Dear 20-Something Kelly,

Well, now those teen years have really seemed to bite you in the ass, haven’t they? Here you are with a couple of kids already and you’re still trying to enjoy and figure out your 20s. What’s done is done. We won’t try to backtrack now. Not only will it do you no good, but you will start to get down on yourself for being irresponsible again.

You did the most responsible thing you could. That will serve you well later in life. Keep doing it.

Explore your body more. It’s already given life to four human beings by the time it was 23 and the damage (read: stretch marks) is already done so just find out what you like about your body. You have a great derriere and really shapely legs. Wear more short skirts while you can.

Ask more guys out on dates and look for the older ones because the boys your age won’t be able to handle the kid thing. I’m so proud of you for hitting on that hot professor when you were working a party for the university. He was smart and attractive and you’ve never dated a guy named Roger before. Don’t worry that he turned you down. He was flattered. More importantly, you stepped out of your comfort zone. Well done, Kelly!

It’s okay to ask for help from people. Do that more often and stop being such a martyr. Which reminds me: read The Hero Within early in your 20s and recognize that you’re on a journey. Identify with any of the six archetypes and recognize that you’re constantly moving in and out of those phases.

Cut your damn hair. The split ends are horrible. Long hair is NOT your pride nor is it your glory. Please quit getting your hair relaxed because it’s killing it. Learn more about your natural curls because once you figure out how to get them to behave you will absolutely love it and will look amazing.

Here’s something you do well: you laugh a lot. You have fun. Your sense of humor will get you through quite a few things to come in the future so keep developing that. Don’t be embarrassed by your hearty laugh. Later you will realize that it’s infectious.

School for you will always be hard but someday you will learn that there are two types of students: 1) those to which learning comes easily and 2) those who have to work really hard. You are the second type. But! I have news for you! You will learn best by talking through it. Find people in your classes who will converse with you about the subject. This will come to you much later than it should have so I’ll remind your 20-something self of this right now: you are smart. You are intelligent. You are brilliant even. It’s right and proper for you to feel it.

You will always be conscious of racism. Call it like you see it. This will make other people uncomfortable, but in the best of circumstances you will open a dialogue to talk about it civilly.

Take more advice from your parents. You stole parenting from them in your teens and made a mess of that, so remember to ask them for advice because they won’t know how to give it to you when you’re acting all know-it-all-ish. Show some humility.

Figure out what love really means to you right now. Do it! Right this second! Ask yourself what it means to have people love you, tell them by what means you feel loved and then either accept it or move on.

In your late 20s you will find a tumor in your ovary but it’s nothing to be scared of because it’s benign. Push on your doctor more to take the time to find it so that it doesn’t grow and get so big. Be an advocate for your health. Oh, and ask for that yeast infection medication EVERY TIME the doctor prescribes you an antibiotic. Weekend yeast infections are a pain in the…well, you know what.

Set boundaries with people you think are your friends. You will be able to stand up to them when they try to guilt you and pull the Christian Card because by the time you’re in your 30s you will recognize it as an excuse to treat you like shit and take no responsibility for themselves. You will identify it much quicker later on in life, but if you could learn this earlier would you please try?

Get a pre-nuptial agreement. No, it’s not unromantic. It’s practical. What else have you been but practical? You will wish you had this later on because your definition of “fair” will change from what it is now. People grow and change dramatically in a marriage and it will absolutely mortify you when you learn what “fair” means to other people. That pre-nup would have saved you a lot of heartache.

Stop doing those sissy runs and really do something long distance. In the metaphorical sense, you may have to run very far to see who comes after you.

Wear more flowers behind your ear.

Having a breakdown is not a weakness. It is a sign that you can’t handle it all yourself.

When you get that big lump of money that one year (you will know the one) you should buy yourself a great computer and add to your lens collection for your camera. It won’t be a selfish thought, it would be an investment. But you won’t do that. You’ll do something else that is also important, but then you’ll be sad that you didn’t take care of yourself later on. Forgive yourself.

You are loved plenty. Accept it. Take it in and drink it up.

Something you do really well is stand up for yourself. Push harder on that and it will be practice for later in life. It will not make you a bitch, but people will still call you one. Don’t let that bother you at all. Just because people say it doesn’t make it true.

Remember that you’re not solely a mother in your 20s. You are a woman and you are becoming one quickly. Embrace that womanhood.

Take a multivitamin and eat more raw foods.

With love,

39-year old Kelly

*With gratitude to Ellyn Spragins and her “Letters to My Younger Self” and to Cassie Boorn’s blog project which ended up on NPR featuring a picture of my dear friend, Karen of Chookooloonks.

Somewhere out there, in this vast universe of ours, there is a woman getting all the good karma possible. She must be stealing it from me because I can’t believe sometimes how it all just rains shits in my life. Something fantastic will happen and then it seems to stop, back up like a garbage truck with shirtless men hanging off of it, and then proceeds to take the trash OUT of the can and place it all over my driveway.

This is me feeling sorry for myself. It’s not an unusual routine, it’s just that I don’t write about it often.

And do you know WHY I don’t write about it often? Because I hate those bloggers who write sticky sweet posts with fabulous pictures and happy, happy, joy, joy posts about the greatest things on the planet (things like sweet potato fries or really comfortable shoes that also look incredibly fashionable) and then they pour out their hearts about the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad thing that happened to them and everyone comes rushing to their aid in the form of a thousand comments of “Hang in there, kid!” and “You don’t deserve this!” It all makes me wonder about the whole karma thing. I don’t think about it all that often, but recently a friend of mine asked if I could do something with her and I couldn’t because there were things pressing on me. There were other responsibilities. And then I mentioned to my friend, named Susan, that I also had to take care of my mother. “You know, you’re going to get some really good karma from doing that.”

Later, that same week, I had the Orkin folks come out and take a look at my new house because we must have brought every bug known to man into this place when we moved it including, dare I say it, las cucarachas, which are just about the most disgusting form of insect ever especially when you step on them barefoot in your living room and then you have to cut off your foot because cleaning it with acid just won’t do the trick and hey, this one footed look is all the rage in France, isn’t it?

The other reason I don’t write about the woe-is-me blog post is that there are really strange people reading my blog. Not YOU, but there are others. Weird in the way that I either work with them or they know me from my previous church or they are just nosy but not at all invested in my life. When I moved to this house it seemed like the entire neighborhood knew I was coming. “Oh, I heard you bought that house!” someone said to me. It made me remember that this is a small town and that people talk. Truly, this is a wonderful area, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve already seen a neighbor fall over drunk in front of me and smack her head on the pavement in front of my house. Twice. No lie. In fact, my favorite person who lives near me is a darling Indian woman who gasped when I told her what I did for a living and said, “Oh, my goodness! I cannot believe I am talking to an assistant principal! This is so very wonderful!” It’s not that she’s impressed with my position, but she instantly was warm and welcoming and asked if I liked to eat samosas and didn’t strike me as the gossipy kind. Plus, she always says “Hello, Kell-y!” to me in a sing-song voice with her perfect English sprinkled with her adorable and quite likable Indian accent.

Oh, and another thing for people-who-know-me-and-read-me-but-don’t-really-talk-to-me: if I use an alias on the blog here and then you bring up a story to me in person and use the alias and not the real name but then you tell me that you don’t really care about my blog and that’s why you don’t read it then I’m going to have to call bullshit on you. I will also think you’re a creeper. Stop doing that. It’s silly.

Oh, and one more thing about that since I’m in the mood to address it. Maybe you should stop talking about how you’d like to invite me to things because of my online Internet presence and about all the good I can do for you or your organization because stuff like that does get back to me and it makes me feel used. And don’t pray for me to use my blog for Jesus. Yeah. I heard about that one, too.

Back to karma, shall we? So, the Orkin guys points out that I have some mold and rotten drywall in the basement and see here? This thing? It’s a hole that’s starting to form and it’s getting bigger, you might want to have that checked out. This leads to a panicky Who do I call for such a thing? Is this a cosmic joke? Buy a new house and have to fix this already! but then I calmed down after snorting a line of crayon dust (the color was cerulean, I knew you might ask me that question) and realized that this is probably because of the air conditioner which I am running at all times and the previous owner didn’t really run at all so this is where the condensation is building up. (Much as I would love to proofread this post and take out all the run-on sentences I will certainly NOT do that right now.) Let me just shorten this next part:

1. Contractor/fixer-upper guy comes in. It’s condensation. Buy a dehumidifier and empty that sucker daily.

2. Pull down drywall. Oh, look! The rubber hose around the pipe has little teeth marks! You have mice!

3. Fix, re-rubber piping, put up new drywall, sand, paint, voila!

Karma also got me for teasing my son about the vaginal itch cream because the very next day I got bitten by a buffalo gnat right next to my eye which then created a cellulitis and I had to go to the doctor to get put on an antibiotic just in case and the whole left side of my face looked about 20 years older than the right side.

Karma: Take THAT!

Me: Okay. You win.

Besides the fact that I’m singing “La Cucaracha” around the house now and trying to squeeze in all sorts of fun things for my super short summer month, I am regrettably unable to attend BlogHer in New York. I already have the ticket to get into the conference, but no easy way to get there and pay for an expensive hotel. There’s no point in expressing how sad this makes me because I badly want to see people and get/give hugs to people who have become such good friends. My only excuses are las cucarachas y ratones and caring for a sick parent and paying for an expensive divorce that still isn’t settled yet and a new house payment. I’m thinking of how funny (just not Ha! Ha! funny) it is that I wrote this nearly a year ago about saving money and not begging for sponsorship to attend blogging conferences and here I am making the responsible decision. I will go ahead and quote myself from that post: I simply cannot go.

Karma just isn’t all that funny.

Several weeks ago I was asked to be an adult participant at one of my former middle schools at their Challenge Day. I had dropped by the school a few weeks prior to Challenge Day and was asked if I would like to be a part of it.

“What is it?” I asked the dean of students who presented it to me.

“It’s hard to explain, but your name came up when we were thinking of who we wanted to invite. It was on Oprah. Did you see that episode?”

“I’m not an Oprah watcher.” I admitted. I didn’t get into all that.

“Well, it’s a nationally recognized program where it’s one day when these two trainers come in and train the adults for 30 minutes before the kids show up. It’s got a lot of activities and it’s meant to help deal with the problems and issues kids have. There is tons of energy and group talking time and we’ve been told to provide all the tissues. Look it up online if you want. You’ll find more information there.”

At this point I was mildly scared but also intrigued. How would these kids, strangers to me and I to them, bond over the course of a day and come to trust me enough to tell me their deepest kept secrets? What could this possibly entail?

I’m glad I wore yoga pants and my running shoes that day. I needed them for all the wild, frenzied physical activities. Dancing, playing volleyball, and basically running around to introduce myself to 100 7th graders who thought that all the adults there had consumed a case of energy drinks that morning in order to be this excited. It wasn’t our fault. The group leader who trained us told the group that whenever they mentioned the phrase, “We’re getting ready to play another game!” we were to act as if we won the lottery or found out that we were going to be the special guest on Oprah or as if we were on the tv show “Extreme Makeover” and we had to show the same excitement those families show when they announce for them to Move. That. Truck. We all did it willingly. Jumping, screaming, clapping. Honestly, we looked like crazed lunatics and wouldn’t you know? It worked. They teach us that in order to get really deep with their feelings we first have to take them really high with our energy.

I regret, however, that I wore mascara that day. Because the tears from everyone flowed and dribbled like a raging river that seemed to have an endless supply of rushing water. It was my own fault, though. I mean, they told us that they’d provide the tissues. I should have known that the waterworks of tears would surge forth.

We’re not supposed to talk about what was discussed that day because it is intensely private and we can’t break confidentiality. The kids in my small group opened up immediately during their concentrated 2-minute talk time. No one in the group is supposed to spend that time speaking except the one who has the floor. There was to be no validation of their feelings, no fixing of their problems, and no interrupting. We all held to that rule. Only one girl spent the entire 2 minutes in tears. She never spoke about what it was she could have shared with us and the other adult leader and I simply offered her tissues and knee pats and it’s okays when we could. There were four kids in my group. Matt, the only boy, was incredibly forthcoming during his 2 minutes. He was such a spaz during the earlier activities that it surprised me as to how sensitive and vulnerable he became.

The games were frenetic and intense. We played a game of volleyball with an enormous blow up ball and the kids, split into two teams, had to stay seated the entire game. Adults lined up around the outside and pushed the ball back into play. We got points for catching the ball and holding onto to it if it came to us and that was hard because the ball was incredibly huge. There was a halftime show where the adult teams had to create a “show” to earn points. Since we only had 30 seconds to come up with it we decided to do the Stanky Leg while they played the song for us and it had been a long time since I made a complete fool of myself in front of strangers, but the kids seemed to love it. They laughed at us and snapped their fingers to the beat and even tried to do the Stanky Leg while they were seated. Let me pause here to say that it looked very much like having a seizure while sitting cross-legged on the floor. None of it, truly, was very pretty to watch. Funny, yes. Pretty, no.

Toward the end of the day we did an activity (a game, and yes, we screamed and clapped and jumped up to express our enthusiasm) that was, apparently, something they did in the movie version of the book “Freedom Writers”. The speaker puts a long piece of tape down the middle of the gym floor (have I mentioned that this took place in a hot, stifling, sweaty, stinky gymnasium?) and reads a series of statements. I believe that it is simply called the Line Game. The statements began benignly enough and became more intense as trust amongst the group members increases. By this time of the day, however, there was an incredible amount of faith in the group.

There is no talking during this ‘game’. No laughing and no joking. If the statement that’s read applies to you, then you simply move to the other side and face everyone who hasn’t moved along with you. In order to provide support we were instructed to show love to those who moved to the other side of the line. Whether it was a smile or a nod or even the sign language for “I love you”, we were to just support. When you’re on the non-moving side and you stay where you are because the proclamations don’t apply to you, then you hold up the “I love you” sign. It says it all. I’m here for you. I see you. I got you. I love you.

It shocked me to see some kids and adults moving across the line. Some of the adults I know as colleagues and I had no idea about the things in their lives that set them to become a moving member of “Challenge Day” and cross the line.

Cross the line if you’ve ever experienced the death of a close family member.

Cross the line if you’ve ever been scared in your neighborhood or even in your home.

Cross the line if you’ve ever heard gunshots.

Cross the line if you’ve ever been homeless.

Cross the line if you’ve ever been bullied. Or even if you have bullied someone else.

Cross the line if you’ve ever experienced abuse.

Cross the line if you’ve ever lived with violence.

Constant movement is going on during this ‘game’. Some people go back and forth multiple times and there were moments when my brain registered the thought, “Safety in numbers” as I watched the bravery and vulnerability of these people. Not just these kids. Or these adults. But, these people. There were tears and sometimes when people moved to the other side a friend would put their arm around them or hold their hand. And, of course, there were signs of “I love you” coming across from the other side. What we all learned was that we have more in common that we thought. You have to reveal some things about yourself in order to see that standing next to you is a person you may have bullied or teased or ignored or been mean to for no good reason. You have to admit your experiences and step out there. Everyone might know, when you do that, that you have shameful episodes in your life and that you have encountered pain and suffering. It is a woefully absent practice in empathy and it’s powerful.

Like everyone else, I moved back and forth across the line. There were times when I didn’t move and stood in my place holding up the “I love you” sign to the kids and adults standing across from me.

There was only one statement for which I was the only person who didn’t move. Everyone else moved over the line and stood there facing me, but I couldn’t lie or fake it, nor would I choose to do so. It surprised me somewhat that I stayed there and it’s not as if there is a lot of time to think deeply about my choices for staying right where I was. Two of the adult friends I knew there, Jenni and Sara, were really the only people who knew why I didn’t move. They both cried while looking directly at me just like I did when I previously saw them on the other side. Do you know that look people give you when they are sorry for what you’re going through? They gave me that look. Even Matt, the young boy who met me mere hours before, saw me standing there alone. He wasn’t directly across from me, but he moved to get there and pushed his way to the front so I could see him. When he arrived he firmly planted his feet and forcefully held his hand up in the air.

“I love you,” he said. Jenni and Sara said it, too. Many other people, mostly strangers, said it as well. They said it with a sign and didn’t speak it out loud at all.

Cross the line if you ever got to have a childhood and be a kid.

I couldn’t move from my spot and I couldn’t cross that line. It wasn’t true for me. I’ve been responsible for so long that I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have burdens and liabilities and functions to perform. Someone else always comes first. Things need to be taken care of. I’ve never known a time when there wasn’t something to do. The I’ll take care of it gene is entirely too strong in me. Be the adult and do the right thing permeate my fibers. And it annoys the shit out of me. Nothing can be done to undo it, either.

But it was healing, even if it was just a little bit, to admit it to them. And it’s a little bit more healing to write it here and share it with you.

Sometimes, when things come out of my son’s mouth I am a little surprised. The normal teenage stuff doesn’t shock me. I hear that stuff all day long at work. He’s fifteen and he’s very good at it. He can’t help himself. Most of what he talks about anyway are things like Naruto and why Hungarian goulash is the Devil’s handiwork, but occasionally he throws me for a loop. Morgan caught me watching MTV’s “Teen Mom” series tonight and asked, “Why are you watching the depravity of the downfall of teen moms who refuse to listen to their parents?” At first, I thought, “How on earth did he just utter that fabulous sentence?” and “Dude! He totally used depravity the correct way! How does he know that word!?” and finally my brain said, “Stop saying dude and totally. You sound like a depraved teenager.”

The best part about being young is being able to be random and spontaneous and the joy of being completely irresponsible. I have no idea what that’s all about.

This inspirational quote came from my friend, Becky, when I finished post-grad work.

I’m not fond of watching reality television at all and when I do it’s because Mallory tells me that something is so unbelievably ridiculous that I should watch it because it bears no resemblance at all to real life. I’ve also never been keen on watching movies that are so close to my own experiences because they hurt too much. The last thing I want to do is watch the very things I’m going through or things I’ve struggled through so I keep them at bay.

And here’s the thing about the show Teen Mom: it’s got to be really hard for those girls, but when I see them all glossed up I just don’t want to watch it anymore because none of my teen parenthood was glossed up. It was messy and dirty and we were poor. Of all the Nothing I see those girls have, my Nothing was much worse. I don’t even like to admit this but at times we were even homeless and had to stay with friends. During that time, I had no desire to watch an After School Special on teens who had sex and then considered abortion, adoption, or raising a baby, or Mary Stuart Masterson in Immediate Family, or Molly Ringwald in For Keeps. Years later, I had difficulty even watching Juno. Eventually, I watched them and they were not much better than the reality of actually raising a child by myself.

I know I was stupid back then. I’m not going to gloss over that. But when I watch these girls I wonder if they know we can see them. That we can watch them primp in the mirror while getting ready to go out (and have their mothers babysit while they throw infantile tantrums about how they wanna have fun!) (Does Cyndi Lauper know she’s being quoted so often of late?) and talk about how hard it is to be a mom when they’d much prefer hanging out with friends. They know this right? That we can see them?

It makes me want to list all the things it is: waiting for food stamps to come in the mail, hoping your checks clear when you pay the bills, staying in on weekends, telling your child that she can’t have another doll, cutting your own hair, not attending birthday parties because you’d have to buy presents, being looked down upon, clipping coupons obsessively, siting on the floor because you don’t have a couch, dumpster diving for furniture, using dull steak knives, keeping fans running because the A/C costs too much, and in a really big way just simply doing without.

All the things it’s not: needs that get immediately fulfilled, free babysitters, time to reflect and think about all the choices and decisions that get made, looking into the camera and succinctly describing your feelings, excessive time in the mirror doing your hair (say hello to the ponytail and stick with it because there’s no way you’re getting a free moment to run a brush through that rat’s nest), friends who still come around to visit and forgive you easily because you can no longer go out and have fun, and then, of course, the fadeout music. There definitely is no fadeout music.

Depravity, if you will, just doesn’t have a theme song.

Just when I think I can wrap my brain around the understanding that divorce is, in fact, here to stay then I get a call that it’s happening to someone else I know.

Do you have any advice?

No. I’m not expert at this. I barely get it myself. I just waded through some dark waters not long ago.

Hell. I’m still wading. Sometimes I’m flailing my arms about and trying to get this down so it doesn’t gnaw at me, but it comes, like a labor pain, in waves. There is an ebb and a flow. At times you’re coming down off the tongue-biting pain and other times it’s on the rise again and you hold your breath for a second to wait for the pain. I’ve watched friends like Jess and Jenn write their way through it and I’m far more comfortable reading about their experiences because they’re truer than anything else I’ve read. All that stuff is trite and, ultimately, not very helpful. I’ve tried to read it and all I want to do is make it stop.

If a spell could be cast in order to make it all stop I would have searched for a voodoo lady long ago.

When it comes in a giant wave it happens at an inopportune time.

Do I have any advice?

No. Not really.