A few weeks ago, I returned to Dalton. My beloved second home from K-12. The place where I learned to read, write, and play the trumpet. I went in on a Friday afternoon to speak to a fifth grade class. It was Sister I’s class. She invited me to come in and talk about LIFE AFTER YES and the publishing process. And of course I agreed. But I must admit something. Making a cameo in her classroom made me impossibly nervous. But I shoved the nerves aside and I arrived. Clutching an advance copy of my book in sweaty palms, smiling a shaky smile, excited beyond belief.

My sister was wonderful. She met me in the lobby. The same lobby where I used to meet my friends before soccer practice. She led me to the room where she spends her days educating smart and curious kids. And the kids were amazing. They were quick on the approach. They studied me with keen eyes and promptly declared that Sister and I look alike. And they were right. We do.

And then I sat in the front of the classroom, twirling nervously in a black desk chair, talking about my own life after yes. About stumbling into a dream I couldn’t deny. About working hard and writing hard. About traveling down dark paths to destinations unknown. And I also talked about less lofty, ephemeral things. Things that were presumably a lot more interesting to a pack of eleven-year-olds. Things like book covers and vampires. Yes, vampires. On that topic, I had little expertise.

I loved the questions. The raised hands. The kids asked the most intelligent, nuanced, searching questions. One girl told me that she loves to write and that she has started several stories that she can’t seem to finish. She wanted to know if I had any advice. And we all know that I am haste to dispense wisdom, but I was put on the spot and I said something. I told this girl to write when she felt compelled, to give her stories the space they need, to finish them when they were ready. Her young smile, sheepish and smart, was priceless.

One kid asked if I always knew I wanted to write and I said no. I said that I always loved to write, but didn’t know until relatively recently that I wanted to write. And then another student asked me if I came up with my own title. And I said yes. Because I did. And then another soft-spoken girl asked if the process was all that I thought it would be or whether there were surprises. And I told her both. That it was everything I thought it would be, but that of course there were surprises.

There always are.

But the best part of the day? By far? Seeing my own sister in action. My big sister. The leader of the Donnelley sister pack. Sister I has always been exceedingly smart (she learned to read at age two and skipped Kindergarten), but she is also exceedingly modest. I had heard through the glorious Donnelley/Dalton grapevine that she is a wonderful teacher and very well-liked and respected, but on that day I got to see it. How she handled her kids with a mixture of humor and affection and firmness. How she alternated between questions that had answers and those that were not meant to be answered.

The day was incredible. Going back to Dalton was without a doubt one of the best experiences I have had since inking my book deal. And I think I am too close to that day to know why exactly. Maybe that day was so big for me because when I stepped into that colorful classroom, I could picture myself as a fifth grader – a quasi-studious tomboy in a green wool Celtics cap – eager to learn and eager to live. Maybe because I was given the sweet opportunity to talk about the twists and turns of the past eighteen months, and a fascinating process it has been a tremendous privilege to enjoy. Maybe because the happiness I felt on that day confirmed for me that this is it. That I have arrived. That whether or not LIFE AFTER YES is a sparkling success or dismal failure, this, right here, is where I am meant to be.

Ultimately, I think the reason that day was so important to me is actually quite simple. I think that for some reason, for some foolish and elusive reason, I have been reluctant to call myself a writer. Which is plain ridiculous because the moment I began hammering away at the trusty keyboard is the moment I became a writer.

Those of us who write? We are writers.

But that day? Standing up there in front of those bright young things talking about my life and my story and my book? It made it real. Exquisitely real. I walked out of that classroom and out of that school and back into my city and I felt different.

I felt, finally felt, like a writer. A real writer. And this is good. Because I am one.

I am a writer.

(It feels good to write this.)

(It feels good to believe this.)

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• If you have any questions at all about writing or publishing, ask away.
• Have you ever been given a glimpse into the professional world of one of your siblings?
• What were you like in fifth grade?
• Have you gone back to visit your grade school?
• Why do you think so many of us who spend our days writing are so reluctant to call ourselves writers?
  
• What is the deal with vampires? Why are they so hot these days?
  

*Little experiment in generosity here: If you have a blog post you are particularly proud of, please leave a link to the URL in the comment box and (as long as it is not wildly inappropriate or offensive), I will Stumble It. I got this idea from a recent post on social media written by the lovely Scary Mommy. She “stumbled” a link of mine and I received a groovy boost in traffic that day so I am paying it forward. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with writers supporting other writers, huh?

First order of business. Thank you. For holding my virtual hand through my soggy Sunday moment and its precarious aftermath. For leaving a trail of words. For your existential echoes. It dawned on me after publishing yesterday’s post that one surefire way to feel not good enough is to set insane expectations for myself that only a robot could meet. Like, say, vowing to respond to every single comment left on this blog. Like promising to have a blog post up by 6am each morning. In an ideal world, these things would happen. But I am beginning to suspect that this world, this wonderful world, is not ideal. No, it’s real.

*

A few weeks ago, Husband and I went swimming with the girls in South Carolina and Toddler said something that I can’t stop thinking about. She wore both a water ring and water wings and she said to me, her little voice stuffed with panic, “Mommy! Help! I keep floating to the deep, deep part!” And like a good mom, I threw my arms around her and hugged her and assured her that she was okay and that we were in fact in the shallow end.

The shallow end.

Lately, my pool is lacking a shallow end. And this is odd. Because I used to be plenty shallow. Embarrassingly shallow. I used to subsist on shopping trips to trendy stores and celebrity gossip. I used to obsessively sample fad diets in an effort to be skinny and hot. I used to camp out at the gym for hours a day, spinning away, going nowhere. I used to panic when I was late to get my highlights touched up.

But somewhere along the way, life got delightfully deeper. Maybe it was becoming a wife or a parent or a fatherless girl? Maybe it was becoming a writer or a blogger or a Professor of Insecurities? Maybe it was flirting with the often harsh and humorless realities of adulthood, of aging, of lingering mortality? I would wager that it was all of these things.

But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I think I’ve swung too far in the other direction. What matters is that I miss my shallow end. I miss the superficial things I used to enjoy. I miss watching mindless reality television and searching for the most flattering jeans. I miss talking about celebrities.

I miss my goofy, silly, blondeness.

And so. I am reclaiming it. Consider yourself warned.

I came to this conclusion yesterday afternoon. We all know that I’m epiphany-prone and yesterday was no exception. I was talking with my friend (and superstar nutritionist) Lauren Slayton. I asked Lauren to meet me because I want to up the ante health-wise in my life. I want to focus on my body, on my nutrition, on the health of my young family. I want to feel more energetic and do what I can to prevent cancer and to raise good eaters. At the end of our meeting, I said to Lauren, “It’s so funny because for so many years I watched what I ate and worked out because I wanted to look hot, but now my priority is to be healthy.” And as I said this, I realized something.

I want both. I want to be healthy and hot.

“I want to be hot for my book party!” I said to her and she smiled. Truth be told, it’s not about losing weight. But it is about looking my best. Far more importantly though, I would like to feel my best. And then Lauren and I talked about this, whether it is shallow to want to maximize our attractiveness. Whether it is shallow or selfish to want to feel amazing. And we didn’t come to any ready conclusion. Maybe it is a bit shallow to want to be hot. But I think that’s okay. I think that’s more than okay.

We all need a shallow end.

At least I do. I love the deep end. I do. I love writing about the complex and shifting depths of human existence. I love scrutinizing the universal insecurities that shake our days. But I cannot do this all the time. It affects me. Maybe this is foolish, but it just occurred to me that I might not have control over most things in life, but I do have control over what I write about. And this is an important awakening for me. Because what I write about affects what I think about and what I think about affects how I feel and how I see the world.

This is all a long-winded and clumsy way of saying what Toddler said so succinctly,

I keep slipping to the deep end.

But there is a shallow end. A silly end. There still is. And writing about its mere existence makes me smile big. And so I will write about it from time to time. Not all the time because I love the deep end too much. But some of the time. And maybe by writing about the more superficial aspects of my existence, I will find my way to my shallow end once more. And if and when I get there, I will celebrate the fact that I can touch the bottom. And I will splash around a bit.

The blonde is back, kids. Get ready.

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• Is your pool of life more shallow or more deep?
• Do you think it is selfish or shallow to want to look good?
  
• Do you think there is something about adulthood that encourages us to drown out our shallow end (pun very much intended and amazing)?
• Are you more or less shallow than you used to be?
• Do you think that there is something important about cultivating a bit of shallowness or superficiality in life?
• Does the content of your writing affect the content of your life, how you feel and see the world?
• Could you stand to be healthier?
• Could you stand to be hotter?

I am not good enough.

These five words, these five terrible words, floated through my head last night. And I have no idea why really. And as quickly as they came, I banished them. My intellect took over. I told myself that there is no such thing as good enough. That Good Enough is a cruel modern myth.

But this wave of perceived inadequacy was too strong to ignore. So I allowed myself to dwell on it, to roll it over in my mind. I even polled the Sunday night crowd on the Twittersphere.

I wrote: Have you ever felt not good enough? Well, it sucks. (Sorry for my moment of insecurity.)

I wrote it because it felt good to record this moment. To acknowledge its fierce and fleeting presence. But I was overwhelmed with the replies. Several people responded and quickly to tell me that they feel these five words all the time and particularly since becoming a parent. Ah.

Apparently, it is not just me.

What is this all about? Why are there so many smart and talented and funny and happy people who are weathering these silent storms of insecurity? Why are these five words so universal?

I don’t know. I can’t speak for the masses, but I can speak for me. And so I will.

These days, I am a bit overwhelmed. No, I am a lot overwhelmed. I feel stretched thin. I feel exhausted, exquisitely exhausted. I qualify in this way because the things that are exhausting me are things that also bring me immense and incomparable joy – the babies, the blog, the book, the marriage, the man, the move. These are things I cherish and celebrate and would never trade. But these are a lot of things.

Babies. In my life, there are two little girls. Two little girls who sing and cry and dance and collect umbrellas and toothbrushes and stickers. These days, these two little girls look me straight in the eye and say, in words and sentences, Mommy, I want you to stay. Mommy, I want you to play.

Blog. In my life, there is one burgeoning blog. A blog that is bringing me more joy and juice than I could ever have imagined. This blog is growing and thriving, moving and grooving, and has become a profound pipeline to tremendous colleagues and incomparable conversation. These days, my blog says to me, Nurture me. For here is where you are learning to be vulnerable and vulnerability is the ultimate strength.

Book. In my life, there is a book. A book that’s about to debut in the world. And two other books that are part on paper and part in my head. The characters are real. They dance in my dreams and whisper in my ear, Don’t forget about us. Your future? It’s on our pages. So write them. Write us.

Marriage. In my life, there is a marriage. A good, sturdy marriage. A union that’s stuffed with affection and humor and fidelity. But even that marriage has a voice, Pay attention to me. Celebrate me. Do not take me for granted. Even the most magical marriage takes work.

Man. In my life, there is a man. A handsome and happy and humble man. A man who loves me and understands me and tolerates my ways. And he says to me, sometimes aloud, I am here. Look at me. Let yourself relax and enjoy this. Me. Us.

Move. In my life, there is a new home. Almost finished. The walls are up. The floors are down. This home says to me, I will welcome you, but don’t forget to say goodbye to your old home. Where so much happened, where you became a writer and a wife and a mother, where you lost your father and found your passion.

These days, I am many things. I am a mother. A blogger. A writer. A wife. His wife. A woman on the move.

These are wonderful things. These are amazing roles. This is a good life.

But I am overwhelmed. I am tired. I am smiling and squinting and struggling through long days. The bounty is brilliant, but it is also a lot to carry at once.

And so. I don’t know, but I think that is why I had that moment. That slippery Sunday moment when five words floated through my head, one by one, forming a sentence I don’t like, but one I understand.

I am not good enough.

Because maybe when we are happy and harried and stretched and spinning, we have moments where we feel like we cannot hack it. Where we feel less than. Where we feel, well, not good enough to tackle the tangled trappings of our good and busy lives.

And so. Instead of pretending I didn’t have that moment, I decide to acknowledge it. Right here. To honor it even. Because it was a real moment. A raw moment. A universal moment. A human moment.

A moment you’ve probably had before too?

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• Have you ever felt inadequate when caught in the throes of real life?
• Do you think blogging encourages vulnerability?
• Do you feel like by doing so many things, we are stretching ourselves too thin?
  
• Do you think this phenomenon of trying to do it all and have it all is part and parcel of humanity? Of modernity? Of parenthood? Of personhood?
  
• When these five words float through your head, how do you cope?

(Say whatever you want. That you understand. That you don’t. That I’m a spoiled brat. Just speak up. Tell me what I already know. That I’m not alone in this.)

ILI DAILY CHARMS: TRUTH VIA COLLEAGUES

* Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be a baby, to be pillowed by unconditional and uncomplicated affection? I do. Please read this tiny and gorgeous post by Boy Crazy blogger Elizabeth.

* Do you sometimes feel something shifting? A “subtle change in direction”? Take a moment to read this post by new buddy Claire Bidwell Smith of Life in Chicago. It’s simply stunning.

* Today friend and fellow blogger Gale of the wonderful new Ten Dollar Thoughts talks food and resolutions and vows to eat her veggies. Later today, I’m off to meet with esteemed Foodtrainer and advice-giving friend Lauren Slayton. Should I follow Gale’s lead and go vegetarian for a bit? We will see what Lauren says. Stay tuned…

* Are you “demand resistant”? Click over to the lovely Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project and weigh in.

Okay, she didn’t eat a human eyeball. This wasn’t Survivor. Just a rip-roaring Saturday night out on the good town. But pictures of Branzino balls? Not so pretty.

And I would have and should have at least posted a picture of a discrete stand-alone eyeball because this might be sending the wrong message, but said pictures – even of cartoon eyeballs – made me want to gag a bit. Which is a sign of something unto itself. And so. We have here a very undisgusting sketch of the human eye. I quite like it.

But I digress. I have a story to tell. (And stories to coax from you.)

I already told you about my Saturday night. But I didn’t tell you about an important part of the night. The part when my very good and very proper friend reached over and plucked the black beady eyeball out of the birthday girl’s whole fish and then ate it. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t witness the entirety of this event. When my eyeball-eating-friend flashed a mischievous grin and reached her fork across the table and said I will eat that eye, I may or may not have excused myself to go to the bathroom.

But she ate it. The eye of a fish.

Apparently, in some cultures, this is good luck. Dad was known to eat an eye or two in his day to shock us. But for me, someone who ducks for cover when they bring me a whole fish instead of pretty white filet and shivers at the sight of skin, this was a big deal. A big enough deal that I have chosen to devote an entire blog post to one ill-fated Branzino eyeball and what this late eyeball means to me.

I am an unadventurous eater. Once upon a time, I was pretty much willing to eat everything. Sure, when left to my own devices, I favored mayonnaise and white bread sandwiches and Sour Patch Kids, but I distinctly remember eating mussels and venison and rhubarb. And today I will not go near these and so many other things. (I am allergic to rhubarb, but no one believes me.) Today I won’t even eat lobster which greatly offends some people I know. I am not the pickiest of eaters, but I like what I like. I am not good at tasting new things.

I am not an adventurous person. It occurs to me that how adventurous we are in our diet is connected to how adventurous we are in our lives. I don’t think it is a coincidence that someone who avoids foods based on what they look like (I do not like fish that look like fish, anything with bones, sardines give me the willies) is also a person who is afraid of flying and non-organic dairy and most everything else.

This is not just a silly post about an eyeball. Well, it is mostly a silly post about an eyeball. But it is also more. These things matter. What we eat, how adventurous we are, how open we are – these things inform who we are. And then add kids to the equation and things get even more complicated. Our kids watch us. They watch what we eat. They watch what we don’t eat. They notice when we run away from an innocuous fish on a plate. Or when we race the cart past the tank of lobsters at the grocery store. This is not just about us and our foibles.

This is about living life. The good life does not necessarily entail gobbling up eyeballs at swanky restaurants. But I think it probably does involve taking risks, trying new things, tasting new things. If we are so stuck in our (squeamish) ways, so appalled by novelty, are we truly living?

This is about eyes. Fish eyes, yes. But also our eyes. The way we see things and ourselves and the world. The way we absorb our moments. The way we process the hue of celebration and laughter. The way we perceive life. Emerson said, “To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.” That moment when my good friend ate an eye? It was silly and beautiful. It was a unique picture I will not forget.

This is about stories. What is life without stories? Silly stories? Serious stories? We bloggers and writers and people? We are story-tellers, living our days, living our material, acting and reacting to the characters in our chapters. Our days are pages. Pages stuffed with words and questions and pictures. And each of us lives and loves and laughs toward an unknown conclusion.

So, yes, this is about one eyeball. But it is also about more. It is about the fraught and frivolous tapestry that is human existence. It is about adventure and aversion. It is about so many things. But instead of enumerating those things, I would like to sign off and go enjoy this serene snow day with my two tiny girls. They are still in their PJs and just on the other side of my office door. And before we play, before we dive into the books and boardgames that await us, I am going to tell them a silly story. A true tale. I am going to tell them that Mommy’s friend at a fish eye. I anticipate smiles and silly faces and amazement and some brilliant laughter. We’ll see what I get.

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Okay, it’s your turn. Tell me your craziest food story. It can be about you or someone you know or someone you saw on TV! What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten or seen someone eat? Are you an adventurous eater? Do you think there is a connection between bravery in diet and bravery in life? Are your kids good eaters or do they subsist on a diet of, say, chocolate milk and Veggie Booty? Just asking.

I sit here. Alone. At my little table and my little Starbucks. Outside the vast windows, fat flakes of snow tumble down. Bundled souls amble by, wrestling mangled umbrellas, fighting impossible gales of winter wind.

And I am inside. And warm. But exhausted. Exquisitely exhausted. My coffee is gone. It’s time for another. But I will wait for my refill. I want to get this down first. And I apologize in advance for this post. I am not sure it will be that terrific. I have a hunch it will whip around in different directions like the snow that swirls outside. But that’s okay.

It is a deadline day. This morning, final edits for LIFE AFTER YES were due to my editor. And I have spent the last twenty-four hours poring through my own story, furrowing my brow, scrutinizing the splash of words. I didn’t sleep much last night. No. I couldn’t really sleep because I knew this was my last chance to coddle my creation, to caress its pages. This was my last chance to make sure it was perfect.

And you know what? It isn’t. Because there is no such thing.

Last night, I stood in the kitchen with Husband. Nervously, I clutched my book in my hand. And because he knows me and he loves me, he said what I needed to hear.

He said, “It’s okay if there are mistakes. You are allowed to have mistakes.”

And I fought him on this. I told him that he was wrong, that this is it. That it’s time for perfection. But then I thought about it a bit more and realized that maybe he was right. (He usually is.) Have you ever read a book and found a typo? Because I have. Many times. Even in books I love.

And then I realized something else. Maybe Husband wasn’t just talking about my book. Maybe he was talking about something bigger. Maybe he was talking about life. Because life is a story, isn’t it? And we can polish it and polish it, but there will always be pages that are better and worse. There will always be mistakes. And this is okay, isn’t it?

This is real.

But even after having this mini-epiphany about the futility of obsessing over the manuscript of existence, I worked furiously to make sure my story was just right. I dogeared pages. Made little notes in the margins. I reworked some sentences. I chose some new words.

But you know what? It is not just right. Because there is no such thing.

Minutes ago, I hit send. I let go. Of my story. Of a creature I have protected for years now.

And as I sit here watching snow dance, shaking from caffeine and pride and awareness, I realize something. Something simple and profound. Something hardly revolutionary. That something?

I am not good at letting go.

And I need to work on this. Because isn’t life about letting go of things? Of moments and hours and days and years? Of people we love? Of places that are no longer home? Isn’t life about progress, about stumbling along sidewalks slick with existential snow? We might slip, but we must walk anyway. We might fall, but then we will stand and keep going.

Lao Tzu said, “By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.”

And so. Today, I did it. I let go of something big. And I am scared and relieved and happy and sad. I am all of these things. Like those flakes, I am all over the place. Worried about the typos on my pages, the mistakes in my world, the cracks in my concrete. Inching toward acceptance of all these things.

And now. Instead of spending another thirty minutes combing through these words, these ones right here that you are reading, to make sure that they are perfectly punctuated and shrouded with the right level of metaphorical gloss, I will publish them.

I will let go.

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Are you a perfectionist like I am when it comes to your life or your writing? Are you good at letting go of things? Of people or the past? Do you forgive yourself when you notice mistakes in the manuscript of life? If we all acknowledge that there is no such thing as perfection then why do we strive for it so fervently? Is it snowing where you are?