Friday Feelz

I’m stealing this idea from a (now-former) Portland Thorns soccer player (Kendall) who has a neat website and newsletter surrounding women in soccer called Arrow Living. She came up with the name based on this quote:

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She writes about a lot of things that inspire here including her own story as a professional athlete. She also has a podcast where she interviews female athletes about their own success, their struggles, their lives and ways of finding balance, etc. I have enjoyed her podcasts because she has interviewed some great people on there including her teammates which are world class players. But she also interviews other athletes too.

Each Friday she sends out a Friday Feelz newsletter where she looks at small parts of how she has felt including the inspiration / lessons she learned. So, I’m stealing because I’m not feeling creative.

Passing of a family pet: As I mentioned earlier in the week, our old black lab has passed. We made the difficult decision to let him go humanely due to variously health issues that were effecting his quality of life and happiness. I am glad I made the decision to come home early because I just felt like the kids were going to have a bigger issue with letting go than they were letting on. And I’m glad I did. While the kids intellectually knew this was the right thing to do, the emotional impact was something they were having issues rationalizing. We had spent the weekend feeding him hamburgers and other foods he never gets – ways of showing him extra love and affection. When he passed, the kids were in tears. As I stood there hugging both sobbing girls – wishing I was about 6 inches taller so I could truly wrap my arms around them the way I used to – they started laughing at me. "Poor mini-Moe — trying to be taller to make us feel better." As a parent, we try to do all we can to protect the kids. My kids understanding why I was trying to be bigger was touching especially given the fact I was holding back my own tears and emotions. Earlier in the day, I had finished reading one of the leadership books for my class (Leading with Soul) which is part parable, part lessons to be learned from the parable. Finishing it before he passed made me look at this moment a bit differently – embrace the sadness, love those in pain too, laugh at the memories. Weird lessons from a leadership book, but good timing in terms of reminding me to not ignore how I was feeling too.

Erotic Art Show: The art show this week was crazy. My planning helped keep it somewhat managed craziness. Nine artists for a group show is no small undertaking, but it happened. I should say 10 artists….I keep excluding myself from it all. And I keep wondering at what point will I feel like my art is worthy to be with their art. I don’t know if and when impostor syndrome goes away. I’m trying to get better about not falling into that thinking but it is hard. Maybe it is because there are too many people too eager to call themselves artists that makes it hard. As I told one of the photographers last night, the difference between a hobbiest and an artist is that the artist looks at even their best works and wants it to be better — even when it is pretty damn good. He was criticizing his pieces when his pieces were quite strong actually. I said this to him because it is something I have to remind myself. It was just like when I was playing college softball – the games that others voted me MVP were the games I did not consider good. On paper they were, but all I saw and felt were my mistakes – my errors. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy photography so very much – but I have this drive to be better and do better. Just like I did when I played ball. It is what helps me forward. But I digress. I am trying to get better at it – but this week was a struggle.

Feeling Support: With all going on this week, it has been a relief to have support from those I love. G has been picking up the slack my time away for the show has created. Including making sure Halloween night was just taken care of – dinner, pumpkins, etc – getting food for dinner Sunday while I just sat and did nothing after a long day of hanging art. DJ is doing more taxi duties as Indigo is doing after school stuff that is drifting in the evenings. SB has been there for me at the show – taking me for dinner the night before and giving me the ability to exhale from the stuff going on at home and all. I am blessed – to have people in my life that love and care about me – and know when I need to be taken care of because I’m trying to take care of too much.

The Song I’ve been listening to today:
https://youtu.be/H6kfJJRLYc0

Happy Friday!

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