Are We Having Fun Yet?

Every evening after checking in with my girls on their remote study days, one of them usually asks how my day at work went.

  

“It was busy and I got a lot done,” I told Maddy, my 12-year old, when she asked last night while we were at dinner.

“Did you have fun?” she asked, “and did you play on the rolling ladder?”

I had to smile as my industrial design office sports a huge floor-to-ceiling rolling ladder across one full wall, used to post drawings, designs, and ideas on the felt surface to keep us all motivated and on track.  When Maddy comes to the office with me on the weekends when I have to finish up work, she climbs the ladder and asks me to push her back and forth across the floor for a ride.  It’s her favorite thing at my office, next to the killer sound system that blares out music from her iPhone to any room in the office with the click of a button.  She is free and happy on that ladder and having fun.

No, I didn’t play on the ladder.  But I do have fun at my job most days.  I feel fulfilled with my work and contributions, I enjoy my co-workers and usually find a way to bust a laugh or two during the day with at least of few of them, and I respect my boss and his mission for the company.

Frankly, I’ve been struggling to have fun when not at work.  Some of the things I used to do for sheer pleasure - playing volleyball, making music playlists, hanging out with my kids without agenda, writing, socializing with friends, producing a YouTube show, and dating, have all been turned on their end and I’m hustling to make appropriate adjustments.  I’m so busy focusing on filling the empty time I now have at home without plans, games, dates, and interview schedules, that I’m not enjoying the things I could still be rocking:  writing, making playlists, chilling with my girls, and taking time to just be.

In my rush to try and replicate what always has been, my busy life, I have inadvertently made it even busier than usual.  I have a hard time slowing myself down, and usually the universe and/or higher power remind me somewhat roughly, that it’s time to slow down.  Two weeks ago it was a 3-day migraine that forced to take time off and work from home.  Last week it was a twisted ankle that forced me to take time off of both work and physical activity, which led to taking time off of socializing.  What will it be this week?  I’m hoping nothing, as the less-than-gentle reminders have me putting my life in focus, at least for the moment.  

Having time to think and pay attention to those things around me - my home, kids, friends and self - I’ve realized that I’ve been ignoring them all in my wind tunnel of activity.  I had not been guiding my youngest in her technology usage, her navigating relationships within groups, nor tracking her physical whereabouts throughout the day when I was at work.  I had not noticed that my eldest was worried about her job at a restaurant that may soon shut down, which has become her entire social lifeline in the last few months.  I’d been neglecting myself in regards to healthy eating, necessary downtime, and creative outlets.  What I was putting out into the universe came back to me tenfold in the form of potential dates that were treating me with the same disregard.  

This past week I chose to consciously focus on my kids and make time to do what they consider fun.  The rewards of that decision have slayed me.  The conversations that come about when playing cards, walking the dog, making dinner together, and hanging out with my older daughter’s boyfriend with her, are fun, even though the topics are sometimes not so light.  The sharing of school projects and college essays without critique lended creativity and sparked conversation on concepts and ideas.  The pointed conversations about politics and national healing allowed us to recognize our humanity.  The carefree movie-watching allowed us to simply exist in harmony.  

The change bled into my personal life as well.  The phone calls I’m having with my friends and family when I set the phone, remote, and laptop down to really listen to what’s being said to me so that I can respond with intention, are fun.  Allowing myself time to consider the type of humans I want to incorporate into my dating life and then only focusing energy on those individuals, no matter how rare their existence in the world, is fun (and I can’t help but add empowering).  Lounging in the hanging chair reading a book and sipping tea or wine while watching the leaves fall from the top of the trees outside of my 3rd floor window is fun.  Writing is fun.

Thank you world for yanking me off of my hamster wheel and allowing me to focus on the beauty around me that I call fun!  Are you there yet?

Call a Spade a Spade

My 7-year-old came home from school last week excited to show me the finished product of a story she had been working on in class.  Her 3-part project included a timeline page, complete with 3 events plotted out to match her colorfully drawn pictures, a hand-written page on lined paper with a primary pencil, and the front cover, a mostly-white page highlighting her paragraph-long essay, thoughtfully typed out for her by her first-grade teacher:

The funniest thing that I saw was when my mom threw her crutches on purpose because she was mad.  First, my sister and I did not clean our room.  Then we walked away down the stairs.  Finally, she threw her crutches and yelled at us. 

After sharing the papers, she went on to say the teacher asked her if she thought she should write about something else in case her mom might be mad about the topic.  

“I told her my mom would be fine with it!” she confidently stated.

She’s right.  Not only am I not mad, I’m thrilled that this totally true story from two-surgeries-ago sticks in her mind as funny.  Having endured three separate knee surgeries and recovery periods in the last year and a half, alongside my wife’s year-long bout of depression, I’ve learned a few important facts:

• I throw occasional fits that give toddlers a run for their money; that will probably never change
• Asking for help is both extremely difficult and equally necessary
• My kids and my wife are not breakable; they are resilient, compassionate and prone to just laughing in my face.
• Life is unreliable, with the exception of it’s messiness.
• Every negative creates a positive, if you let it
• Acknowledging and greeting reality by name is necessary for growth and general well-being, no matter who you are

Am I proud of my crutch-throwing incident? No, I’d put its embarrassment level right on par with the Wendy’s debacle, where after a night out cocktailing, my wife and I decided to hit Wendy’s on foot at 2am for Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers that always seem to soak up the liquor.  Unhappy that the indoor restaurant was closed and only the drive-through was open till 3am, we called an Uber to pick us up at the entrance of restaurant, drive us through the drive-up window to get food, and drop us at our home 2 blocks away.  

My daughter and I sat at the kitchen table and laughed for what seemed like 15 minutes about those crutches flying through the air and the pictures she drew in description of the event.  We talked about my frustration and indignation at having to be limited in my movement, preventing me from quickly exiting the scene in order to put myself in a time-out, and we discussed the surprise, fear, and comic relief that my kids felt all at the same time.  My 1st-grader even re-enacted the scene for me so I could see the scene from her angle.  We laughed so hard we cried.

What can you do but laugh at yourself?  Losing my cool with the crutches coaxed me to acknowledge my vulnerability and highlighted it to my family members.  It forced my kids to learn perspective.  It, along with many other non-picture-perfect moments over the last few years, gave our family the platform on which to build an on-going conversation about confronting our fears and emotions, sharing our feelings, and developing the self-assurance to call a spade a spade.