Usher playlist, counseling, boyfriends and tickets oh my.

My ex walked into my house tonight to drop off our daughter and I had the best of Usher playlist blasting on the speakers. He then precedes to say "Man you must be really working out some things if the Usher playlist is going". I instantly shot him a dirty look and tried to convince him that no in fact this was NOT the case BUT we both knew that was a lie. Is life not wierd y’all. How can someone you no longer are with still know you so well let alone your emotional meter be given away by the best of usher. WEIRD.

Two of my best friends are getting married within the next six weeks. Both will be their second weddings and for both this second chance is oh so sweet because they have been brave enough to let love in again. And that my friends is one of the hardest things to do. In a perfect world I would hope for a fairytale ending for both of them BUT life is not perfect and the older I get the more I desire for the complete opposite. I want real and raw and a life of full acceptance over that perfect storybook fairytale. So that is what I am hoping and praying for them both. Life is beautiful and WEIRD!!!

Caught up on Grey’s last night. I had a whole two episodes that were taped and not watched. The last couple of weeks I have been in survival mode barely keeping myself together. The magnitude of that hit me last night when I realized I had some real good TV trash to catch up on. Here is what really blew up my marbles. At the end of the last episode Amelia and her mom are sitting together on a bench and something along this convo was exchanged.

"It’s ok to blame our parents for not being there for us during loss, love, and failure but it is on US to not be able to move forward from that".

I mean ok Grey’s thank you for the incredible nugget of common sense that I am sure I have been seeking from counselors for years. A 30 second clip has just tore me up. Again life is beyond weird!!!
(Side note: I have awesome parents who have been there but a lot of those I love dearly have not)

Turned 33 a couple months ago and after many discussions and personality tests with my sister Meg. I think we have finally settled on me being a 2 on the Ennegram. Do you know your number? You should, crazy what this stupid number teaches you about yourself. Funny how we have lived with ourselves day in and day out from the beginning and we need to find our number to fully be able to grasp why we actually do the things we do? Again weird..... that thing called life.

Do you know that a kid can go to a park and have a new best friend within like 5 minutes? They run and play and everything in their world is perfect. Somehow on a wooden playground social status, rank or class has not been established and what is left is just another sweaty dirty kid willing to chase you through a maze of wood for hours. At what point in life does this stop? You don’t see the adults at the park hugging new friends they have made at the end of an hour of play. Why? Let’s be honest if I were to hug the women sitting next to me that I don’t know and call her my new best friend she very well might think I was mental and bee line it out of that park as fast as possible. Y’all life is WEIRD!!!


I get a little obsessive about songs. Songs for me represent every moment of my life. I might not remember stories about events that have happened. But I will remember my life and then piece together events by my favorite songs I have associated with that time. Since this is a random list of weird here is an example. I have a designated song for every boyfriend or crush I have ever had. Totally not intentional just like certain songs are tied to certain people and if those songs come on I instantly think of that person. I should really make a "boyfriend" playlist bc there are some goodies including: Burn, Sorry Ms. Jackson, What’s your fantasy?, What if, you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling and Hurricane to name a few. Yep life and myself a bit weird.

How about this one......first day of class this semester I walked in and one of my swimmers I coached at Urbana was sitting in Bio 122 . Not to mention a handful of others I see walking around the campus. I am old they are babies. Shoot I have a "baby" which makes me someone’s MOM. Am I really old enough to be in charge of raising and shaping another human being? Probably not and that is scary. Also I realized my kid exclusively now calls my man instead of mama and I guess that makes her not a baby anymore(Insert hysterical tears). Life = weird.

Okay last thing. I got a ticket yesterday. The cop was sitting at the fire station of our neighborhood. I have not had a ticket since I was 18 years old and I go and get a random ticket yesterday. Life is WEIRD AF. Sorry not sorry to those that just got offended by the AF. Also I don’t even really understand that saying it doesn’t make tons of sense. But as Cardi B says okurrr. If you have never seen the Pepsi commercial or the 1000 other times she uses this do yourself a favor and use the google bc yep it’s funny and weird!!

So yes the USHER playlist is in full swing while I am over here trying to work out a hundred different thoughts and feelings about my life. Ben Rector has a line in one of his songs that says:

"like a river connects to the ocean
this pavement touches wherever we go white lines flyin by
who knows what will find
let’s drive"

And while this song has a slightly different meaning and doesn’t wrap up this blog post in a neat bow it is in fact been on repeat lately and feels super accurate with my scattered thoughts and feelings. Not a huge fan of the peace, love and happiness sign off so here’s my version. :)

 Hearts, Flowers and Real,
- Steph

* Oh and my sisters all tell my how terrible my spelling and grammar is. And why I wish I could blame that all on the fact I quickly type up posts in my notes on my phone with my right thumb. It is in fact the combo of poor grammar, thumbing typing and the lack of care to be perfect in this area. Isn’t the first step of change the ability to point out and accept your weakness????

When Mondays Are Your Favorite Day.......

Can you imagine a space where Monday mornings are your absolute favorite day of the week? Think about this a second, how we as adults usually despise Mondays. We just spent a whole weekend brunching and lunching with our friends and family over bottomless mimosas. Dressing up and cheering on our favorite football or basketball team. Mondays for most of us are simply just not the best days. Imagine a situation where Mondays were your favorite day. You wake up after a long weekend at home bright eyed and smiling. You quickly put on the crumpled up jeans and dirty shirt you have worn 4 days in a row. You rummage around to find your pair of socks only to your dismay you can only find one. It’s okay though one will do because its Monday.  You slip on that sock, grab your beaten up slightly too tiny shoes and holy coat, take a deep breath and run out the door into the biting cold. Monday’s oh Mondays are just the best days. You get to your destination and low and behold you are the one everyone hates that day. Not because you didn’t do anything wrong but because well life is hard and everyone is just trying to survive. Sometimes that survival looks like lack of self-control and hate towards others. The tears come and the lonely creeps in but you still are choosing to be happy because its Monday. Because on Mondays you walk into a building where you are guaranteed breakfast and lunch for five days straight. Mondays mean those pains in your stomach will stay at bay and make night time bearable. Mondays mean you won’t see mom cry about not having any food to give you. Mondays are the best five days because you don’t have to feel hungry every single second. Mondays they are just the best days. 

Over the last couple of weeks I have had the pleasure of volunteering a couple hours a week at a local elementary school not even five minutes from where I live. Five minutes from where I live there is an entire school of kids just like the above. Not just a few but hundreds of kids. I am not sure Mondays are really their favorite day. Most don’t make it to school on time when it’s cold out or they are late jeopardizing that coveted hot breakfast. Some have had so much trauma happen from the weekend they are past the point of starving. That one meal doesn’t erase the amount of garbage that they are processing. So many spend the first couple days back to school crying because they have entered a space where people care and the meals are guaranteed. They are able to let their guard down if only for a short time. 

Y’all so many times we sit at home at night and feel sorry for ourselves because we don’t have this or that. We had a stressful day at work and to top it off we missed lunch and didn’t get dinner till 8. We take it out on our loved ones because by golly life is hard and so unfair. Friends we don’t have a clue!!! We want to sit and talk about the problems in our school district and with this and that being what needs to change. I am telling you that what needs to change needs be begin with each and every one of us. Our mouths need to shut and our eyes need to be opened. Action must start with us. Not action of our mouths but with actions of our hands and time. We need to change, we need to be a community that can find 1 hour a week to put someone else before ourselves. I don’t know the stats on how many kids are in need who suffer from food insecurity but I am going to find out. But there is need in this community. We need mentors in our schools who can come along side these kids and have a safe ally. We need people willing to ask the question “How can I help”. We need people willing to part with just one Starbucks each week to help provide food for a child to take home over the weekend. I am not naïve to think that I can change a town or a school or all 24 kids in a classroom. But I do know that I can show up for a couple kids each week and be a safe space for them. I can pack a few extra granola bars in my purse to hand out for later so that maybe their stomach doesn’t growl all night long. I know I can do that. 

For the past 11 years while I have been coaching I have seen what this looks like for these kids once they enter high school. Most can’t stay on a sports team because they are working to help at home. These jobs sometimes go late at night and thus they are falling asleep in class and grades are struggling. They don’t have anyone on their side encouraging them to keep going because it will make a difference.  And we wonder why these kids can’t control themselves. Why they are angry and get in fights. Why they can’t pick themselves up and do what is right. We need to change not these kids. They are surviving, just trying to survive even if it is in the completely wrong way. We as a community need to come alongside these teachers and parents and administrators and ask “How can we help”? That should be our only question. We should not be giving opinion we should just keep asking the question “How can we help”? 

So many thoughts and feelings, so much sadness.  I don’t know about you but I can’t anymore pretend that children are not hungry at night feeling sad and scared. I can’t pretend, I can’t unsee and I can’t not care.