#anyways baby has to learn how to truly live paycheck to paycheck for the first time in her life

[urbanfiltered]

ummmmm

[thepassionatespirt]

Hi typology Tumblr 😮‍💨

It has gotten to the very sad point to where I genuinely can not type myself in any typology system so I wrote a little paragraph about me I apologize as it is all over the place but I did the best I could 🫠 if anyone is willing to help type me I’ll be more than appreciative- unfortunately I can’t offer much in return, maybe a follow and like spam? But thank you for reading this fair anyway and feel free to use anything I said in this intro to type me as well

Me: Okay so when I first meet someone- I’m very shy but polite. I give compliments if I’m trying to make friends with the person I’m talking to. Normally I like to be approached first

With acquaintances I’m myself but I dial down just a tad bit. My personality also adjust to the people I’m around with acquaintances.

With close friends I can be kinda loud but I’m very friendly.

Across all three scenarios I’m very sarcastic but I remain polite depending on how close we are.

When I’m by myself I enjoy listening to music while scrolling on Pinterest or TikTok. I do have an eye for aesthetics. I occasionally write poetry. I also can daydream when I’m alone. When I’m with others I am very practical and grounded and in the moment. When I’m with myself in in my mind. I am EXTREMELY passionate and it can sometimes come off as rudeness. I am also very sensitive and don’t take well to criticism of any kind Real life scenarios I have been in relating to me being passionate to my values- I value respecting teachers not only because they want the best for the class but because it helps the class flow better and acting out is honestly annoying so when push comes to shove I will say something like “Respectfully, shut the fuck up” but I just want the class to flow slowly

Also- I highly value respecting boundaries and my ex friend did cross one of my boundaries before so I did cuss her out on her birthday and then ghosted her but like it’s not rlly even my fault fr

Also I can get to work and be extremely serious when need be but I often procrastinate. I also really like material things. I have a fear of fatal accidents and things like getting kidnapped but I’m not a skeptical person. I also have a very playful personality with my friends. I’m also learning a foreign language and enjoy it. I also get emotional sometimes. I could see a video of a new singer living paycheck to paycheck and their video only has one like and it breaks my heart. I could see an overweight dog and my heart breaks because obesity in dogs is fatal and that poor baby wasn’t even trying to get fat. In response I get enraged with the owner/ who’s responsible. Sometimes I get mad at the person who’s also the victim because you know that artistic careers barely make anything but you chose it anyway now I’m sad for you but you brought the life upon yourself Stress- under stress I get extremely nervous however I try my best to rise to the occasion

Fear- painful / undesirable death, experiencing any traumatic event, poor quality of life

Desire- to be happy , be everyone’s favorite

1) I’m focused on defending myself more than I’m focusing on defending others but I’ll say something if I see something 🤷‍♀️

2) I value my autonomy but I will not hesitate to get other options. Following their advice tho might be a little diff

Authority- I to be in those positions. Loathe rude, stuck up, money centered , greedy, selfish authoritarians

Morals- very important. Would die on a hill for my morals. I keep an open mind to everything but my values and morals and truly do believe that they are correct

Success- in the sense of e3s I think fame, riches , etc but for me success is not living paycheck to paycheck, good social group, good career

Anger- I tend to be ready to express it but u funny way to get myself in trouble so I hold back sometimes. BIG BIG BIG EMPHASIS ON SOMETIMES

Opinions on certain things - Philosophy- very overrated. It’s glamorized thought process

Politics - the vast majority of politicians running shouldn’t be

Practicality- good to have

Intellectual- also good to have

Physically- keep yourself in shape ig 🤷‍♀️

Home and school life - Home- very tense, poverty stricken, argumentative, very chaotic

School- more relaxed, pressure on self , feeling not wanted by peers and feeling like I’m annoying

Songs I relate to - groan by daisy and the scouts, ride by Lana Del Rey, watercolor eyes by Lana Del Rey

[ofhouseadama]

could I dm you this? yes. but also asks are fun even though this question is mean so. how do Ed and Lorraine react to the Vietnam war?

Okay so my Ed and Lorraine are absolutely Kennedy Democrats, are both very excited and enthusiastic about the first Catholic president, but both are against the Vietnam War and US military intervention from the start. Ed's already fought in one imperialist proxy war, he's got the PTSD to prove it, and Lorraine just is truly repulsed by violence of any kind.

And also like, to go completely left field for a minute -- I've been thinking a lot about how teenage Lored were effectively trapped at 17-19 years old. Mostly financially, and in different ways. in 1951, Lorraine wouldn't have been able to have her own bank account. Women wouldn't have the right to open their own bank account until the 60s or have a credit card until the 70s -- her money would have been her father's, effectively. and while probably not maliciously, since she was a young woman she likely wouldn't have had much access to her pay checks unless she was cashing them directly. Ed, meanwhile, while trying to survive a negligent/abusive household, absolutely would have been spending money on things most teens wouldn't have to in order to survive... and that's before getting the draft notice from the Selective Service, which took away even more control of his own life.

So I see Ed and Lorraine getting married young (even for the 50s, they're a few years younger than the median, though the war was actively driving that age down) mostly out of making the most out of what they could together. Ed putting Lorraine on his bank accounts and asking her actively to manage them while he's away, and her depositing her paychecks into his account would give her more financial control in her life than most women of the era. Lorraine's engagement ring (the size of that goddamn rock) is even an insurance policy most women her age and demographic didn't have -- often when women fled marriages, it was only with their jewelry to sell. It's half about Ed's possessive streak, half him showing he's not afraid to give her the money to run, if she needed to.

Anyway -- the trauma of their late teens and early twenties is entirely rooted in the rising Cold War anxieties and the locus of harm done to women in the 50s and I fully see their pursuit of demonology and the supernatural as something Lorraine initially started while working as a secretary for the Diocese, something she did to stay late at work and help people she could physically reach while Ed was away at war. She initially started staying late on the days she knew Father Gordon would be bringing in a scared family or terrified couple or frightened soul in through the back door hours after everyone had left, staying to pray and keep herself nearby, to be an observer to a fight she could be party to. Father Gordon figures her out quickly, of course, asking what interest she has in demons and exorcisms, and figures out she's clever with records and archives, almost to an uncanny degree.

And then figures out to exactly what uncanny degree.

After Ed came home and became the husband instead of the boyfriend, it turned into something Ed could throw all his metaphorical demons onto and a healthy way to exercise his control issues and fear and anxiety that doesn't (generally) affect Lorraine because she's fighting with him side by side in this, when before they were separated by thousands of miles -- the beginning everyone's favorite Catholic battle couple very much rooted in Ed and Lorraine parsing out who brought home metaphorical demons from the war, and who brought home literal ones, and bringing them to Father Gordon when necessary. Rooted in Ed needing to be useful, to dusting off his Catholic school Latin and reading everything he could get his hands on so that he could continue to help, continue to fight.

Lorraine would have been pregnant with Judy during the heightening tensions with Cuba and as Kennedy is sending more and more military "advisors" to Vietnam and Cold War tensions flared the hottest they'd get in the 1960s and I can just see both of their control issues revving up, especially with a few-months-old baby in the mix. Just the two of them laying bed, looking down at their three month old baby girl, wondering if they'd all get nuked tomorrow. If war would be declared tomorrow. If they'd all be dead, if they brought her into the world just to die violently. It's like taking guns off the street. They can't control the White House, or the Soviets, or Cuba or China or or or -- but they know about demons, they know about spirits, they know about taking these bombs off the battlefield, in the war of good against evil, and this is a war they can be foot soldiers in together.

Lorraine would get a bit of relief in the March of '63 when Kennedy dropped married men with children to the bottom of the draft pool, and then dropped the age of the draft pool to 26, aging Ed out of the Selective Service entirely. And then in November, JFK would be assassinated, and the photo of Jackie Kennedy covered in blood, leaving the hospital hand-in-hand with RFK, would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country. It would be a jolt for both of them -- but it wouldn't fully hit Lorraine until seven years later, when she'd have her first vision of Ed's death and fully understand Jackie Kennedy's weary, "I want them to see what they have done to Jack."

After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August of 1964, they fully throw themselves into taking cases almost full time. As the war heats up, Ed pulls back from teaching art classes at the VA. If he spends too much time there, he has to face how pointless the violence has been. If he spends too much time there, now, he has to face that he still doesn't know why he survived. Why he lived, and everyone else on board the ship with him died. Because he still doesn't know, he still is fighting to make his life matter in a way that makes sense to him. All he has is his sense of duty, a couple of college credits, and his hands. On good days, he knows that he's loved -- that Lorraine loves him so much it makes it hurt to breathe, that he's a good father to his daughter, who will never be afraid of him.

Ed has a complete PTSD relapse in 1966, with the beginning of the ground war and the full-throated resurgence of the American propaganda machine and military recruitment. He's back in the guilt spiral, the "I never had it that bad, I was only in the Navy for two years, I never had it that bad," just feeding into "why did I live when everyone else I fought with died," back and forth until he can't sleep, can only sleep when Judy sleeps, accidentally ends up adapting himself to her nap schedule and has to sleep with his hand on her chest, feeling her breathe.

Lorraine calls in Chief, after Ed can't get out of bed for 72 hours and misses mass for the first time in his life. Chief, who comes up from Brooklyn to remind Ed of the time their entire ship exploded and Ed treaded water for eight hours and everyone else died. How they spent the next six months getting drunk whenever they weren't on duty and picking fights they couldn't get out of, and that one time they got thrown in the brig because Chief struck a superior asshole and Ed just followed him into the fight. (No, Lorraine does not know about that time Ed and Chief ended up in the brig. She will never know about that time. Judy will at some point in her early 20s learn about that time, when she needs to learn about how her parents are people, who have absolutely made mistakes in their lives.) "You and I spent six months drunk," Chief says, bouncing Judy on his knee in the kitchen over a cup of coffee, Ed refusing to look at him as he deep cleans the stove. "And then your dad died, and your sainted wife handled everything for you, and we realized we couldn't send you home to her like that."

"I still don't know why I lived."

Chief shrugs. "It doesn't matter why, son. The same reason any of us live, and any of us die. It doesn't matter. You have a little girl now who depends on you. She matters more than any goddamn reason -- you live for her, and your saint of a wife, and for all the people that you help. So that you can look them in the face, say you've been down in the hole that they're in now, and you know the way out."

Lorraine calls in Chief, because she absolutely picked a fight after mass that day without Ed, with Judy on her hip. Overheard Dorothy O'Malley running her mouth in the pew in front of her sounding like a national security ghoul and didn't even think before she opened her mouth and unloading the full force of her anxiety and anger on her. Only stops because she feels a gentle hand on her shoulder and Father Gordon murmuring in her ear, "Okay Mrs. Warren, you've made your point," while leading her away. It's the "Mrs. Warren" instead of the familiar "Lorraine" that jolts her back to herself, kissing Judy's head as she tries to shake herself out of it.

"Thank you," she tells Father Gordon, defeated.

He shrugs. "You don't come to confession until before Friday night prayer service. I didn't want you stewing on this all week." Pausing, he takes a moment to fondly tug on one of Judy's pig tails, making her laugh. "If Ed's not... feeling well, I know about that."

Lorraine bites her lip, knowing full and well that Father Gordon served as a chaplain in World War II. That seeing the violence of the Nazis firsthand is what convinced him that the Devil was more than a metaphor, that evil truly walked the Earth. Sent him on his own path, chasing darkness.

Lorraine nods.

"I could talk to him," Father Gordon says. "But it would likely come better from someone he served with."

When she gets home, she finds Chief's number in their phone book, and calls Brooklyn for the first and last time. He comes up the next day, and shoos her out of the house to do something for herself for the first time in months, telling her that he's more than equipped to look after a single three year old.

Ed goes back to teaching at the VA a few months after that, teaching art to the new round of mentally scarred children returning from war. He concedes to group therapy, and a few sessions with the VA psychiatrist to get something to take the edge off. He teaches at the VA until the troop withdrawals in 1970, reducing his class load as he and Lorraine take on more and more cases -- verging towards a hundred a year -- for the Catholic Church, and the media attention that comes along with that, the publicity engagements that help keep their bills paid, the articles and academic talks.

Even still, Ed occasionally brings home someone for dinner, just to make sure that they've only brought metaphorical demons home from war with them, not literal ones.

Sometimes it's literal ones.

[runawayfairie]

━♡ guess the 21 YEAR OLD NOVEMBER baby just arrived to dallyeog! it makes sense, because AHN SEOJIN is just as RAW as the month of NOVEMBER. wait, why do they remind me of LEE GAHYEON? beyond that, they seemed OUTGOING & RESOURCEFUL upon first glance. i heard someone say they’re sort of REBELLIOUS & SELF-SERVING though. i hope they get acquainted here in COMPLEX # 4 / APARTMENT # 6 / FLOOR # 3 ; they seem to have a lot going on with HER job as BUSKER (unemployed).( Bee, 24, she/her, cst. )

Hello everyone!!! My name is Bee ( the 2nd lol. She/her, 24, cst! ) and I’m so happy to be in this group with my sad girl Seojin!  Please add me on discord too, its so much easier to message there! bee121#9991 I will be posting links to her navigation but I’ll also put in a little bio under the cut with some plot ideas and connections I need filled out! Feel free to message me or like this post and I’ll come message you lovely people!! ━♡

Profile || Wanted Connections || Plots || Full Nav  Pin Board & Playlist for Muse!

━♡ STATS & BASIC INFO

☾ Ahn Seojin is 21 years old, born November 5th, 1999 and the moment she was born her life was nothing but struggle. 

☾ Backstory!!  Seojin never knew her dad because she was actually the result of a scandal between a man who was married with a family of his own and her mother. The two had a secret relationship for years before she came along, naively her mother thought he would do something for them but instead of physically being there for them he simply paid her off and forced her to never speak of the affair or the accidental kid. He gave them enough to get by on, or what he deemed was enough, and sent them away. Her mother had to work multiple jobs to keep them afloat and they were happy for a while with just the two of them. Her mother died her junior year of high school and she ended up dropping out to work because she wouldn’t of survived if she’d continued school. With no other family to lean on, any relatives on her maternal side disowned them the second they found out about her and she didn’t even know her father, not that she would want his help anyway, she was on her own and did her best to get by. This resulted in her having to work any job that would give her a chance but it wouldn’t be long until she was fired for stealing food or supplies she wasn’t able to pay for, since most of her paycheck went towards trying to keep the apartment her mother and her had. It also wasn’t long before she eventually lost that too and she was on the streets for a while, finding people to stay with or spending most nights in internet cafes or norebong bars. She finally realized that she could make more money singing in busy shopping districts, especially when its known for attracting tourists, and with this new “job” she was able to barely afford a new apartment! Now she’s living in Dallyeog and life is looking up!

━♡ PERSONALITY

x  Just like the changing and chilling weather of November, Seojin is quick to adapt to whatever life throws at her, no matter how dark or difficult it may be. She is very extroverted and comes off as extremely sweet and friendly, but she is quick to get defensive and although she is always dealing with something she rarely ever shares her personal issues with others. She likes to live in the moment and not worry about the past or the future, even if she does dwell and overanalyze everything in her life when she lays down to try and sleep.

x She likes fun above all else, any excuse to have a good time is something she is totally down for, anything that keeps things light and impersonal. When people try to get to know her personally she tends to take a step back, putting up a bit of a wall around herself for protection.

x She likes to be the center of attention, the life of the party, and she tends to surround herself with a lot of people and from an outsider’s perspective you could assume that she was very popular and had many friends, but she never really let anyone get close enough to truly start to know who she really is. She is worried that people will think she’s no good, broken, a waste of space- all that stuff, and she tries to make herself as likable as possible so that people will want to keep her around.

━♡ WANTED CONNECTIONS / PLOTS

★ Family Connection wanted!!  Seojin never knew her dad because she was basically a “mistake” from the beginning, no one could know about her lest her father’s “perfect reputation” be soiled by HIS mistake. He couldn’t let his own family find out either so she wasn’t even told his name, she took her mother’s surname which is exactly how she wanted it. She does eventually find out who he was and learns that she had a half sibling (or siblings) that were living in Seoul and she wants to learn more about them. Do they know about her?? Would they be mortified? Embarrassed? Angry? Would they be able to get along maybe..? After all, they are the only family she has now, so she feels like she has to try. || OPEN ||

★ Much like a stray cat, Seojin is always over at other people’s apartments begging for food, she seems to always know when someone is cooking, and she tends to spend a lot of time on couches receiving love and affection while she talks about where she went out the night before. Her heat and electricity is often shut off at some point towards the end of each month because she is late on payments, which is also why she’s always seeking out meals. (Rip her empty fridge lol) I am needed many muses who either don’t mind her coming over for food or people who seem to have to just deal with her because she’s cute and they pity her or just enjoy her company. || OPEN for many muses ||

★  As a way to deal with what she’s been through, Seojin has been known to party and go out, sometimes more than she really should, and you can be sure that she’d never turn down an invitation to have a night out on the town! She goes out often and makes it almost a game to find new places that are tucked away and usually have secret menus. If your muse ever wants a drinking partner, she’s your girl!! || OPEN for many muses ||

★ Wanna go on a picnic? Food and drinks on me! Or well.. The convenient store down the street! She may be a little bit of a clepto.. but it’s not because it’s an addiction, it’s because she needed to do this to get by, and it’s so much easier than paying for things! She’s gotten quite good at it too, she rarely ever gets caught anymore. Does your muse approve? Will they join in? Turn her in? || OPEN ||

★ “Would you light my candle~?” -Rent Seojin comes to your muse’s apartment complaining that her electricity and heat is off and she needs a candle lit and maybe some time to warm herself up. She is looking for company and maybe a place to sleep, and she isn’t too shy about how grateful she would be to them and how she would definitely repay them, make it “worth their while”.  ( I get big Mimi vibes from Seojin in most ways but the junky part, she is more into alcohol than drugs. I just love this song so much and think a plot like this scene would be fun! ) || OPEN ||

★ (more to come soon, if you have any ideas feel free to message me!)

[for-amoment]

╰ ✧ ˔ ⭒ magic is in the air ! oh wait - that’s just our newest neighbor, MELODY ATLANTICA, the EIGHTEEN year old AQUARIST. they’ve been relocated from pastoral city, and so far the locals claim that they’re INDEPENDENT and INSECURE, just like MELODY from THE LITTLE MERMAID: RETURN TO THE SEA. if you ask me, they seem like the type to enjoy MESSY BANGS AND THE SMELL OF THE SEA. apparently, they are UNSURE about entering rome pines, and i don’t think their power of AQUAPATHY will help them this time. let’s just hope they can adjust to the new neighborhood…⭒˔ ╮

( Trigger Warning: Mentions of Mental Illness, Disease, Parental Death, Bullying, Underage Drinking )

S T O R Y:

She was an accident. They were too young, too dumb - it just happened. Melody’s mother, Marina, was barely eighteen at the time and when she told Geoffrey, Melody’s father, he left abruptly. 

Marina was alone to deal with a difficult pregnancy, in which she struggled with prenatal depression. During this hard time, she heavily relied on the support of her older sister Athena and her husband, Triton. She moved in with them and the couple, with their seven daughters did everything in their power to help the young woman get back on her feet. Grateful and touched by the kindness Athena and Triton showed her, Marina offered them the position of her daughter’s godparents, which they gladly accepted. 

Few weeks before going into labor, the woman decided to buy a locket as a gift for her future daughter. It was beautiful, with their last name engraved on the front and a picture, taken just a few weeks after her birth, inside it. The whole family was together, smiling. Marina decided she’d give it to her on her first birthday.

Melody became, from her first breathe, the apple of Marina’s eye. She just knew she’d do anything for this little baby. If she could choose, she’d never leave her side. But real life came along, and with it, the bills. As Melody completed eight months, the woman took two different jobs to provide for the child. For the first two years of her life, Melody spend most of her time in her godparents house with her cousins and with babysitters. The weekends, however, were exclusively for time with her mother. These were Melody’s favorite days.

Athena’s death was a very painful moment for everyone. Marina made sure to keep close to Triton, to honor her sister’s memory and help him raising his daughters anyway she could. He was thankful to have her, and became something of a protector, a father figure, for both of the girls. They were family. All they had was each other.

Melody was a rather shy and observant child, only allowing herself to open up near people she trusted. It took a while for her to warm up to anyone, but as soon as she did, they could count that her big blue eyes would follow you wherever they’d go. From a young age, she found comfort in being near water. Pulling her off a pool or a bath tub were difficult tasks. Luckily, this was a familiar feeling, that her mother encouraged as best as she could. The first time her mother took her to the beach, her powers manifested. She was three and enchanted to be able to understand all the creatures there. She felt understood by them. She felt like she truly belonged there.

Years passed. They were able to move to a place of their own, not far from Triton and the girls. As Melody started school, Marina got promoted, which allowed her to spend more time with her daughter. They were inseparable, a truly dream team. Nothing could go wrong. Until it did.

It was the day after Melody’s eighth birthday. It started as a series of migraines. A few days latter, some black dots in her vision field. She told herself it was stress, work was asking too much of her. Nothing out of the usual. The symptoms came and go. Until the day she passed out in the middle of the living room. 

It all happened too fast. Melody called her godfather, desperately crying, and minutes later, he was there, driving them to the hospital. The doctors did everything in their power, even magic wise, but they just couldn’t tell what it was. Three months latter, she didn’t resist.

Melody felt like her world was crumbling under her feet. She’d refuse to talk, eat or move, sometimes for days straight. Triton, worried for the girl’s health, made a decision. He hunted Geoffrey, told him his daughter needed him, and after a not-so-friendly conversation, with threats included, he agreed, reluctantly, to take care of her. 

So she moved in with him. It was rough. They were getting to know each other as father and daughter. She had to get used to moving to a new place, a new school, to be far from her godfather and cousins, while still dealing with her grief. He had to get used to having a child around, a challenge he’d never imagine he’d have to deal with. At first Geoffrey tried to be as supportive as he could. He’d help her pick what she wanted to decorate her room, buy her school supplies, drive her to and from Triton’s house to see her family. But it didn’t last long. Their relation became closer to that of two roommates. He was absent most of the time, providing her with money and disappearing for days or even weeks. She was stuck there, alone. Melody learned quickly that she’d have to rely on herself for anything she needed.

That became especially hard once she started in her new school. Her father had enrolled her in a private school and people there weren’t as nice as she hoped. They’d judge everyone by their appearances and their powers. Melody didn’t quite fit in, not really worried about brand materials or how she could make money with the power she had, honestly she’d much rather use her comfortable clothes and spend the afternoon sitting near the water, talking to the animals there. The other students started to bully her, severely. They’d make jokes about her lack of money, her aquatic friends and her dysfunctional family. They’d call her a ‘charity-case’, a ‘weirdo’, a ‘burden’. Little by little, the girl started to believe them.

Melody dreaded going to school, having to talk to other people. She started to daydream of a different reality. When her cousins called and asked about her life, she’d lie. She’d describe one of her illusions and tell them all about how wonderful her father was and how she adapted easily to school. After all, she barely saw her cousins anymore. She didn’t want to burden them with her problems.

By the end of Elementary school, Melody would spend most of her free time alone, walking around the city. She didn’t feel safe at school and didn’t feel comfortable at her father’s house. One of those day, she got lost and ran into a gang of teenagers who tried to rob her. However, they took pity on the young, nervous girl, and decided to welcome her into their group. 

They weren’t the greatest influences, but they would protect her and she finally felt like she belonged somewhere. The group spent most of their time drinking and causing trouble in the street - Melody realized that alcohol made it easier for her to communicate and be friendly. Even though she wasn’t involved in most of the action, learned how to pickpocket someone, to break into cars, and even houses. The group was known as frequent visitors of the police station. Luckily for Melody, she could get away easily, being the younger and having the sympathy of one of the officers who worked there and always let her off with a warning and a mild scolding. Little by little, their group disintegrated. Some were arrested, some just sort of fade away. 

Melody was almost seventeen, and she felt more lost than ever. One afternoon, one of her cousins called presented her with the opportunity of working half-period in the town aquarium. Nothing seemed better for the girl than the chance to spend countless hours near their marine friends and get payed for this. Her powers helped her immensely and as soon as she graduated high school, they offered her the position full time. She accepted, enthusiastically. She was a part of the team. Things were finally starting to look up.

N O W A D A Y S :

The fire took everyone by surprise. It was terrifying. They were evacuated and, overnight, they found themselves in this whole new place - Rome Pines. The government did all they could to help the relocation, but Melody felt the anxiety of having to adapt to a new home, having to meet people setting in.

At first, she looked for her godfather and her cousins and was relived to see they were all safe - for them, the feeling was mutual, once it had been a long time since they last saw the girl. Once she met with her father, they agreed there was no point in living together anymore. He promised to send her some money monthly so she could start her own life and left. This was the last time she saw him. She found a place near the university campus, for the first time after a long time, she had a place where she felt truly at home.

She got to keep her job. Rome Pines aquarium is not a sight to behold, none of that. It’s a very simple place, but at least she’d still have a paycheck while being able to be close to the water and talk to her closest friends.

P E R S O N A L I T Y :

Melody is still very quiet and observant, and sometimes she gets easily lost in her own thoughts and lose track of time. The girl has a sarcastic sense of humor, which doesn’t cross the line to be malicious. She’s not the most sociable person - she spends most of her time by herself and it’s very rare to find her outside without her earphones at max volume - but she’s also very loyal and kind to the people who gain her trust. Melody has an aura of a person who had to grow up too fast, and sometimes people are surprised to learn or be reminded of how young - and fragile - she really is. She’s got a sweet tooth and an addiction to caffeine, and sometimes has to be reminded to have a regular meal instead of just living off take-out fast food and jelly beans. She uses lots of Converses sneakers and wears her mother’s locket around her neck - she never takes it off.

[musicprincess655]

Ryuu wakes up a week after his twenty-fifth birthday with a fully formed frontal lobe, the remnants of dream that didn’t even have the decency to be wet, and an unfortunate realization.

“Gin.”

She’s already up, of course, sipping at a coffee, but then, she’s always been the more functional one. Ryuu would argue that it’s because she’s younger and therefore spent less time in the slums before their lives found some stability in the Port Mafia. Gin would argue that it’s because Chuuya raised her instead of Dazai.

“I believe I may have…feelings…for Jinko.”

She doesn’t look suitably impressed by the earth-shattering news.

“Do you want a regular cake or a cupcake tower at the wedding?”

Ryuu is so shocked by her lack of shock that he actually answers.

“Cupcake tower.” He shakes his head. “Did you hear me? I have feelings for Jinko.”

“It’s kind of too late to go back to calling him Jinko when you’ve been calling him by his real name for over a year.”

“I have feelings for-!”

“I heard you the first two times!”

“Then tell me what I’m supposed to do!”

“I don’t know!” she snaps, although she sounds more exasperated than mad. “Woo him? Marry him? Bear his weird tiger babies?”

“That’s physically impossible. Also, no?”

“I don’t know what you want here,” she says. “General dating advice wouldn’t work on you two.”

“Dating?!”

“Fucking hell.” She sounds so frustrated that Ryuu is sure she’s about to throw a knife at him just to get him to shut up. “Try talking to him.”

“No.”

“Then eat shit and die!”

Ryuu isn’t quite sure who else to ask for help. He almost goes to Chuuya, but considering Chuuya’s – arrangement? Relationship? – with Dazai, Ryuu thinks that might actually make everything worse. Whatever those two are doing, he doesn’t think it’ll work for anyone else.

So he takes the second option presented to him: he shoves those feelings right back where they belong and forgets they ever existed. Or tries to.

See, Ryuu is good at anger. He recognizes it in himself, knows now how to ramp it down or let it take him as necessary, knows how to use it, TED talk to follow. What is he supposed to do with something so much softer?

It should be easy to ignore. But like an amorphous block, the soft edges of the feelings squeeze out no matter where he tries to shove them down.

Ryuu doesn’t think Atsushi has noticed anything is off. He’s sure Atsushi would have said something by now otherwise. As an adult, Atsushi has all the observation skills of a detective and none of the reticence for sharing his observations that he used to. The new confidence is annoying, and has led to annoying things like Ryuu being forced to buy Atsushi food all the time, and in general, Atsushi is somehow more annoying than when he went running scared from Ryuu’s every glare.

And Ryuu has feelings for him anyway. His taste leaves much to be desired, and he needs to come up with some synonyms for annoying.

This systematic denial works for all of two weeks, and Ryuu is ready to celebrate the success of creating a new normal so seamlessly that Atsushi hasn’t even noticed they have a new normal, when it all goes to shit.

They don’t have quite as many people to beat into the ground to protect Yokohama as they did when they started their partnership, but every so often, a new group thinks it’s a good idea to disturb the peace. Ryuu and Atsushi, for their efficiency alone, are the best choice for dealing with it.

Some syndicate from Europe seems to think they have the right to expand into the Asian market, and they’ve set their eyes on the port of Yokohama for their first step in. They don’t have nearly the same aversion to city-wide destruction that the Port Mafia do, which makes this the Armed Detective Agency’s problem too, and, consequently, Ryuu and Atsushi’s problem. They’re in charge of stopping and containing a Gifted vanguard while the combined strategic might of Dazai and Mori deal with the rest of the syndicate.

It’s a tough fight, but Ryuu gets to let loose and use his Ability to the fullest. His deal with Atsushi to not kill is long since over, but he developed habits during those six months that he hasn’t bothered to shake, and the fight isn’t the bloodbath it could be. Still, when the last person raises their hands in surrender, Ryuu is almost gasping for breath. He may have learned to work smarter instead of harder, but working smarter is hard on him in its own way.

“Good work today,” Atsushi says, wiping blood from an already-healed cut off his mouth. Even after all this time, the praise still sends a thrill down Ryuu’s spine.

Then Atsushi lifts his head, and his eye are so wide, and he looks so happy, smiling without reservation at Ryuu, and Ryuu doesn’t know what his face does, but it must be pretty spectacular because Atsushi’s smile fades.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“I’m fine,” Ryuu says, turning on his heel to get away from Atsushi and the emotions he wears so openly. He needs to find a bar, one Atsushi won’t follow him to, and he doesn’t stop to consider the implications of skipping their post-mission dinner arrangement for the first time in years.

When Chuuya finds him, he’s getting systematically drunk.

Which, granted, doesn’t take much, He’s always been a bit of a lightweight, probably due to how severely underweight he’s been for most of his life. That’s not quite the problem it used to be, and one shot isn’t enough to take him out at the knees anymore, but he doesn’t even have to use his fancy mafia paycheck to get well and truly plastered.

“So I know I’m about to sound like a hypocrite, but it’s barely five,” Chuuya says, and while his words are chiding, his tone isn’t. Ryuu is still working on reading people’s intentions, but Chuuya has never been hard. He’s worried. “Wanna talk?”

“Stupid fucking Jinko and his stupid fucking doe eyes,” Ryuu mutters before he can stop himself. He’s had six shots. He wishes he had a better excuse.

“Oh, so it’s that kind of drinking,” Chuuya sighs. He raises his hand to catch the bartender’s attention, elegant and confident in one motion. “Whiskey for me. Water for him.”

“I’m fine.”

“Akutagawa.”

Chuuya rests his hand on Ryuu’s head, and Ryuu is almost ashamed of the way he leans into the touch immediately. Despite all the jokes even he himself makes, he’s not a dog. Still, to have someone touch him without even the intention of hurting him…it’s nice. It’s uncommon. It’s, perhaps, something that shouldn’t be so uncommon from a superior.

He’s so drunk.

“Do you want my advice?” Chuuya asks after the bartender sets both of their drinks down and Ryuu throws back half the tall glass of water.

Ryuu is silent for just a beat too long.

“Kid,” Chuuya sighs again, not angry or even exasperated, as is more common with him and Ryuu recently. He sounds faintly amused. “I know we’ve talked about this. You’re allowed to say no to me.”

“It’s not…” Ryuu tries. “I just…” He has to parse it into words, the fact that after Gin, Chuuya was the first he thought to turn to, and why he didn’t in the end. “I don’t know if I, necessarily, want the answer I think you’ll give me.”

“What answer do you think I’ll give you?” Chuuya asks. His hand is still on Ryuu’s head, pulling until Ryuu is very nearly tucked into his shoulder.

“Two options,” Ryuu says. “Something I can’t use, or something I won’t want to.”

“Ah.” Chuuya takes a sip of his whiskey. “You know I’ve had relationships with people other than Dazai, right?”

“That’s where the something I can’t use comes from.”

“So my relationship with Dazai is too fucked up, but all my other relationships are too normal?” Chuuya asks, summing it up entirely too well.

“I don’t think I can do normal,” Ryuu says. “I’m pretty sure he can’t either.”

“I can’t tell you how to fix that,” Chuuya admits. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be where I am. Which isn’t a complaint, by the way. I’m happy. But I’ll admit parts of my life are less than functional, and that’s down to choices I’ve made. That being said…” he gives Ryuu’s hair a little tug until Ryuu is truly resting on his shoulder, head momentarily stopped from spinning, “…I doubt Nakajima would kick you out of his life for anything at this point.”

“You think I should talk to him too,” Ryuu says.

“Gin’s smarter than you give her credit for.”

“She told you about this?”

“I just know she’s the only other person you’d tell about this,” Chuuya says. “You’re not actually that complicated.”

“I talk to Higuchi about stuff,” Ryuu pouts. He won’t admit he’s pouting.

“You’re not cruel to her anymore,” Chuuya says. “So no, I don’t think you would’ve told her about this.”

“I want another shot.”

“You should probably be done for the night,” Chuuya advises. “Listen. I don’t know how this is gonna shake out. I don’t know Nakajima well enough to guess what he’ll do. But I do know you, and I can tell you that you’re gonna be okay.”

“You think?”

“I think it would take another city-destroying disaster for you to not be okay,” Chuuya says. “And that wasn’t an invitation. I’m enjoying the peace. It’s good for business.” His phone chimes. “Your ride is here, and you’re cut off.”

“You called a car?”

“Like I said,” Chuuya says, getting to his feet, “I know you.”

Having a superior care so openly about him is still a bit of a new experience, and rather than try to examine anything Chuuya said, Ryuu just collapses into bed when the driver drops him off, hoping he’ll just forget everything by the morning. He doesn’t, of course, because that would be too easy.

Things were fine between him and Atsushi before, but suddenly, there’s a new tension. Ryuu panics, convinced Atsushi knows, but after a day of careful observation, he’s almost positive that Atsushi actually doesn’t. Atsushi isn’t shying away from the parts of their alliance that Ryuu, a few years ago, had reluctantly labelled as friendship. He doesn’t have a problem with their casual conversation, and their shared food arrangements have picked up again without so much as a mention of one missed.

In fact, the only thing that has changed is actually something Ryuu’s seen before, just not in years.

They’re friends now. Beyond just tolerating his presence, Ryuu does like having Atsushi around. He even has these new mushy feelings that make him a little sick to his stomach if he thinks about them too hard. But none of that changes the fact that sometimes, Atsushi annoys the ever-loving fuck out of him.

Snapping at Atsushi usually only gets Ryuu an eye roll now, or sometimes a shut up if he says something particularly spiteful, but ever since Ryuu bailed on dinner, every time he snaps at Atsushi, instead of the customary dismissal, Ryuu gets a flinch like he used to when they first started working together.

And seriously, what the fuck? He knows Atsushi isn’t scared of him anymore. For one thing, they’ve proven a few times that Atsushi can beat him into the ground if he wants. For another, Ryuu has calmed down a bit and Atsushi has stuck around enough to figure out how to exist in the same space without killing each other. They haven’t had a serious fight in years.

Ryuu can’t figure out what Atsushi’s sudden problem is, and doubly can’t figure out why it would’ve started after he skipped buying Atsushi food once. It’s almost enough to push the mush feelings that started this whole mess to a backburner, only surfacing when Ryuu’s eyes linger too long on the clean, lithe lines of Atsushi’s body, and he knows he’s not the only one who stares, anyway.

And then a new group surfaces. A remnant faction of the Guild that has apparently spent the better part of five years biding their time and preparing to take revenge on both the Port Mafia and the ADA. Since Ryuu and Atsushi were the ones to take down Fitzgerald, the faction prepared the most for them. From the beginning of an attack they only had the slightest warning for, Ryuu and Atsushi are methodically separated from everyone else.

They’re losing. Badly. Ryuu doesn’t know where any allies are except for Atsushi, and then only because Rashomon still has a tendril on him. Blood pours down his leg from a shot above his knee, and Ryuu resists the urge to favor the leg in case he has to run again. He ducks into an alley and slides down the wall, trying to catch his breath, get his bearings. He hasn’t had to legitimately fight for survival in a long time, and though his life has made him no stranger to pain, he’s not as young as he used to be, and his body protests when Ryuu tries to demand movement from it.

“Aku.”

It seems Atsushi has found him. Ryuu doesn’t even bother to snap at him for the nickname. Atsushi picked up the habit a few years back, saying Ryuu’s name was too long for him to yell, and Ryuu has begrudgingly gotten used to it, only putting up token protests now. He hurts too much for those, though.

“We have to get clear,” Ryuu tells him.

He heard some distant explosions he’d bet his coat are Chuuya, and where they find Chuuya, they’ll find the Black Lizard – they’ll find Gin – and they’ll find Dazai, or at least Dazai’s mind, talking through an earpiece and entirely out of the fight, safe where he’s most effective. Those allies would be enough to turn the tide, if only Ryuu had any damn clue how they could get clear.

“I have an idea,” Atsushi says.

“That is not your area,” Ryuu counters. He can’t help himself. Everything hurts.

“I know you’re mad at me, but trust me on this,” Atsushi pleads.

“I’m not…” Ryuu is so taken aback he needs a second to organize a response. “Why would I be mad at you?”

Generally speaking, he’s almost never mad at Atsushi anymore. If he is’ it’s a fleeting anger, gone as soon as he recognizes it. He has no clue why Atsushi might think he’s angry enough to revert their relationship back five years.

“Because you skipped dinner, and you made this face…” Atsushi trails off, and Ryuu…

His taste leaves so much to be desired. Atsushi is an idiot, all personal growth aside, and Ryuu realizes, with a degree of horror, that he feels something very close to fond.

“That’s not why,” he says, voice gruff, and he’s once again lost control of his face. Atsushi searches his eyes, and Ryuu sees the moment the truth dawns on him.

“Are you…?”

“You said you had an idea?” Ryuu interrupts. He keeps his eyes off Atsushi’s face.

“I do,” Atsushi says. “I need all of Rashomon.”

Ryuu instinctively holds his Ability closer. He’d given all of her to Atsushi earlier, a standard play when they’re in an all-out fight, but it only works when Atsushi takes all the hits. After he got shot in the leg, he pulled part of her back.

“Do you think you can hold onto me?” Atsushi asks.

“Why?”

“I won’t be able to hold onto you.”

“You’re going to get us both killed,” Ryuu accuses without heat. He can already feel himself relenting.

“Trust me,” Atsushi begs.

Ryuu does.

“I guess another trip with the world’s worst Uber driver isn’t the worst way to go,” Ryuu sighs.

Atsushi crouches in front of him, hands careful on Ryuu’s leg as he clambers onto Atsushi’s back. It aches, but Ryuu holds with both his arms and hopes for the best.

“Use Rashomon to amplify the jump,” Atsushi tells him. “And leave me plenty of slack.”

“Slack…why?” Ryuu asks, but Atsushi is already gone under his hands, replaced with a tiger. “Oh.”

Atsushi’s muscles bunch, and that’s all the warning Ryuu gets before they take off into the sky.

The tiger can’t fly, but the jump is so powerful, especially with the added strength of Rashomon, that it feels like a near thing. They soar above the building they’d been sheltered behind, over the heads of their enemies, and by the time anyone thinks to attack, it’s already too late.

“East,” Ryuu shouts above the wind. With the new vantage point he can get a better idea of where Chuuya is. Atsushi can’t answer him, of course, but he obeys anyway, touching down and running towards the explosions. They’re almost to relative safety when a strike from the side sends them both sprawling.

An Ability user approaches them, hands crackling with something obviously dangerous. Ryuu doesn’t stop to think. He just attacks, Rashomon rushing the man in furious tendrils. He pulls back at the last minute, and when the dust clears, the man is unconscious and full of holes, but still breathing.

Ryuu is just turning to see if he needs to pull emergency first aid skills out of his ass when he gets an armful of re-humanized Atsushi and a pair of lips hitting his own like a punch. He doesn’t even have time to respond to the kiss before Atsushi shoves him back by the shoulders.

“Wait, shit!”

Atsushi regrets the kiss. Atsushi regrets him.

Ryuu’s hand twitches towards the phone in his pocket. He can leave this all behind and start a new life. In Iceland. He can use the Duolingo app Chuuya made him download to learn the language. He’ll herd sheep. He’ll change his name to Sven.

“I was supposed to ask for consent first!”

“What?” Ryuu – Sven – asks.

“I’m supposed to ask for consent before I kiss you!”

This doesn’t…feel like rejection. Sven – Ryuu – takes his thumb off the Duolingo app.

“You’ve been thinking about kissing me?” he asks.

“I was…I mean…” Atsushi flushes red. “For a while now? I never thought you’d want me to, but then you did, and…”

Leave it to Atsushi to charge right through all the hesitancy Ryuu’s been feeling. He always has been the kind to leap before he looks.

In a better world, they’d have time to let this play out like a shoujo manga, time for them to gaze into each other’s eyes, time to work up to a kiss much softer and slower, something a first kiss deserves to be.

But it’s not a better world, and they’re still not safe, but they’re close enough to allies that they can make a run for it.

“We have to get out of here,” Ryuu says. He can already hear enemies approaching. Atsushi lets go of his shoulders, and they both start running, Ryuu limping on his bad leg. “And Atsushi?”

“Hm?”

“Buy me dinner first.”

Ryuu doesn’t watch Atsushi take that for the consent it is, but he knows the message is received when Atsushi reaches out to squeeze his hand as they run, letting it drop so they can move faster. They’ll probably have to talk this out when they’re safe, because Gin is right; they need to talk. But now they both know it’s not one-sided, and it’s as good a starting place as any.

In spite of the pain in his leg and his lungs, in spite of the danger they’re still in, Ryuu can’t help the grin that spreads across his face as he runs, Atsushi by his side.

[iwatchmoviesonlineeblog]

SAINT FRANCES

There's an extremely eccentric movie going on within the conventional confines of "Saint Frances." For me, one of the signs of adulthood is when you realize that nobody has things figured out. Even the most put-together person has demons, weak spots, flaws. Anyone who acts like they're perfect, or acts like they have all the answers, are basically waving red flags around announcing the contrary.

This is the feeling I got from "Saint Frances," a first feature from Alex Thompson, with screenplay by Kelly O'Sullivan, who also stars, as Bridget, an adrift thirtysomething, watching her peer group watch movies online "settle down" around her, wondering what the hell happened to her life. Admittedly, this is a pretty well-trod path, and so the eccentricity comes from the feeling that every character—not just Bridget, but everyone—is in just a little bit over their heads. So many films offer up pre-packaged easily-digestible ideas, with risk-averse empowerment messages. It's truly refreshing to watch a film where nobody has anything figured out, where life proceeds messily and imperfectly. "Saint Frances" is unpredictable in a very human way.

In the opening scene, Bridget sits at a party, listening to a man describe a dream he had the other night. He seems to find his dream fascinating. When she tells him she's a "server," he says, supportively, "You're still in your twenties. It gets better." "I'm 34." Embarrassed, the man comes up with an excuse to leave the conversation. The opener is spookily accurate in its observational power. Even casual conversations come loaded with preconceived notions and assumptions. If she is still a waitress at 34, then she is dangerously unambitious, and clearly not even worth flirting with (if describing your dream in excruciating detail can count as flirting.) O'Sullivan's script is excellent in these small moments: she has a very good ear for how people judge each other (either overtly or not), and how difficult it is sometimes to see past the surface of things, especially if you are wrapped up in your own problems.

Bridget is very wrapped up in her own problems when she gets a summer gig as a nanny for Frances (Ramona Edith Williams). Frances' mothers, Maya (Charin Alvarez) and Annie (Lily Mojekwu) have just had another baby, and need help with their rambunctious fearless six-year-old, who is also somewhat pissed off at being displaced by her baby brother. Frances makes the inexperienced Bridget work for her paycheck! Compared to Bridget, Maya and Annie are settled, responsible, adults. But there are fissures beneath the perfect surface. Annie is a lawyer, working extremely long hours. Maya is in a state of increasing postpartum depression, deteriorating before Bridget's worried eyes. Bridget's "this isn't a relationship, we're just hooking up" thing with the sweet-tempered Jace (Max Lipchitz) has resulted in a pregnancy and then an abortion. Bridget is determined to take a practical view of it, but her response is complicated. She doesn't seem to take seriously the trauma her body has experienced. Her blood is constantly flowing in Saint Frances.

Let's talk about the blood, so present throughout it's almost another lead character. Waking up after having sex with Jace for the first time, she realizes she got her period, staining the mattress. She is mortified, of course, but Jace is so good-natured about it it becomes their first shared joke. Tampons, pads, leakage, stained underwear, being caught out without a tampon, the whole "gross" nine yards ... this is all so much a regular part of a woman's life it's almost banal (in real life, anyway), and yet it's rarely dealt with in film, and certainly not as forthrightly as it is here. There's an electrifying moment when Bridget and Maya, both devastated about different things having to do with their bodies, suddenly find it all hilarious and start laughing so hard they're in tears. There's a somewhat forced scene where a bitchy woman at a Fourth of July picnic reprimands Maya for breastfeeding in public, but a real point is being made. Often the policing of women's bodies comes from other women. And so women are left even more isolated, ashamed of their bodies, wondering why "it"—whatever "it" is—comes so easily to other women. That's the big lie: that you, and you alone, are having a hard time. The world wants you to think this, wants you to think you're a huge screw-up. But what if ... nobody knows what they're doing?

This all comes to a head in a powerhouse scene between Bridget and Annie. Annie has barely been a presence thus far, because she is now the sole breadwinner, and her job is extremely demanding. Bridget is so self-involved she hasn't really noticed that something has been brewing in Annie. When Annie finally opens up, in a beautifully written monologue, the passion and pain Mojekwu brings almost stops the film in its tracks. It's heartrending. I liked "Saint Frances" very much up until that moment, but it was that moment that I fell in love with it. Because Annie, competent responsible Annie, got to be three-dimensional too, and in that moment she ceased being a peripheral character in a movie starring Bridget, and became the star of her own story. As we all are. If we could only come outside of ourselves enough to notice. It made me think of those gorgeous lines from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Hyperion":

Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.

The need to seem like you have it all figured out, that you are all put together, is an insidious by-product of the self-help culture we live in, and this is especially true for women. The idea is that if you're not "eating, praying, and loving" across the continents, and learning and growing and changing according to schedule, then the problem must be you. Bridget may be the central character but she isn't the only one who "learns and grows and changes." What happens during her summer gig is a group event, an upheaval in four lives, four people churning around in chaos towards a future, not knowing what they're doing, trying to understand each other, often failing, sometimes succeeding. It's beautifully done.

[mrtroy]

Someday He Will

I don’t do a ton on social media these days. I read some things on Twitter, and use it as a source to find news I care about. Other than that, I don’t do a whole lot.

The other day I was taking a cursory glance through Facebook and Instagram and as you may have also experienced, these forms of social media have become breeding grounds for parents to laud – and lament – certain achievements in their children’s lives.

Oh look, baby Rutherford turned 3 months old! I can’t believe he’s enjoying tummy time so much!! I can’t believe Millard is already 5! He goes to Kindergarten in the fall. Where has the time gone… Chester got his first paycheck, would you look at that   Your dad and I are so proud of you, Grover, we wish you and Frances nothing but the best for a happy and healthy marriage!

If you’ll look past my obvious use of presidential pseudonyms, I’m sure you’ve seen all of these types of posts. And, if you have kids, I’m sure the sense of pride, or anxiety, or a mix of the two is very familiar to you depending on how old your kids are.

Many times as I see this type of content, I quickly glance past it. I may make note of what little Millard is up to, on the off chance that I run into his mom at an event and need to do a quick catch up.

In most cases, though, I keep moving past the potty-training milestones, the birthday height measurements and science fair projects. Not because they aren’t impressive, but simply because that type of content has never really done much for me. I don’t have kids, and I’m not a mom… Every once in a blue moon, I’ll see a dad post about something their kid did, but, from my experience, 95% of the time, it’s moms posting this type of thing.

However, recently something happened in my life, and I want to share it for the sake of all the moms out there – especially the boy moms out there.

As my friends’ boys have grown older, I have seen the general sentiments in their posts change from excited when they walk, to proud when they go to kindergarten, to anxious about how fast they are growing by the time they reach later elementary school age, to a bit of eye rolling over how ‘boyish’ they are in middle and high school, back to proud again after that once they get through the gauntlet that is the teenage years.

Moms, I know you worry. I know you wonder your babies may turn out. What happens when your relationship with your son changes?

I hate to break it to ya, but he won’t always be so cooperative when you want to take his picture, or let you drop him off at school. There will be times in college where he won’t pick up the phone, or answer your text. He’ll very likely try to go on some sort of trip without telling you; there may be a few significant others he hopes you’ll never find out about, and there will undoubtedly be 1,000 times where you’ll ask yourself who is this child now?  That can’t be the same kid who used to rest his head so contently on my shoulder after a bottle…

Will he ever appreciate you, Mom? Will he ever truly understand how much you care for him? Will he ever stop and notice all the ways you have tried to prepare him for the life ahead of him?

The answer, I can assure you, is yes, someday, he will.

--

For me, that someday came barreling at me completely out of the blue last week.

My mom was on vacation with my dad. They were touring a few National Parks in Utah. This is the kind of trip that my mom lives for. Nature. Hiking. Exploring. Free entry into the national parks via her lifetime pass, and reciprocity to visit other gardens along the way due to her membership benefits with the Morton Arboretum …

If you know my mom at all, that’s like a Mount Rushmore of benefits.

Anyway, on Monday morning, June 17, my mom sat down at breakfast to write me a letter. This letter, that you’ll see below, embodies everything that is great about my mom’s and my relationship.

She included so many little details in this note that were not only important to her – but she also knew that I would appreciate them. And, for the first time in my life, I think I was able to fully appreciate them.

First of all, she sent the letter on stationary from the (potentially) world-famous Bumbleberry Inn and Motel. How do I know this? Because she went through the trouble to get her hands on Bumbleberry stationary. I picture this process, where you have an extremely zealous traveler coming up to a Bumbleberry employee and asking if they have stationary, or something in which she can use to send a note to her son. There’s a chance the paper could have been left for guests in each of their rooms, but this is full-size stationary, not a sheet off of a tear pad. So, at least in my version of how the events went down, my mom had to ask for this. And, knowing her, she would most definitely do that!

The top of the note not only has the date, but it specifies that it was Monday morning, and that it was written during breakfast. Not only is this thoughtful letter-writing technique commonly practiced in eras gone by, but, as I have learned, this is how my mom’s brain works. Every time I go on a trip, be it for work, or pleasure, she asks, okay, Monday, what did you do Monday? And after we’ve gone through Monday, and gotten sidetracked a few dozen times, she’ll always come back to it in her mind, and say, okay, Tuesday, what was Tuesday?

For years, I have had to bite my tongue and not say, Mom, okay, do we have to go through every day of the trip as if it’s being used in a legal deposition? And yet, somehow, to read ‘Monday… Breakfast’ at the top of this note, it finally clicked. This is her. This is how her mind works. This is what she wants to tell me, and this is how she structured it in her mind. The realization that she was getting great joy out of this changed everything for me.

She started the letter with reference to her favorite writing utensil – the trusty Ticonderoga #2 pencil. It’s a long running joke in our family that Mom always has a Ticonderoga #2 behind one – and sometimes both – of her ears. As soon as I saw that the letter was written in pencil, I knew it was a Ticonderoga #2, but reading her reminder made me smile.

I won’t break down for you every part of this note that touched me so personally, because there is so much layered into the way she wrote it – from using certain exclamation points in places where I knew she would use them – to the way she used parentheses. They mean more to me than they could ever mean to you.

That’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is to be a reminder of how uniquely special a mother’s relationship can be with her son.

It takes time, and for a long time, my mom was putting in effort to connect with me that went without being fully realized on my end.

She sent me notes like this in college that I opened, read, and glanced at the articles she’d cut out of the newspaper thinking I would like to read them, and I didn’t read them, or at least not all of them.

She put together a photo scrapbook of a class trip I took in middle school, and I probably looked at it for five seconds back then. As I was cleaning out my house to move about two years ago now, I found that little scrapbook and I marveled at the effort and the care she put into making it and preserving those memories.

The common theme may sound like it’s just a factor of building a foundation, and waiting 30 years, but I think there’s also more to it than that.

I’ve written more about that here, but the short version is this:

Invest in what your son(s) likes now. That’ll no doubt change, but the thing he’ll come to appreciate most when he’s in his 30s and beyond is that you took the time to know him. That while you may not have been super interested in baseball (the thing I liked most throughout most of my formative years) or trucks, or toy cars, or video games, or Marvel movies, purely the fact that you wanted to take part in his life with him matters. A lot.

He’ll brush you off at first. And probably for the entire span of when he’s like 11 through 25…

But it’s worth it.

I look at the relationship I have with my mom now and it brings tears to my eyes.

Her methods may not work for you. They may not feel authentic, and your kids may not respond to them the same way that I did. Heck, the way my mom and I connect is not the same way she connects with my brother. But, she has her own connection with him, and they bond in ways that are equally unique to his personality. But they do connect. And it is special.

As I close, I will end with a call to enjoy the journey.

I laugh a little that I’m giving advice to moms – me?

But for many of you that will read this, I know you. I know your moms, and I know the amazing connections you have with them.

I also know how hard it can be to know how to navigate all that goes into raising a son. I certainly wouldn’t want to have been fully responsible for raising me…

Many of you have husbands who will play their own role in helping you raise your boys, and they will do their part, no doubt. And your boys – if they’re anything like me – will gravitate heavily to their dad at certain times. And thankfully so. That’s obviously normal. Enjoy the connection that’s built there, too.

But, as most any boy would tell ya, there’s just something special about the relationship we have with our mom.

If you wonder in the back of your mind if your little guy will ever fully appreciate you for all that you are, and how much you care about him.

Someday, he will.

--

Okay, enough out of me. I hope my words made your hearts smile a little bit. Go moms!

[head-full-of-words]

Another post about love...

I’ve been told that my ex-boyfriend thinks I have a “fucked up perception on love” and another ex-boyfriend has convinced himself I never actually wanted to date him. I apparently came up with reasons to break up with him because he refuses to take responsibility for mistreating me. So, I’ve been sitting here, thinking that my lack of healthy relationships are a product of my own doing and who I am. 

But, today, I sat down with my friend who is 27 and has 2 children. We have a very open friendship and she has always been honest with me, whether I wanted to hear it or not. She’s one of the only mature adults I have in my life and I often look to her for motherly advice and guidance. 

Her fiance has a bad rep. Everyone thinks he’s a piece-of-shit, and I have firsthand seen him mistreat her (under the influence of alcohol only), and every other time, they’ve seemed so content with one another. I could never ask my mom about her idea of love, because her relationships are always unhealthy in some sort of way, sometimes subtle and sometimes not. I don’t have contact with my dad, and even if I did, he’s not very open about emotions (if he even has them). He’s had a failed marriage, a failed relationship with my mother, and his marriage with my step mom doesn’t seem to be the most pleasant either. 

So I asked my friend how she does it and how they’ve done it together. She told me the troubles they’ve gone through, which I won’t go into too much detail about, because that seems very personal and it’s not really my job to tell the whole world about her journey with her future husband, but it was truly inspiring to listen to. Everything was so rushed for them. For example, they were meant to be a one night stand but then they started hooking up regularly. Within weeks, she had moved in with him because she was with him all the time anyways. Within the first month, she discovered she was pregnant. I can’t imagine learning someone while knowing you’re carrying their child. That seems so out of order.

They struggled with money. She had lost her job for being pregnant and they were only living off of his income with bills to worry about and a baby on the way. They were living paycheck-to-paycheck, and anyone who has lived with a significant other like I have, knows the kind of stress finances can put on a couple. There’s so much to worry about- food, rent, car insurance, gas, necessities. It’s hard to be happy when you don’t know where your next meal will come from. They were arguing all the time, trying to maintain the stress that comes with being in a relationship. She said they even went through a phase where they were so awful to each other that they were mentally abusive to one another.

This reminded me a lot of my first love, because although I wasn’t pregnant with his child, we were living off of his income while I was still in high school and attempting to get my diploma. Our priorities were in very different places at the time- he was worrying about making his car look better and I was the voice of reason, telling him we needed to save our money, even though I didn’t always handle it the right way. So I asked her how she got through it, because knowing me, I wouldn’t have put up with it; I would have just left. She said that he needed patience and they sat down and discussed how they were making each other feel. Now, they discuss everything instead of arguing. 

She told me that leaving is sometimes the right thing to do but there will be a person who comes into your life who is worth working for. Relationships and love are a lot of work. For a long time, her fiance argued with her about it and thought that love should come easily with the right person, but that’s not really how it works, obviously. You and your perfect someone will not necessarily be the same exact person. Everyone is different, but it’s the effort you put into a relationship and that you are willing to put into a relationship that really counts for something. 

With this story, I thought about what it would be like if I had just stayed with my first love; like what if I just sat down and talked to him instead of letting our negativity get the best of us? What would have happened if we got through that rough patch and found a way to grow with each other? And that’s something I dwelled on a lot when I was getting over him for the year and a half that it took. I thought a lot about what it would be like if we just tried a little harder, but he is happy now with who he is and who he is meant to be. And, while my friend got her dream job because her fiance pushed her to do so, my ex was not as supportive about my dreams and in a lot of ways, he held me back.

Love is so much more than just butterflies in your stomach or increased heart rate or really fantastic sex. Love is about understanding one another, or at least trying to. It’s about learning one another and accepting their past because you have one, too. I think that’s something I’ve really struggled with. I have really struggled with the pasts of my significant others, and I have found someone who refuses to talk to me about it because he doesn’t want me to spiral downhill again. Curiosity killed the cat after all, right? I know someone’s past is important because it shapes who you are, but I suppose there are some things that don’t need to be discussed until the moment is right.

Love is learning one another and accepting them for who they are, flaws and all. It’s looking at someone and knowing you’re going to get through any rough patch that life has thrown you. It is so much more than sweet nothings and late nights. It’s more than similarities, it’s also holding onto the differences as well. It’s trusting the other person enough to not worry when they go to work or they come home late. It’s never questioning who they’re talking to or what’s on their phone. Love is not this fairytale where some prince comes and saves you from all of the sadness in your life, because there are going to be sad moments in a relationship, but it’s working through those moments to fulfill happiness in the end. It’s messy and not always perfect and there are going to be fights and arguments and there will come a point in time when you need space from one another, but it’s knowing things will be okay eventually. 

I wish I had known all of these things before and maybe my first love could have been my last, but I set him free to be whoever he wanted to be, just like I am so much happier and so much more mature because of my relationship with him. I am ready to fall in love and I don’t know who that’s going to be with, or when it’s going to happen, but I’m very excited for it now that I have a realistic intake on it.

I know this is really long and so many of you will scroll past this but if one of you-- any of you-- reads this, I hope you really let this sink in. 

[kimlisby]

Obedience & Joy, How Do They Relate?

This fall I went through a dark season. It could have been hormones and living in a dark basement, at least they were contributions. I found myself complaining a lot, feeling angry and needing to be understood. I was just grumpy, most of the time. In reality, I had so many things to be excited about with building a new home and expecting a new baby.  It boiled down to my perspective. I realized that I was letting my circumstances rob me of my joy.  Proud of my epiphany, I shared with a friend who spoke truth to me. She said I did have a lot to be grateful for, my perspective should probably shift, but really circumstances and things aren’t what bring us true joy anyway. So I began praying for God to fill me with real joy, like he had done before and to shift my perspective off myself. Where does true joy come from? 

We think that if we do what makes us happy, we will be happy. If we focus on us, we will feel joy. But that happiness is circumstantial and fleeting, don’t let it lure you in. Yes, our new home is lovely and our quality of life is better living here than in mom’s basement, but it’s not where joy comes from. The newness will fade away and then what? I have to find the next temporary high to bring me joy, the baby, then a new car, career shift or vacation. That is exhausting and frankly expensive! We do have an enemy that wants to steal our joy by distracting us from our true purpose, diminishing our passions and causing dissension in our relationships with others and with God. He wants us to have a skewed and selfish perspective of what is true and plants those thoughts in our heads. Joy is not only an act of discipline and practice mentally, but a natural response to having an attitude of gratitude, celebration and obedience toward God. Richard Foster said in his book Celebration of Discipline that “when we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems.”

For so long I looked at obedience and discipline as dirty four letter words. They made me cringe, mostly because they just don’t sound fun, they sound like the opposite of celebration and me being forced to do things by sheer will that I don’t want to do. You know what, might as well throw the word budget on the list as well. Anyone else with me? Sometimes that does feel like truth, when we are too caught up in ourselves. We don’t want to let go and forgive that friend who wounded us. We don’t want to seek out God’s plan for us, because what if it is too scary or uncomfortable? Or worse, what if it involves too much sacrifice of my time, finances or fun? Those are lies my friend. They are not the true heart of God. He aligns our desires with his when we are in relationship with him. He calls us to do things that align with the way he’s uniquely designed us, with just enough discomfort that we do have to rely on him instead of ourselves. But in that, we experience joy. Just like when your own child listens and obeys and is so excited for you to see that they have. It brought them joy to obey. I look at us the same way in the eyes of God.

I’ve been reflecting a lot about joy since that conversation and where it really comes from. Foster would say it comes from obeying God’s will. And after some reflection I agree. When you are acting in confidence that you are in line with God’s plan, it not only brings peace of mind, but comfort when you face the inevitable obstacles. A mentor of mine in Mary Kay said once that one of the best gifts she was ever given was the gift of having to rely on God for her needs instead of a paycheck/stable company. That outlook has stuck with Jake and I as we have continued a entrepreneur, non-corporate job lifestyle for over 5 years now.  It was a perspective shift to trust and obey where God was calling us to go. When I started my Mary Kay business it was on a whim, I don’t tend to overthink things. I didn’t pray about it, I just signed up because for some reason I wanted to. I didn’t overthink the process, if I’d be successful, how I’d find the time, etc.. and once I signed up, I just tried my best to figure out how to make it work. But really, I had been praying for an opportunity to get me out of my current job. It wasn’t until months after signing up that I felt God tell me this was the opportunity I had been praying for. If he told me before I signed up I probably would have over thought it and put too much pressure on myself! I needed the time to grow and learn before I was remotely prepared to handle the next step God was calling me to. Little did I know how it would grow me over the next 8 years! But most importantly, God put that desire in my heart to do his will when I didn’t even know that is what I was doing. But I was praying. Trust your discernment in those situations, he is leading you even when you don’t hear clear answers. And if you make the wrong move, he has the power to stop it.

A few years after leaving my job to pursue my own thing, I saw Jake losing his contentment at his corporate position. I always knew he’d be his own boss some day and prompted him to start searching for side projects. When an opportunity came about for him to replace his corporate income with his side gig, I encouraged him to leave. God had grown my faith during that time in my own business to see the evidence of how he could continue to provide for us. Without those experiences, I would have been to fearful, some might call it practical, to encourage Jake to leave a nice, corporate job he was moving up in for a risky, unsteady start-up. In the end, that business didn’t pan out as we hoped. There were a lot of ups and downs to say the least, but God continued to provide for us financially through opportunities we felt led to take. He moved us to a loft with the most flexible and generous landlords during seasons we weren’t sure how we’d pay our rent. He opened up past side projects for Jake to work on during seasons his startup had no funding. He even opened up a position at our church for me, when I was not looking for a job, but I took it anyway. In every instance, God opened up new opportunities and grew our faith to try them out. Today, just three years after letting go of his startup and beginning his own consulting business again, Jake has been the Chief Technology Officer for his very first client for almost a year now and has the biggest client to date for his consulting business, where he is able to fully employ his brother. That client came from a Mary Kay party.  I don’t say that to brag on Jake, even though I think he’s pretty great, I say that to brag on God. Jake has never had to do any marketing, business finds him. That is clearly God and not coincidence. And you know what, the past 5 years have been the most joy filled years of our adult lives, even when there has been the most uncertainty. 

God has a plan, and it is beautiful when we trust it. It is much to be celebrated and find joy in. Yet even with all that evidence of God’s work through our obedience to take the first step, I still found myself in a dark, joy lacking place. None of us are free from allowing lies to creep in and shift our perspective. For me, it was more than shifting my perspective to the good in my life, though that was the first step. We often think that we need to think about what circumstances need to change in order to feel joyful, which may be the case, but usually that thought process leads to more destructive or selfish behaviors. It sends us down a rabbit hole of searching out more things that don’t truly cause real joy, instead bring guilt or shame. Joy is a heart issue, since it stems from having an attitude of celebration in life and obedience toward God. My prayer is that if you are reading this and feeling discontent, joyless or just cranky like I was, that you’ll not only remind yourself of the good gifts in your life that God has given you, but be willing to seek out his will and obey it. It might feel like the opposite of what will bring you joy, but that’s a lie the enemy wants you to believe to keep you stuck in your funk. Not sure how to hear God’s voice to know how to obey? Start by reading his word and start asking him. He will meet you there.

[sportsandfitnessinfo]

New Post has been published on http://fitnessandhealthpros.com/fitness/ggs-spotlight-jill-mclean/

GGS Spotlight: Jill McLean

Name:   Jill McLean Age:  35 Location: Salem, Oregon

What does being a Girl Gone Strong mean to you? To me it means being strong and confident on the inside and out. It means not being afraid to show off my “guns” while also wearing lipgloss. It means not being afraid to be more, to take up space and to encourage other women to do the same by lifting one another up.

How long have you been strength training, and how did you get started? I’ve been strength training for about seven years. I first got started with a popular home DVD workout series that I borrowed from my sister-in-law. I followed that program for about nine months. I saw some great results, and that’s when people started pouring in with the “How did you do that?” questions. I quickly learned that I absolutely loved helping others find ways to get strong, and that’s when I decided that I wanted to be a personal trainer. In order to learn about the field, I decided to hire a personal trainer (who, spoiler alert, ended up becoming my best friend and business partner!). This helped me hone my craft, but it also gave me a lifting partner who was as in love with lifting heavy stuff as I was!

What does your typical workout look like? I always start out with core and pelvic floor exercises for my warm-up. Even though I’m 16 months postpartum, I still find this a very important part of my exercise program. After that, I start getting into my lifts. Usually they include some type of body weight exercise, barbell and kettlebell exercise. The format looks a little like this:

Core/Power

Push/Pull (Upper and/or lower)

Finisher

A lower volume, higher intensity approach has helped me gain strength without exhausting all of my energy, which is a precious commodity these days with a toddler.

Favorite Lift: The Turkish Get-Up. It is just a flat-out awesome exercise that makes me feel pretty badass.

Most memorable PR: When I got a TGU with the 28kg bell on each side. This PR actually happened for me twice. Once before I had my son, and once after. Training postpartum has been a whole new animal. It’s been like training with a totally differently body that I’ve had to take time to honor and get to know. So, I’ve nicknamed my PRs after baby as PPPRs (postpartum PRs).

Top 5 songs on your training playlist: I usually don’t workout with headphones, so whatever is playing in the gym is good enough for me. But, I usually have to stop and jam to any of five:

Turn Down for What – Dj Snake Feat. Lil Jon

Bad Romance – Lady Gaga

Rock and Roll – Led Zeppelin

Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5

Sail – AWOLNATION

Top 3 things you must have with you at the gym or in your gym bag: Lip gloss, water bottle, chalk

Do you prefer to train alone or with others? Why? I usually enjoy training with others. There’s just something about surrounding yourself with like-minded people who want to enhance their life and feel good.

The energy of a good gym is hard to beat. You never leave feeling worse.

Most embarrassing gym moment: My husband and I met at the gym where we both worked. Normally, I work out in the evening, but because I knew he would be working out there at the same time, I started doing my lifts at lunchtime to you know, impress him with my dedication and super sweet moves of course. I had band-assisted pull-ups in my program, so I got up on the box and went to slide the band around my  heel, only I missed!

The band snapped me right in the crotch. So, there I stood with one leg on the box and the other hiked up to the heavens in the band looking at my crush. He didn’t rush over to help me, just stared. And I blurted out, “I’m fine!” No worries, he married me anyway.

Most memorable compliment you’ve received lately: “You’ve been kicking butt. I’m proud of you.” A compliment from my cousin Heidi on my progress with my business lately, which means a lot to me because entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart!

Most recent compliment you gave someone else: “I am diggin’ those pants!” A compliment I gave another woman at the gym who was wearing these awesome red workout pants that I totally dug.

Favorite meal: Paleo pizza, hands down!

Favorite way to treat yourself: I love getting pedicures. I could just fall asleep in those comfy chairs.

Favorite quote: “Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and the thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself.” — Edmund Lee

Favorite book: I am a big Stephen King fan. My favorite book is The Stand. It’s unbelievably long (1,153 pages in the uncut version), and I read it in one summer. It had me riveted, and I cried near the end.

What inspires and motivates you?   Other strong women. I’ve spent a good amount of time over the past couple of years really finding my tribe. Just like one of your awesome T-shirts says, “Strong women lift each other up.”

I’ve surrounded myself with strong women, and it has truly inspired me to do things that I would have never done before.

I’ve already spent too much time playing small and taking up less space. Spending time with strong women has helped me reach beyond my borders, find my true potential and dream big! Because…..why not?! Go for it!

What do you do? I co-own a personal training business with my best friend Cara Turnquist called Movement Duets. We specialize in pre and postnatal training with a focus on core and pelvic floor health. We’ve been running our signature online group training program Fit Mom Foundations for about a year and recently started offering in-person training services in Salem, Oregon as well. I also work part-time as a chiropractic assistant.

What else do you do? This should come as no surprise but my main hobby is weight lifting! I love challenging myself to reach new PRs. I also compete in the Highland Games, which is an awesome extension of what I already love to do. The difference is that not only do I get to lift heavy stuff, I also get to let it go! It’s awesomely therapeutic, and the Highland Games community is filled with some of the kindest and most amazing people that you will ever meet. I also recently started going out line dancing with Cara which is super fun because the place we go to offers lessons at 7:30 p.m. and we’re home by 10:00 p.m. Perfect for us, because #grandmastatus. I’m not the best at it, but at the very least I can follow directions, not run into people, and have a lot of fun.

Describe a typical day in your life: I wake up around 6 a.m., hop in the shower, and get ready for the day. After that, my son Jack usually wakes up, and we have a quiet nursing session. This is also when I check my task list for the business, to make sure that I know what I need to have done for the day. Then Jack and I both eat breakfast, and I get him ready for the day. After dropping him off at the babysitter’s house, I head to the gym where Cara and I teach our Mommy and Me classes, pre/postnatal strength training classes, mobility classes, and do individual training sessions and table work. After work my husband (Sam) and I regroup at home with Jack to eat lunch. We usually take a little down time before going back to the gym for my own workout. After that, we head home for the day. Jack usually goes down for a nap in the afternoon and this is when I get my writing for done (blogs, emails, social media posts, etc.). After my writing work is done, the rest of the evening is dedicated to family time.

Your next training goal: 32kg Turkish Get-Up on each side. I’m coming for ya!

What are you most grateful for? I’m most grateful for my husband and son. Ever since the day that I met my Sam he put me first. He always goes out of his way to make sure that I’m taken care of and that I feel special. When I said that I wanted to quit my full-time job to pursue building up my business, he barely even flinched. He said that I had to go for it. He’s been supportive every step of the way. He also helped give me the greatest gift that I  could ever ask for, our son, Jack.

What life accomplishment are you most proud of? Giving birth! The labor and delivery of my son changed me in a million and one ways. I never knew that I was capable of such an amazing miracle.

Which three words that best describe you? Funny. Strong. Kind.

What’s a risk you’ve taken recently, and how did it turn out? I had been working full time at a corporate gym for almost three years when I even first thought about starting a business with my best friend. When I was about to go on maternity leave, my boss at the time gave me an ultimatum: when I was ready to return to work, I was either to work solely for his company or my business. Even though I wasn’t taking home a paycheck from it and it had absolutely zero security, I chose my business. Cara and I went all-in. We shaped and molded this beautiful business of helping moms and moms-to-be have fit, healthy pregnancies, successful postpartum recoveries and strength and support during this transitional time in their lives. Our business continues to build, grow, and change and it’s absolutely amazing seeing how it all continues to unfold.

What’s the coolest “side effect” you’ve noticed from strength training? Getting strong on the outside and seeing that strength seep into all other aspects of my life. It truly inspires self confidence and strength on the inside as well.

How has lifting weights changed your life? If it weren’t for me borrowing that workout DVD set from my sister-in-law, I never would have ended up where I am today. I never would have seen what my body can do. I never would have pursued a career in the fitness industry. I never would have worked at the gym where I met my best friend and husband. I never would have started my business. I never would have shared my story with others.

Lifting weights changed everything. Absolutely everything.

When did you start the Moms Gone Strong, why did you decide to start, and what helped you make the decision to start? I started the Moms Gone Strong program when I was 29 weeks pregnant. I decided to start the program because I knew that how I had been exercising before pregnancy wasn’t necessarily appropriate for how I should be exercising during or even after for a while! I believe that every good coach should have a coach, and as a trainer myself, it was really nice to not have to think about my workouts or do my own programming. I was so excited to hear that this was something that GGS was now going to be offering that I couldn’t not do it! It was really great to work so closely with Molly and Jessie during the pilot program, and at 16 months postpartum I’m still continuing to work with Jessie.

What was your biggest challenge in the Moms Gone Strong program?  My biggest challenge was my ego. Haha. Prior to becoming pregnant I was already a regular exerciser, and I loved heavy lifting. It was hard for me to let go of heavy lifting for a while, but it was the right thing to do for me and my body. I found my way back to it safely.

Throughout my pregnancy the “I can” vs. “I should” struggle was constant.

What has been your biggest success from the Moms Gone Strong program? One of the things that my mom friends have told me throughout the years is that after having a baby I should expect to pee my pants. I refused to believe that this had to be the case. I was diligent about my core and pelvic floor exercises and not placing too much stress on my core and pelvic floor, and I am happy to report that it paid off! I’ve had minimal postpartum issues, and I can say with conviction that peeing your pants after you have a baby might be common, but it is not normal. Prevention and healing can happen!

What do you like best about the Moms Gone Strong community? Motherhood can be really, really lonely if you let it be. I really struggled with depression during the first few months after my son was born. Having a community of like-minded women who relate, love, and support you throughout this crazy journey of motherhood made a huge difference. No more crying alone and Googling, “Is it normal to….?” I just leaned in and asked my sisters.

What is the habit you’re currently working on most? Continuing to do safely do more heavy lifting that’s appropriate for my postpartum body.

How has Moms Gone Strong changed your life?  It brought on so much more body awareness on my part. It helped me to really tune in and learn what “listen to your body” truly means. It’s helped me make smart decisions about exercising during pregnancy and after. And it’s introduced me to so many amazing women.

What would you tell a woman who’s nervous about starting Moms Gone Strong? Whether you’re a regular gym goer or a first time exerciser, this program meets you where you are. The programming is smart so you don’t have to wonder if you’re doing the “right” things, and the community is a safe place to come as you are and get support along the way.

What do you want to say to women, in general, who might be nervous or hesitant about strength training? I know what it’s like to walk into a gym and not know where the heck to start. I’ve been the one who walked around the weight room, reading all of the instructions on the different machines and hesitantly trying them out, hoping that no one was looking at me. Don’t let fear keep you from starting. Go with a friend. Hire a trainer. Reach out, don’t hide out. You never know how picking up a weight might change your life. It certainly changed mine.

Exercises To Do And Avoid During And After Pregnancy

There are so many myths about exercising during and after pregnancy, it can be hard to know if you’re doing the “right” thing. Our education materials are carefully vetted by OB/GYNs, PhDs, Registered Dietitians, Women’s Health Physiotherapists, and Pre and Postnatal Exercise Experts, and we have put together this FREE handbook where you’ll learn:

The best exercises to do during and after pregnancy

Exercises to avoid during and after pregnancy

Originally at :Girls Gone Strong Written By : GGS

#Jill, #McLean, #Spotlight #Fitness

[corneliussteinbeck]

GGS Spotlight: Jill McLean

Name:   Jill McLean Age:  35 Location: Salem, Oregon

What does being a Girl Gone Strong mean to you? To me it means being strong and confident on the inside and out. It means not being afraid to show off my “guns” while also wearing lipgloss. It means not being afraid to be more, to take up space and to encourage other women to do the same by lifting one another up.

How long have you been strength training, and how did you get started? I’ve been strength training for about seven years. I first got started with a popular home DVD workout series that I borrowed from my sister-in-law. I followed that program for about nine months. I saw some great results, and that’s when people started pouring in with the “How did you do that?” questions. I quickly learned that I absolutely loved helping others find ways to get strong, and that’s when I decided that I wanted to be a personal trainer. In order to learn about the field, I decided to hire a personal trainer (who, spoiler alert, ended up becoming my best friend and business partner!). This helped me hone my craft, but it also gave me a lifting partner who was as in love with lifting heavy stuff as I was!

What does your typical workout look like? I always start out with core and pelvic floor exercises for my warm-up. Even though I’m 16 months postpartum, I still find this a very important part of my exercise program. After that, I start getting into my lifts. Usually they include some type of body weight exercise, barbell and kettlebell exercise. The format looks a little like this:

Core/Power

Push/Pull (Upper and/or lower)

Finisher

A lower volume, higher intensity approach has helped me gain strength without exhausting all of my energy, which is a precious commodity these days with a toddler.

Favorite Lift: The Turkish Get-Up. It is just a flat-out awesome exercise that makes me feel pretty badass.

Most memorable PR: When I got a TGU with the 28kg bell on each side. This PR actually happened for me twice. Once before I had my son, and once after. Training postpartum has been a whole new animal. It’s been like training with a totally differently body that I’ve had to take time to honor and get to know. So, I’ve nicknamed my PRs after baby as PPPRs (postpartum PRs).

Top 5 songs on your training playlist: I usually don’t workout with headphones, so whatever is playing in the gym is good enough for me. But, I usually have to stop and jam to any of five:

Turn Down for What – Dj Snake Feat. Lil Jon

Bad Romance – Lady Gaga

Rock and Roll – Led Zeppelin

Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5

Sail – AWOLNATION

Top 3 things you must have with you at the gym or in your gym bag: Lip gloss, water bottle, chalk

Do you prefer to train alone or with others? Why? I usually enjoy training with others. There’s just something about surrounding yourself with like-minded people who want to enhance their life and feel good.

The energy of a good gym is hard to beat. You never leave feeling worse.

Most embarrassing gym moment: My husband and I met at the gym where we both worked. Normally, I work out in the evening, but because I knew he would be working out there at the same time, I started doing my lifts at lunchtime to you know, impress him with my dedication and super sweet moves of course. I had band-assisted pull-ups in my program, so I got up on the box and went to slide the band around my  heel, only I missed! The band snapped me right in the crotch. So, there I stood with one leg on the box and the other hiked up to the heavens in the band looking at my crush. He didn’t rush over to help me, just stared. And I blurted out, “I’m fine!” No worries, he married me anyway.

Most memorable compliment you’ve received lately: “You’ve been kicking butt. I’m proud of you.” A compliment from my cousin Heidi on my progress with my business lately, which means a lot to me because entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart!

Most recent compliment you gave someone else: “I am diggin’ those pants!” A compliment I gave another woman at the gym who was wearing these awesome red workout pants that I totally dug.

Favorite meal: Paleo pizza, hands down!

Favorite way to treat yourself: I love getting pedicures. I could just fall asleep in those comfy chairs.

Favorite quote: “Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and the thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself.” — Edmund Lee

Favorite book: I am a big Stephen King fan. My favorite book is The Stand. It’s unbelievably long (1,153 pages in the uncut version), and I read it in one summer. It had me riveted, and I cried near the end.

What inspires and motivates you?   Other strong women. I’ve spent a good amount of time over the past couple of years really finding my tribe. Just like one of your awesome T-shirts says, “Strong women lift each other up.”

I’ve surrounded myself with strong women, and it has truly inspired me to do things that I would have never done before.

I’ve already spent too much time playing small and taking up less space. Spending time with strong women has helped me reach beyond my borders, find my true potential and dream big! Because…..why not?! Go for it!

What do you do? I co-own a personal training business with my best friend Cara Turnquist called Movement Duets. We specialize in pre and postnatal training with a focus on core and pelvic floor health. We’ve been running our signature online group training program Fit Mom Foundations for about a year and recently started offering in-person training services in Salem, Oregon as well. I also work part-time as a chiropractic assistant.

What else do you do? This should come as no surprise but my main hobby is weight lifting! I love challenging myself to reach new PRs. I also compete in the Highland Games, which is an awesome extension of what I already love to do. The difference is that not only do I get to lift heavy stuff, I also get to let it go! It’s awesomely therapeutic, and the Highland Games community is filled with some of the kindest and most amazing people that you will ever meet. I also recently started going out line dancing with Cara which is super fun because the place we go to offers lessons at 7:30 p.m. and we’re home by 10:00 p.m. Perfect for us, because #grandmastatus. I’m not the best at it, but at the very least I can follow directions, not run into people, and have a lot of fun.

Describe a typical day in your life: I wake up around 6 a.m., hop in the shower, and get ready for the day. After that, my son Jack usually wakes up, and we have a quiet nursing session. This is also when I check my task list for the business, to make sure that I know what I need to have done for the day. Then Jack and I both eat breakfast, and I get him ready for the day. After dropping him off at the babysitter’s house, I head to the gym where Cara and I teach our Mommy and Me classes, pre/postnatal strength training classes, mobility classes, and do individual training sessions and table work. After work my husband (Sam) and I regroup at home with Jack to eat lunch. We usually take a little down time before going back to the gym for my own workout. After that, we head home for the day. Jack usually goes down for a nap in the afternoon and this is when I get my writing for done (blogs, emails, social media posts, etc.). After my writing work is done, the rest of the evening is dedicated to family time.

Your next training goal: 32kg Turkish Get-Up on each side. I’m coming for ya!

What are you most grateful for? I’m most grateful for my husband and son. Ever since the day that I met my Sam he put me first. He always goes out of his way to make sure that I’m taken care of and that I feel special. When I said that I wanted to quit my full-time job to pursue building up my business, he barely even flinched. He said that I had to go for it. He’s been supportive every step of the way. He also helped give me the greatest gift that I  could ever ask for, our son, Jack.

What life accomplishment are you most proud of? Giving birth! The labor and delivery of my son changed me in a million and one ways. I never knew that I was capable of such an amazing miracle.

Which three words that best describe you? Funny. Strong. Kind.

What’s a risk you’ve taken recently, and how did it turn out? I had been working full time at a corporate gym for almost three years when I even first thought about starting a business with my best friend. When I was about to go on maternity leave, my boss at the time gave me an ultimatum: when I was ready to return to work, I was either to work solely for his company or my business. Even though I wasn’t taking home a paycheck from it and it had absolutely zero security, I chose my business. Cara and I went all-in. We shaped and molded this beautiful business of helping moms and moms-to-be have fit, healthy pregnancies, successful postpartum recoveries and strength and support during this transitional time in their lives. Our business continues to build, grow, and change and it’s absolutely amazing seeing how it all continues to unfold.

What’s the coolest “side effect” you’ve noticed from strength training? Getting strong on the outside and seeing that strength seep into all other aspects of my life. It truly inspires self confidence and strength on the inside as well.

How has lifting weights changed your life? If it weren’t for me borrowing that workout DVD set from my sister-in-law, I never would have ended up where I am today. I never would have seen what my body can do. I never would have pursued a career in the fitness industry. I never would have worked at the gym where I met my best friend and husband. I never would have started my business. I never would have shared my story with others.

Lifting weights changed everything. Absolutely everything.

When did you start the Moms Gone Strong, why did you decide to start, and what helped you make the decision to start? I started the Moms Gone Strong program when I was 29 weeks pregnant. I decided to start the program because I knew that how I had been exercising before pregnancy wasn’t necessarily appropriate for how I should be exercising during or even after for a while! I believe that every good coach should have a coach, and as a trainer myself, it was really nice to not have to think about my workouts or do my own programming. I was so excited to hear that this was something that GGS was now going to be offering that I couldn’t not do it! It was really great to work so closely with Molly and Jessie during the pilot program, and at 16 months postpartum I’m still continuing to work with Jessie.

What was your biggest challenge in the Moms Gone Strong program?  My biggest challenge was my ego. Haha. Prior to becoming pregnant I was already a regular exerciser, and I loved heavy lifting. It was hard for me to let go of heavy lifting for a while, but it was the right thing to do for me and my body. I found my way back to it safely.

Throughout my pregnancy the “I can” vs. “I should” struggle was constant.

What has been your biggest success from the Moms Gone Strong program? One of the things that my mom friends have told me throughout the years is that after having a baby I should expect to pee my pants. I refused to believe that this had to be the case. I was diligent about my core and pelvic floor exercises and not placing too much stress on my core and pelvic floor, and I am happy to report that it paid off! I’ve had minimal postpartum issues, and I can say with conviction that peeing your pants after you have a baby might be common, but it is not normal. Prevention and healing can happen!

What do you like best about the Moms Gone Strong community? Motherhood can be really, really lonely if you let it be. I really struggled with depression during the first few months after my son was born. Having a community of like-minded women who relate, love, and support you throughout this crazy journey of motherhood made a huge difference. No more crying alone and Googling, “Is it normal to….?” I just leaned in and asked my sisters.

What is the habit you’re currently working on most? Continuing to do safely do more heavy lifting that’s appropriate for my postpartum body.

How has Moms Gone Strong changed your life?  It brought on so much more body awareness on my part. It helped me to really tune in and learn what “listen to your body” truly means. It’s helped me make smart decisions about exercising during pregnancy and after. And it’s introduced me to so many amazing women.

What would you tell a woman who’s nervous about starting Moms Gone Strong? Whether you’re a regular gym goer or a first time exerciser, this program meets you where you are. The programming is smart so you don’t have to wonder if you’re doing the “right” things, and the community is a safe place to come as you are and get support along the way.

What do you want to say to women, in general, who might be nervous or hesitant about strength training? I know what it’s like to walk into a gym and not know where the heck to start. I’ve been the one who walked around the weight room, reading all of the instructions on the different machines and hesitantly trying them out, hoping that no one was looking at me. Don’t let fear keep you from starting. Go with a friend. Hire a trainer. Reach out, don’t hide out. You never know how picking up a weight might change your life. It certainly changed mine.

Exercises To Do And Avoid During And After Pregnancy

There are so many myths about exercising during and after pregnancy, it can be hard to know if you’re doing the “right” thing. Our education materials are carefully vetted by OB/GYNs, PhDs, Registered Dietitians, Women’s Health Physiotherapists, and Pre and Postnatal Exercise Experts, and we have put together this FREE handbook where you’ll learn:

The best exercises to do during and after pregnancy

Exercises to avoid during and after pregnancy

1. Select Your Handbook

Handbook for Moms (and Moms-to-be)

Handbook for Trainers (who may also be Moms)

2. Enter Your Information

Learn More

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