Physically, I’ve been right here and hardly anywhere else.
Here she is, surrounded by her six living children. (I’m in the middle, standing.) How adorable is she?!
And yet, it’s been the hardest few years of my life.
I thought I’d already survived the most trying season a decade ago. I wrote about those years in my book about honesty, about navigating issues with my marriage and losing my dad to dementia.
But last year, two days before Christmas, my husband and I had to drop our teenage son off at a residential treatment program for substance use disorder. I don’t want the universe to take this on as a personal challenge or anything, but nothing has ever been worse than getting back into that car and driving the four hours back home without him.
(If you would like to talk about the lack of resources for the epidemic that is teenage substance use disorder and how it’s a no-man’s-land of frustration, full of progress and relapse, suspensions and expulsion hearings, costly ER visits where no one can really help, and nights of no sleep, I’m here for that. If you’re a fellow parent or guardian dealing with this, I’m so sorry. I see you. It’s excruciating. I wrote my latest Cincinnati magazine column about coming to terms with it.)
So now, as my son is working on himself and about to start senior year of high school and my husband is heading back to work after being a stay-at-home dad for 17 years and my daughter is preparing to take the world by storm as a varsity cheerleader (Go Mustangs!), I find myself thinking about change.
Namely that I am ready for one, too.
This past weekend, I attended my first sound bath. It was on my neighbor’s deck, and it was such a lovely and weird experience. My neighbor led us through a meditation as she played various instruments. The moon was full, so she talked a lot about cycles. How we journey through them.
I’ve been in a cycle of only being able to focus on what’s directly in front of me, not daring to dream too deeply or hope too hard or plan too much. I’ve narrowed my world because that’s what I’ve needed to do to survive.
The thing is, life has a way of booting you out of a cycle when it’s time for you to move on.
For me, it was when my hair mildewed.
I know. Yuk. Like just yuk.
But here’s why it happened. I have very, very long hair, which I oscillate between loving and hating. I stopped coloring it a few years ago and am letting it go gray. Sometimes I feel like a silver goddess and other times I feel like an old hag.
My gray isn’t the problem, though.
The problem is that this summer was very stressful at my house. When your nervous system tells you that chaos might erupt at any moment, you pick and choose things to care about. My hair lost out.
Hence, day after day, I got out of the shower, and wound my wet hair into a giant bun on the top of my head. At some point in June, I realized how much better I could shape the bun if I didn’t wash my hair as often. Oils are amazing that way.
I slept in a bun. Exercised in a bun. Lived my life in a bun. Attended my mom’s 90th birthday party in a bun (refer to above picture). An entire week would sometimes go by with my hair never fully drying. I usually only washed it after I swam laps.
Last week, I caught my first whiff of mildew. I ran my fingers through my hair and rubbed my scalp.
Sure enough, it stunk.
After I freaked out—and I mean, freaked the fuck out—I googled how to fix it and also texted my friend who cuts hair. Both gave me the same the answer, which was a process that involved using tea tree oil and a certain shampoo.
I’m happy to report that it only took repeating the process twice for it to work.
I guess the point is, sometimes, you need your hair to mildew to notice that what you’re doing is no longer working.
Having clean, fresh-smelling hair seems to have opened up the world of things I haven’t let myself think too much about this past year.
Like my goals. Because I do have them. Off the top of my head . . .
Cut my hair.
Sell my novel.
Stop waking every day with a sense of dread.
Find a new challenge with my work, which could mean finding some new clients.
See friends more and stop isolating.
Get back to doodling and creating in my bullet journal
Start a Substack (Hey, I can check this one off now! BTW, if you’re getting this as an email, it’s because you once signed up for my list. That could have been like 15 years ago, so you’re under no obligation to keep getting emails from me if you don’t want.)
Here’s to embracing change.
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