO FUCKING WAY. I could barely move. I couldn’t even comprehend what had just happened or why. I don’t remember what kind of punishment I got that day. I actually don’t recall a lot of things even til this day. My memory has never been the same. I wanted that summer to be over. I wanted what happened to me to be over. In my past! Just like the shitty little town I was living in, I wanted it all to just go away and leave it behind.

In college a shift happened. I no longer trusted anyone. After going through something like that, you can imagine how intimacy can become haunting. Which coincidentally benefited my studies. Just like anything else you can’t outrun trauma. There is now steps you can skip in healing. Slowly but surely my tortured soul began to reveal itself with reckless behavior. In my twenties I battled an eating disorder. I would drink way too much. I started to experience anxiety for the first time and went to the therapy… but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say the thing out loud. I couldn’t be the girl who got drugged and raped. “A victim of sexual assault” victim had no place in my list of characteristics.

I met the love of my life. We were madly in love, had a beautiful wedding, and at 29 I was pregnant. Now here’s the part of the movie where they cue a whimsical soft shadow over my life so everything looks perfect and cinematic. But this is where shit hit the fan. For the first time in nine years after my assault I was still. Not only still but I was sober for a VERY LONG PERIOD of time. And what happens when we’re still crowd? This is the part where the audience shouts “WE START THINKING ABOUT SHIT”. It started off okay. Ish? I think. During this beautiful period of pregnancy you get to start anew. You know you’re getting ready to have the most spiritual experience of your life that you go through your own journey simultaneously. Starting with recognizing my patterned behavior and how I’ve hurt others. The drinking..reckless behavior..the anger issues. Then it trickles down to. Why am I so anxious? When did that start? Why do I flinch when someone taps me? Why do I need to “drink to loosen up and be intimate?”. Ding ding ding! You got it chief! Your sexual perpetrators ripped you of your emotional safety and you’ve been in survival mode ever since.

Round Two of therapy. Only this time? I’m honest. Here’s the thing about healing. The part no healthcare worker will tell you, because we’ll lose your business, but healing is emotionally and physically painful. There’s a lot of saying the ugly thing you’ve been hiding. A lot of acknowledging what trauma happened to you and accepting the part that it wasn’t your fault. I’m all good with those things. What I wasn’t good with was my pain and suffering for almost a decade while no one knew their dirty little secrets. So I did what every sound minded person did when they feel like the legal system has them against a wall.

I ran a Twitter ad with their faces warning other women they were sexual predators.

Comment after comment started rolling in. I wasn’t the only victim. They had done this many time and hurt many people. Sexual assaults, burglary, theft, aggravated assaults. We weren’t the last ones they drugged either. This is the part of the movie where everyone applauds because they caught the bad guys and the main character feels an instantaneous feeling of triumph. But no. I stayed up night after night reading the comments. Writing other girls, listening to their experiences, crying my eyes out. In neuroscience there’s something we call peritraumatic dissociation. Basically what it means is when your experience something your brain goes “oh goody! Let’s process and store this memory.” When something traumatic happens your brain goes into red mode “this is a threat! We are in survival mode.” And you’ll later have a very slim chance of recalling whatever shitty experience your body went through. Some people consider it a good thing. Almost as if your brain is protecting you. Others argue and say it’s horrible and doesn’t come in handy when you’re trying to press charges against your perpetrator in the court of law. This is one of the things I give my hands up to god. I don’t want to remember more than I do.

So why did I dust off my old trauma and bring you along for the ride? Well friends, after years of cognitive behavioral therapy, trauma focused therapy..

written exposure therapy and somatic therapy have truly shaped my healing process. What people don’t share with you is that S.A in particular defies the laws of therapy. I’m 36 now, still married, I have two beautiful children, I’m accomplished (both academically and professionally *toots horn*)I live in my dream neighborhood, I’ve traveled the world, I live abroad.. but sometimes I glitch.

I still can’t watch anything alluding to sexual violence, sorry Game of Thrones I guess I’ll never know how good you are. I find myself emotionally attached to current stories you see on the news or another assault in the Buffalo Bayou in Houston. I resonate with these women. I know the journey ahead. I know what they’ve lost and I know how hard it is to rebuild. To be brave enough to walk in the park again by yourself. You know I lived near a park for almost 4 years and could only manage to run that trail the last 2? Every time a man would walk by my head would be on a swivel. There were years when I wouldn’t go out after a certain time or walk to my garage alone. Do we have to be careful as women? Of course! But what we fail to talk about is the lasting effects of trauma and how the anxiety can become so overwhelming you stop living life feeling safe and walk in public spaces a shell of yourself because you haven’t healed.

So why am I doing this? Putting all my trauma on the internet AGAIN? Because I know someone out there needs it. I don’t need to give you the sexual assault stats, you know them. You see them. You scroll through them every so often. I spent a lot of my 20’s utterly embarrassed and ashamed about something that happened TO me. I wish I would have read more stories about how getting help sooner rather than suffering in silence is the bravest thing to do.. even if you weren’t brave in those survival moments. Does it suck that maybe a colleague, a close friend’s partner, or someone I know , read details about my trauma they may have not known before? Of course because I’m human. But I do know this. What happened to me seventeen years ago has shaped the way I will have conversations with my own sons. I’m an advocate for human trafficking and offer my services weekly to sexual assault survivors. To articulate  my suffering through writing in a way that emancipates myself while empowering others. The power taken from me in those moments did not take away Gods plan. It didn’t still my joy or jade me for a lifetime. I win. I am not a victim to people who can commit such heinous acts of violence. There is more good in this world than evil. So maybe I wrote this partially for me but really to let another woman know she doesn’t have to walk through this alone.

Xx Melo

The second pregnancy I got it! Man ol’ man did I understand every heavy inhale every pregnant woman gave me after I asked “how they were doing.”. I could not sleep this go around. There wasn’t enough magnesium in the world to knock me out. I had something called a lower lined placenta. The funny thing about health conditions is that everything is “normal” the second you bring it up. A little spotting here , no big deal just take it easy. You can’t lift, you can’t run, and you can’t sleep? I felt trapped in my body. Then the cesarean section comes. Another 4-6 months of being trapped in your body.

And listen, I understand how beautiful and privileged I am to bare my own children. But I am now baring my soul when I say postpartum has rocked my spirit in a way that has both blessed and traumatized me. I had miscarried before my second successful pregnancy. Which makes the feeling of guilt about how hard it is even worse. I don’t why we do that as a society. It’s hard, you’re in pain, you’re hormonal and quite literally the most vulnerable you’ll ever feel in this life but everyone once you to shut up about it. Only talk about the glow. The joy of picking a new name and cute baby clothes you’ll add to cart. Let’s stop painting pregnancies with the same pastel shades of nurseries and start talking about the hard uncomfortable truths no one once to say out loud.

I’ve been with my partner since I was nineteen. We just celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. We’ve grown apart , back together, and learned a lot in the process. It’s been a very shedding year for me and that man has been my rock. My saving grace. I’ve had tears in my eyes when I pray about how thankful I am for having such a loving human being care for me.

That is of course, when it’s not tee time. What happens when you make the transition from 1 to 2 is that you sit on the sidelines for a good two years. Now for many moms, depending on their recovery and delivery this could be a VERY unfair sentence. But for me, it’s my truth. For the first nine months I was sitting out the game because I was high risk. Then I tried to rush it postpartum at four months and play soccer with my six year old. ( she fell and set herself back a good 4 weeks of healing time). So there I was nursing a newborn and at the range rooting for my boys. At the beginning, you feel a sense of “I don’t want to hold the team back or keep us from living life.” So you willingly sit out because you want the other people in the house to feel happy. But then you wake up one day and your newborn is almost one. Your body has so impressively healed and everyone’s schedule is ongoing without a place for you in it.

I come from a long line of women who put others before themselves. Even the ones who had built a career for themselves always placed their value set on the family. Motherhood. Caretaking. Holidays. The invisible work of cooking and cleaning. I’m traditional to a degree and to be honest, I actually do get a great sense of joy and satisfaction when I’m able to cook for my family or decorate the home during holidays. That being said, the tide has turned. I no feel my body in healing mode and brain in survival mode. I’ve rebuilt my spirit again. I’ve shoved so much protein down my throat that the baby gains are making a comeback and I feel like it’s my time again. Even typing that I squint my eyes because I never want to be the one to rock the boat. To have to say “Hey guys, no golf today, mom’s going to a tennis lesson.” My brain instantly calls me the biggest asshole.

But here’s the thing. If you stay quiet for an extended amount of time your needs are never met. Not for yourself and not for your partners awareness of where you are. Your team player attitude can quickly manifest itself into resentment. Where you won’t be cooking a meal with love at night , but be slamming the pots into the dishwasher and shouting “figure it out” because you’re overstimulated. I love being a mom. Really. It saved my life. But I deserve a life too. One in which I have the freedom and ability to things for myself. Workout, try a new hobby, find something new to add depth to my life. It’s not about the vanity of things but more so the desire to take care of myself and have a life outside these four walls. I have to remind myself of that when the guilt creeps in. So I guess I’m writing this out for myself but also any other mom / woman out there who feels like advocating for herself may cause chaos. It won’t. An uncomfortable conversation? Of course. Emotional navigating between you and your partner? Absolutely. But your kids deserve a happy mom. A fulfilled mom. A person who cares about themselves just as much as they care and pour into others. Book the class, join the club, start talking to yourself online the way I’m doing now. It’s cathartic!

All my lovin’,

K.C

Heard he was not. My sweet, poised, angel of a child had the same desperation in his voice two weeks ago in the border control line. Now let me just say, the whole idea of a connection flight is that my body CONNECTS to the flight that will be leaving. Who invented the thirty minutes in between? It’s some sick psychological experience that no human, especially women and children, should have to go through. And I love the EU, truly I do, but what’s the beef with A/C? Don’t answer that.

So we’re in the world’s hottest airports. Not a hint of tint to relax under and he says the exact words I told my mother that sent her over the edge. “I gotta throw up mom.” Okay buddy just hold on okay? You gotta wait. We’re almost there. What kind of demon am I? You heard the boy woman! Take him to the lavatory. We walk once. I could feel the eyes piercing towards us. I get it. I’m the asshole piling on to your experience.. postponing you from your euro tour but my kid is sick. We get to the restroom..nothing. Okay. We walk back, again, they could see my insides with how hard they were staring. We get back to my husband carrying the other offspring. I hand him some Dramamine and a eucalyptus stick. I will never buy a fucking eucalyptus stick again. He inhales and as he exhales blaaaaah. All over himself, me, my new mom bag that I swore was a “chic diaper bag” I deserved. We begin walking towards the restroom.. more vomit the crowd “ooooo” yeah? Now you’re up for moving out of my way eh?

I got eye level with him. “I’m so sorry buddy. Mom should’ve listened to you. I won’t do that again, okay?”. We cleaned him up and had to leave the shirt behind. I assured him there was nothing to be embarrassed about because we’re all just human and sometimes our bodies don’t like traveling so far for so long. We hugged it out and as we walked back I have to say the last thing I felt was eyeballs piercing through me. I’m not sure if it was the turbulence or the questionable sandwich we split before takeoff but I’ll say this. You can heal and reflect your ass off and in the moment, go back to your factory settings. I hated that I reacted that way. It felt like I was reliving something I didn’t know had such a profound impact on me. But I’ll do better. Sometimes we get so caught up in where we’re going that we forget to pay attention to the people right in front of us.

So for any mom or parent out there who’s sharing their latest euro tour online. Make sure to include the not so glamorous stuff too. Motherhood has been one of the most isolating experiences of my life. It comes in waves of course but there’s many moments where I wish someone could’ve left a disclaimer message so consider this yours. Should you leave the kids behind next trip? No! Absolutely not. It’s work. Just like it is at home. My only advice would be to pack extra clothes for every team member on your carry on and be okay with leaving a t-shirt in the trash at a random airport.

All my lovin,

K.C