Us, taken about 2 weeks ago.

My first year of law school, I flunked a class. Contracts I.

I just didn’t get it. And when your entire grade rides on one test for the entire semester and you don’t get it? You flunk the class.

I still remember walking down the hall to see the grades for my number. Each student was assigned an anonymous number, next to which your grade for each class was posted in a hallway of the law school. It’s a brutal system. Watching kids walk up, scan the rows and rows of paper for each class looking for their number and corresponding grade.

You had the kids who would stand there completely motionless and emotionless, so you had no idea how they’d done. You had the cocky ones who would run their fingers down each page, “find” their number (I always assumed they already had come at another time so they KNEW they were in the clear) and tap it loudly saying, “YES!”

The semester I flunked Contracts I, I arrived at a time when no one else was in the hallway to check my grades. Good thing too, I literally sank to the floor in my horror. Depending upon my other grades (which weren’t in yet), that could have been it – I could have been kicked out, not surviving year 1. The infamous “not everyone survives the first year of law school.”

Good LORD, I could be a statistic!

After all was said and done, though, my GPA ended up higher than a 3.0, so they allowed me to stay. I just had to repeat the class the next Fall. With the new first years (which was beyond embarrassing, because there’s only one reason a 2L is in a Contacts I class, right?).

And the other thing I had to do to make up for it was attend summer school, THAT summer. I had to have a certain amount of credits entering into my second year, so summer school was a must.

So I scrambled to find some summer classes.

And I stayed.

Mid June, I met a boy.

And last week he and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary.

It’s simple, really:

The only reason I met my husband is because I flunked that class. And if I hadn’t have met him, I wouldn’t have my family. This family that vexes me and exhausts me but gives me more joy than seems possible.

None of it without that flunked class. He was an undergrad business major and I was in law school. There was no other way we would have met.

I’ve always said it’s God’s hand. I ended up graduating from law school in the top quarter of my class, so it wasn’t like I didn’t understand law. Just not that one class.  That semester.

And out of that failure, came the greatest success of my life.

xo

Missy

I grew up in the shadow of my amazing mom. I was told that I looked like her at a very young age and that still continues. Plus we must sound exactly the same, because if I answered a call that was really for her, the person would talk to me until I made it really clear that I had no idea who they were or why they were excited that the grant came through.

I think as women we look to our mothers for our own view of the world and, as we age, we learn what to keep from that experience and what to let go.

Lately, as I navigate the world of motherhood I find myself seeking my mom’s advice and despising it when she dispenses it. A conundrum for sure, but a true and honest one.

You see I still want to make her proud but I also want to be able to look at my own journey and know that I wasn’t simply copying her parenting, but rather molding it to the shape of my own family.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t respect her ideas and hold fast to the lessons she helped me learn, it just means that I am walking my own path, with her at my side.

When people tell me, “You’re just like your mother” I smile and know what they really mean is that I’m just as special, beautiful and ENOUGH as she is.

xo

Kir

• Happiness is what you make it.
• Instant gratification can cause long term unhappiness. (I talked about it here before.)
• The notion of of whether you’re an abstainer or a moderator.

In a nutshell, does your life go better if you abstain completely from those things you shouldn’t, or can you live by the old adage “everything in moderation?”

Without question, I’m an abstainer.

Photo Credit: Globalism Pictures

As soon as I try to do my *thing* in moderation, the moderation becomes the norm. Then the norm becomes the rule. Then I find I’ve been *treating* myself to anything and everything under the sun for a month or more and I didn’t even see it coming. Or eating that whole tray of goodies in one afternoon.

Then I go back to abstention again for awhile, get where I need to be, and start the moderation game again.

Surely I’m not the only one who cycles through life like this, am I? 

According to the research Gretchen did for her book, everyone generally falls into one camp or the other. So today I propose the question to you:

Are you an abstainer or a moderator? Do you wish you were one or the other?

I think I’m starting to be OK with my cycles of abstention and moderation. Either that, or I’m starting to be OK with MYSELF. I like to spend a month certain times of year eating, drinking and being VERY MERRY. Because that’s fun. And it makes me feel happy while I’m doing it.

If I didn’t allow myself certain times of year to go off the moderation train, I think I’d be a less happy person.

Eating well, being healthy, and drinking little, if at all, certainly does make me feel physically and emotionally good. No question about it.

But sometimes being a little bad? Really does feel oh-so-good.

Photo Credit: Nomadic Lass

xo

Missy

You’ve got a pretty sweet life and right now it feels like the whole world could be yours. After coming back from a four-month exchange in Germany I know you’re consumed by conflicting feelings of wanderlust and wondering if you have what it takes to make it in the much smaller world of high school.

I’ll give you a hint: You will get to travel more, so don’t worry. And you do have what it takes, though you won’t really know it for years.

And one more thing: It doesn’t matter what I tell you now. You have to live it to learn it.

I could tell you all about university and how you’ll make it through even though at first it feels impossible. I could tell you about one guy you’ll think is for you and how it will kind of suck that it doesn’t seem to be working out that way, but that would ruin the experience of meeting your one true love and knowing he is actually the right one. And if I told you about the early days of searching for your career, it might make the experience less frustrating but it won’t help you understand what it is you’re meant to do.

I want you to learn these things for yourself. In fact, that’s how it works. I can’t tell you – you have to live it to learn it.

And you will. You’ll live things you never imagined and learn things you wouldn’t have thought mattered. You’ll figure out that it’s okay to be who you are and to express that in ways that are meaningful to you. You’ll find your confidence only to have it yanked right out from underneath you and, after the hardest experience of your life, you’ll know what it means to be grateful for the tough stuff.

You will understand, as only those who have been through a hard time can, that you can find treasure in pain and that there’s beauty in the breakdown.

Don’t be scared. Remember – life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s meant to be lived. So go out and live the life you’re meant to. It’s the only way to find out what matters.

I’ll give you a sneak peek: This is you (us) today at 18 weeks pregnant. It’s not the first child,
and you’re older than you thought you’d be when having kids, but it’s all good.

xo

Robin

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What 10 things do you NEED for your Be Enough Journey?

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—–

At 4:45 am on a warm September morning I ran into my neighbors quite by accident. It was a somber and private scene that I wanted to run away from, but that would have made my uninvited presence even more obvious. So I picked up my jogging pace and sped by them making neighborly eye contact with the daughter ducking into the backseat, giving a nod to the mom digging her keys out of her purse, and I watched silently as the dad came out of the house with one suitcase that belonged to the daughter.

One by one the tears started down my face, releasing into a full-fledged sob as I reached my house. And I stopped running and turned back to them, and as they pulled away, I considered stopping them and yelling “WAIT, wait – I want her to know that it does get better!!!”

*******
I wore jeans this week. Size 2 jeans that do fit. I hated them the whole day. The way they touch my skin and pull at my thighs and ride down my muffin top. I can feel the seams along the legs and feel the zipper when it touches my soft stomach.

I’d catch a glance at myself in mirrors all day long and see my large backside accentuated by these jeans, how my thighs were too close together and how the baggy shirt I chose actually looked like a tent over my midsection and now did everyone think I looked pregnant?

I barely ate that day for fear that even eating an apple would add to my ample thigh, and then I realized that my size 2 jeans – while uncomfortable – were actually a brilliant diet aid.

But I hate jeans – the way they touch my body. Give me a swishing, forgiving skirt to hide my womanly shape and all of my flaws. And when I wear jeans I become a horrible mother. I snap at my kids and don’t want to play on the floor. I don’t want to take them places for fear of ridicule and stares at my figure, and I get irritated easily. Damn jeans – a reminder that I have curves and bumps and squishy places and saggy things and they make me angry.
*****
I had an eating disorder in high school. I starved 30 pounds off of myself and when I couldn’t starve any longer I found the beauty that was throwing my food back up, popping laxatives like M&Ms, and learning that diuretics could help you loose a quick 5 pounds.

And while I was basically ‘cured’ by my mid-point in college, no one prepared me for the lifelong illness that this really is. At 43 and the mother of three kids here I am still feeling like that 17-year-old caught simply licking an apple and crying herself to sleep for that sin.

I don’t starve myself or practice any form of bulimia and haven’t for nearly 20 years – but here I stand at a healthy 5’7″ and 122 pounds and I’m still not cured.
*****
So how do I tell her that it will be okay? How do I tell her that yes, you can stop the unhealthy and physically destructing habits, but the mental ones will stay with you just like with any addict. How you will still think about almost everything that enters your mouth, how you will still see only your flaws in the mirror, and how your size 2 jeans will feel uncomfortable and angry at you. Food is a daily requirement for survival and when it’s your ‘drug of choice’ it makes just daily living sometimes painful.

But I can tell her that things got better for me when I became a mother. How I had to give my body completely to my baby when I was pregnant the first time. How selfish the person with the eating disorder is when they watch their body grow with a baby.

And I can tell her that things got better when I had a daughter. How I go to bed nightly praying that my daughters don’t see me glancing in mirrors or trying to hide my flaws. How I teach them to eat healthy and shower them with love, yet how I hope they never find out my secrets. How I hope I’m not the parent at 4:45 am driving my anorexic daughter to a place that can help her because I couldn’t.

But through all of the pain that is living with an eating disorder your entire life, I do want her to know that there is so much joy and hers is a life worth living. I want to tell her to throw away her jeans and look at all of the beauty she is missing while she is staring in the mirror.

I have bad days. I have bad jeans days. I do. But those days have become fewer and fewer as the happy swishy skirt days have taken over. Motherhood has given me a joyful outlook that I never thought possible. I want to raise strong, happy, loving, accepting daughters who will love themselves their whole lives and not travel the road their mother did. These small people have given me so much hope that I never thought was possible.

Motherhood has given me a second chance to see that my physical imperfections are the ones that made it possible to bring a new life into this world. That the squishy parts of me are their favorite parts and I thank them daily for healing my heart.

So I’m yelling down to you now, sweet neighbor: “It does get better. It really does. It will never, ever be the same, but it does get better once you can share just a little bit of your heart with someone else.”

Tracy
Owner and Editor, www.sellabitmum.com
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And then every once in a while I would remember — oh right! — that my dad had been married before and had two kids from that marriage. I knew them, but they lived elsewhere and were older than we were so they didn’t feel like part of my family in the same way. At least when I was a teenager.

Sometime in the years since, they have become more a part of my family. I attribute this to a number of things – Facebook, for one. For a while now, I’ve been Facebook friends with my half-brother and sister’s families. Knock Facebook all you like, but it does a damn good job at helping people keep in touch.

But we’ve also grown older — us, them, their kids — and we’ve done more of the things families do. We’ve visited more often. We’ve called the same person “dad.” We’ve attended weddings and welcomed babies and shared vacation stories.

And recently we mourned the loss of one of our own.

There’s nothing quite like a death in the family to bring about a sense of unified “we.” Especially when that death is sudden and unexpected and happens to one of the younger members of the clan.

At the end of March, my nephew (who was 18) had a horrific car accident and died not long after. My family (my immediate, nuclear one, that is) does nothing better than rally. We all generally live our lives, keeping in touch pretty well but not daily (or weekly). And yet when something happens, everything else gets dropped and it’s all family.

The whole clan (minus those who came later). Michael was the young lad in blue next to the bride.

That’s what happened after Michael’s accident, and on a grand scale because my half-sister and her family live in Australia. It’s hard to rally when there’s a 24-hour trip between those in crisis and the rest of us. But we figured it out. Between a few of us we got my dad down there as soon as we could so he could be with them. He got there (along with his ex-wife and my half-brother) in time for my sister and her husband to remove life support and, while horrific, I know he’s glad he was able to be there. It was just so, so important.

We worked out a second wave, and sent my brother’s wife down with my youngest sister. They were two more who needed to be there – my sister-in-law to be with my brother and the rest of the family, and my sister to make sure she was okay on the long trip after some health issues and to be the absolute rock she always is in situations like this. If you need someone to clean and cook and make sure people eat, she’s your gal.

The rest of us stayed here and agonized. In the end, we didn’t go – for reasons too numerous to mention. But we were here on the other end of text messages and phone calls and emails and we sent every hope, prayer and message of love we could to those on the other side of the world.

Because it doesn’t matter what your tree looks like – that’s what families do. And I was once again so very, very grateful for mine.

xo

Robin

I closed the door to my bedroom and sat at my desk with a Brother typewriter and filled pages with stories.

I majored in philosophy and wanted to help people find beauty and happiness and meaning through my words.

Watching my children dress up, I marvel at their limitless dreams.

They want to be firemen and doctors for people and doctors for animals and fairies and princesses and painters and dancers and train drivers.

When do we lose that ability to play dress up and let our fantasies and dreams guide our actions and our hopes and our plans?

Maybe it’s time to recapture our capacity to dream big dreams, to dream beautiful dreams, even when they seem too big and too beautiful to come true.

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.”

John Lennon, lyrics to “Imagine”

 xo

Angela

scarf, earrings, a ring, and lip gloss to distract from my actual clothes

Closets stand on the north and south sides of our bedroom, one for the husband and one for me.  Built into the slanted eaves of our second story, they’re identical in their small size.

His is neat and organized, everything placed meticulously onto hangers and shelves, shoes lined up on the floor.

Mine is a whirlwind of chaos, shoes and bags lined up for moments before crashing to a pile in the center of the closet floor.  Sweaters cram onto shelves, shirts and dresses and skirts struggle on hangers, pushed together in the crowded space.

Getting dressed for a night out, or truthfully any day, is a challenge.

I shrug through choices, discarding them on the bed in a rush or on a hanger if I have a few extra minutes.

These jeans are sizes too large.

This sequined tank would be perfect for a club but not a casual dinner with friends.

These heels are impossible to walk in for long distances.

These heels are too low to wear with my jeans that fit.

This sweater needs a layered black tank, not a brown one, and the black is buried in the laundry pile.

Sighing, I pull on the one pair of jeans I own that fit, trying not to care that they give the illusion of a saggy, flat butt within an hour.  A plain tank and one of my many cardigans complete the look.

Sparkly earrings will help, I tell myself, digging into the jewelry box as messy as my closet.

Mascara and super shiny lip gloss always make me smile, I try to rationalize as I slide into Ryan’s car.

I press my glossed lips closed against the complaints struggling to burst forth; complaining about not having anything to wear when my closet is bursting open seems ridiculous.  Complaining about clothes that don’t fit because they’re too big is more than a little silly.

But years after leaving my teaching job, my wardrobe is still in flux.  I flip through pieces too professional for playdates or date nights.  I set aside clothes that would work for the beach but not library story time.

I vow to make better choices, not to buy on impulse, to build my wardrobe with thoughtful selections that fit my life today, not the one I had four years ago or fourteen years ago or the one I may have ten years from now.

And to buy more sparkly earrings while I fill in the gaps.

xo

Angela

As I thought about what my dream day might look like, I realized something. A dream day is not about doing fabulous things like taking a trip or spending a day at the beach listening to the sound of the ocean. It is not about an afternoon of fun and good wine at a winery. It is not about a fantastic massage. Those are all amazing things…and they make for a GOOD day. But not a DREAM day.

A dream day for me is intentional. It is purposeful. It is all about fueling my passions and filling the bucket of what makes me me.

So…what about you? What does your dream day look like? We can’t wait to hear!

xo

Elena

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.

My friends, there is much about me that’s large. My mouth, my hopes and dreams, my appetites.

However, one aspect of me that is not large (by most standards of measurement) is my body. Yet this truth is belied by the tag inside the participant shirt I received when I ran the 2010 L.A. marathon. I recently grabbed this souvenir from the bottom of my work-out drawer, and as I slipped it on I slipped back to the March afternoon I stood outside Dodger Stadium waiting to sign in at the race expo.

Having received my racer’s bib and promo-bag, I’d headed to the shirt-distribution tables. During online registration I’d requested a medium, but the real-life volunteer glanced at me and said, “Oh honey. You’re a large.”

I held up the slip of white polyester and it indeed appeared to be the correct size.

I grabbed safety pins to affix the bib to my shirt and offered my thanks to the volunteers. Then, because the forecasters were predicting heat, I bought a tank top “just in case.”

I picked size L, of course, as I’d been told.

Perhaps people assume measurements are skewed in the world of running – that anyone who trains to complete 26.2 miles must be ultra-skinny. But if you’ve ever been near a race, you know runners of all shapes and sizes participate. In fact, many entrants are there because they’re working on weight control, getting fit, making a change.

And there I was holding my large shirt when, in reality, I’m fairly small. I knew there’d be a decent number of women at the expo that day who were bigger than I was lining up to receive their hard-earned shirts. What would they be told when the volunteers glanced at them?

Unfortunately, such size discrepancy isn’t exclusive to race-wear; these days, it heads in both directions.

In my closet I have jeans that fit equally well but come in sizes spanning eight numbers. Why? Because some manufacturers have begun assigning tinier numbers to bigger measurements in order to “flatter” their customers.

Of course variations exist between brands, but I’ve got three pairs in three sizes from the same designer, purchased during different years. This inconsistency serves to simultaneously both lower and raise expectations of thinness.

It’s unproductive (physically and emotionally) for a woman working toward a healthy weight to be misled into thinking she’s prematurely reached her goal, and it’s unrealistic (physically and emotionally) for a size-6 woman to be aiming for a 2 because brands have started cutting their clothes larger.

To embrace such “vanity sizing” designers have even had to add sizes 0 and 00 to the mix; ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

But herein lies the disconnect: We are a nation of body-loathers who, instead of getting thinner, are growing steadily more overweight. Our real-size spectrum contains dangers at both ends: eating disorders on one, obesity-related complications on the other.

We’ve made victory in this battle increasingly difficult, and if I’ve become the barometer for large, who can blame overweight women and men for feeling perpetually defeated? Conversely, in a world of inflated/deflated double-zeros, the already-thin may continue to seek ever-smaller sizes.

So in lieu of inaccurate numbers or vague S, M, L, XL designations, I’d like to see more descriptive sizes for shoppers who require inspiration with their fitness and their fit – big blank tags that we can fill in for ourselves.

Picture a new mom wearing a size Hooray! I can see my toes again!

During the holidays we’d choose It’s Thanksgiving. Waistbands can suck it.

And then switch to New Year, New Body. Go!

Maybe one of these sizes would apply to you: Thanks for the good metabolism, Mom. Or Thanks! I work my ass off at the gym for this body.

How about this size as a goal: My partner thinks I’m sexy and I’m trying to believe.

Now it’s your turn. If you could, what description would you write onto the blank tags of your clothes? If they were being honest, my pants would admit this:

I often eat healthfully. Sometimes I eat cake.

I know. It is a mouthful.

Of the most delicious kind.

—

Julie C. Gardner is a lapsed English teacher, an aspiring author and an accomplished lover of tortilla chips. You can follow @juliecgardner on Twitter or at her blog, By Any Other Name, where she writes about family, shares her writing journey and strives to make light of life on a weekly basis.