Where do we go from here, now that all of the children are growin’ up?
The Alan Parsons Project has always been a favorite of mine. Any time a song of theirs streams across Sirius, it’s shut-the-heck-up-in-the-cabin, people. Just listen. The “Eye in the Sky” alone bequeaths respect. But, also, is it weird that they have a song called “Sirius” that was released way back in 1982? You figure that out. Maybe ask your friend on your wrist. She’s likely to interject, but more than that, she’s likely to listen. She’ll weigh in on Tuesday, when you’re in the middle of something more important than her. She doesn’t care.
I really wasn’t sure I was going to return here. To this blog. I made this space. I worked hard to coordinate the blog name to the content. “Little Miss Sunshine” is a classic. Watch the movie if you haven’t. Many of my closest friends and relatives have followed my blog for the past 4 years. But, in spite of the support, Beautiful Olive really hasn’t kept up with the rush of society. Honestly, there’s probably a way to speak a blog into existence these days that would catapult Beautiful Olive into a space I can only imagine in my mind. Typing is yesterday. So is the written word. Same:Same. Better to video it. Tik Tok and ‘Gram go more places, faster. I really think I might be the last blogger to use real words. But you heard it here, last. LOL. Olive, stay the course, girlfriend.
Every year I get an email from BlueHost reminding me of my annual payment to reserve this blog space. This little corner of the interweb that nobody else can take from us. Unless I let it go. So, do you think I’m going to let somebody else take BeautifulOlive by not making my payment?! Nope. I paid up and I will continue to pay up. She is good for another year. And all the years until she isn’t. Nobody else will type words onto this space but me. Kinda scary. And it’s a triangle of the most inauspicious triangles. Hardly anybody knows we are here. But we are. In this little tiny corner.
Pause.
Like I said. I wasn’t sure I was going to return here. But, now that the children are growin’ up, where do we go from here??? I mainly came here today to tell you a few things that popped up in the last few days. And then, we will figure out where we go from here, now that the children are growin’ up.
1: As a 51-year old, I asked my therapist (I’m not sure she is actually my therapist…but she is delivering therapy to me, so…) well, where do I go from here? “Kerri. Anxiety and Excitement can be very similar in their presentation. It’s important to tease them out. For a long time, decisions were anxiety-provoking for you. Now, we will reframe them as Exciting.” Hmmm. That is something. And then she went on to delineate how Anxiety and Excitement elicit the same biological response in our bodies. It’s how we intercept the biology and respond to it that decides whether we label it Anxiety-Provoking or Exciting. Hmmm…psychology comes back around. I majored in her before I went to dental school.
2: Also, my therapist said “Kerri, for twenty years, you and your husband were responsible for your 3 little people. Your decisions affected them more than anyone else. But, guess what? They are almost all gone. Flown. On their own. 9 short months and ALL flown. Then, it’s just you and your husband again.” THAT gave me PAUSE. In a good way. (Cue the inset dialogue box – I don’t know how it got here on my blog and I don’t know how to get rid of it. Neither do the children)
Where do we go from here, now that all of the children are growin’ up?
Before I became a dentist, I was a writer, a lawyer-in-training, a philosopher, a statistician. I took stats, philosophy, biology, psychology of the brain, chemistry and western civ in undergrad. I was 19-21 years old.
All of the children are growin’ up. Where do we go from here?
I found a writing group online last week. Apparently, November is National Novel Writing Month. They have a challenge every November. I joined it. I will write 50,000 words and make a novel.
How long does it take to write 50,000 words if a person has another full-time job and other obligations? Who the heck knows? Nobody can tell me this. I just chose excitement over anxiety. I might write 80,000 words instead of 50,000. Or even 100,000. 80,000 is the average number of words in a novel these days. So, 50,000 might not do the trick. Or it will. Or 100,000 will be the Opus. or 150,000. Limits are annoying. Why would we want them? Bye-bye, Limits.
This writing challenge is not for anyone else but me. It’s not for the blog, vlog, tik tok, facebook, friends, family, sign post, convenience store, library book shelf or “Welcome to our State” sign or whatever other medium I forgot to list here. The words go out, but not in. I get to change, tweak, tear down and rebuild, before anyone else gets in there to do the same. THAT is a sandbox I haven’t built in before and I’m looking forward to that. That playground deserves my attention. #mysandbox
My therapist-not-a-therapist asked me WHERE I would write, now that the children are grown. I said “Well, I have a laptop, so, you know, I just go all over!” She said “NO. If you are going to be a writer, it’s time to act like, portray, behave like a writer. Where do you write? Where is your space?” And she smiled at me over the sorry-ass zoom camera on that fall Friday in October. To which I answered “Well, when you put it like that, our living room is a space we have named The Salon. We discuss things, talk, take care of each other and observe there. It’s a space where important ideas are exchanged. We don’t have TVs there. I have a desk in there and, right now, it houses the vinyl player and boxes. There is a random couch in our Salon that needs to move on, but I can change that.” She said “Yes. I want you to create that. You need it.” And I moved that Vinyl player. And the boxes and all that didn’t serve this writer. And I told that couch-owner to come get that couch or it was going to be donated. He should show up on Thursday or the couch will go to a new home. Because Thursday is trash day. I’m taking back a space I never knew existed. To sit down and embody someplace you never felt was purposeful is something. I’m not sure it has a name. It’s just a corner with a plant and a chair. In the Salon.
Where do we go from here, now that all of the children are growin’ up? (Look at that, I got rid of the inset…)
I wish I could tell you. But, I saw some things this week that broke my heart and moved me more to my center that has always been there, but was just ignored. Why are some called at 28, 38, 48, 58, away to the eye in the sky? Why do some get all the time in the world to build a thousand temples in the sand and others of us get just enough time to build a widget that sticks up a centimeter above the dirt before we are called back home? Why was I called to work on teeth – a concrete medium, with a relatively uniform roadmap – in an increasingly disjointed world? There aren’t even joints in teeth – did you know that? Nope.
I’ll see you in January. I’ll bring you an update. In the meantime, read back issues of Beautiful Olive. She has some things to say that are still relevant. The children are growin’ up. It’s time we did, too.
About The Author
Kerri Lawlor
I am an endodontist, business owner, wife, and mom to three teenage boys (and also a dog named Oskar). I just want to be comfortable in my own skin and spread some joy and love to women in my sphere!
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