babybloomr

OK, so the hedges in front of my bedroom windows were approaching redwood status. I’m figuring, how hard could it be? I’ll just head next door and ask The Master Gardener if he has a hedge trimmer and bing, bang, boom, I’ll take care of it. I knew better than to ask The Gospel Singer to do it, because even though he would be willing, A) he’s a musician, not a handyman (AT ALL) and B) by Christmas, I would still be waiting for him to get around to it. I’m not bitter. Just experienced. Bless his heart.

The hedge trimmer looked a little big and toothy, but I didn’t let that intimidate me. I’m not overly fond of loud electric things that can cut your hand off, but hey, we’ve braved a shark attack already this summer, so I don’t scare easy. Here’s a picture of that bad boy:

And here’s the daunting task before me:

Easy peasy, right?
(OK, this might be a good opportunity to tell you about the first time I ever trimmed Madi Rose’s bangs. She was two. I was inexperienced. I didn’t know that, like singing the Star Spangled Banner at a sporting event, starting too high is a fatal flaw. It was a learning experience for both of us. I learned to take her to a Super Cuts next time and she learned to answer me when I asked her “What kind of haircut did Mama give you?” with a brand new word– “Dorky!”)

This story will make more sense to you in a minute.

After a few years little while, I had whittled it down to this:
”

See? You wouldn’t think a straight line would be so hard. However, I WAS having to hold the dang trimmer up over my head and kind of cut by ‘feel’… (Which still doesn’t explain poor two year old Madi’s bangs, I know.) At any rate, that’s as far as I got because just when I was making headway and had accumulated an impressive brushpile…

I somehow managed to hedgetrim the crap out of the electrical cord. In a mighty way. Like, this:

So I called it a day, went out and bought a NEW shiny orange electrical cord and I’m letting Russ finish it when he gets home. Musician, schmusician, he can’t do any worse than I did.

The end.

This whole upcoming BlogHer conference thing is turning into a big ol’ learning experience for me, and I haven’t even gotten there yet. For whatever reason, it has served as a litmus test of sorts for the current state of my… well, everything. I have been getting in touch with all kinds of feelings that I haven’t really examined in a while, and I’m finding myself surprised by a lot of them. And if that last paragraph doesn’t scream “SOMEBODY’S CERTAINLY HAD A LOT OF THERAPY!!”, I don’t know what does.

See, the thing is, these last few years I haven’t really put myself out there very much. I have launched a new venture or two, like the Music City Moms thing and uh, this blog, but I haven’t really gone after things very aggressively or jumped in the deep water with it all. Granted I have been a little sidetracked with that whole pesky raising a family thing– you know, they can be so demanding with their insistence on eating meals every day and going to school and such. (“Would you kids go away and quit interrupting me so I can write this blog about the joys of parenting??? Sheesh.”) And also, at the risk of over-sharing (WHAT, ME????), these last couple of years haven’t exactly been drama-free in many areas. As in, “I-can’t-believe-this-is-my-life-just-kill-me-now,-no-wait,-better-yet-let-me-kill-someone-else,-ok,-not-really-but-seriously-God,-get-me-outta-here-my-life-suuuuuuucks”. Not to put too fine a point on it. Let’s just leave it at “There have been some distractions that have kept me from fully realizing the endless potential that lives deep within all of us.”

At any rate, I am finding myself in some kind of… well, it’s not a mid-life crisis really, because A) I’m not actually in a crisis of any kind and B) I don’t really plan on living to be 104, so ‘mid-life’ might be stretching it a little. I guess it’s more like an Awakening of some sort– like that movie with DeNiro and Robin Williams, except without the dopamine. I am realizing that I want to take what I’m doing, like this little thing you are currently reading, and approach it seriously enough that I push my limits with it. I want to see just what it (read: “I”) am capable of, and how far it/I can go. Also, I want to make a million dollars with it and buy a unicorn. Nah. What I really want, and what the upcoming conference is stirring up in me, is to actually compete in this arena. And I’m not really good at competition. I’m always the one that doesn’t want to keep score at pingpong or Nertz because it’s more fun for me if we just play, without all that winning and losing stuff… Which honestly may point more towards the fact that I AM actually pretty competitive– otherwise, why would I care about the scorekeeping at all?! Maybe it’s that whole Girls Raised In The South thing, and I secretly think wanting to win is somehow un-ladylike. Or un-Christian. I don’t know. (Note to self– MORE therapy.) Or maybe I think that if I don’t really run with it, if I don’t actually go after what I want, then I won’t be disappointed.

Bingo!!! (points to nose) We have a winner!

I really don’t want to be disappointed.
Especially in myself.
I HATE disappointment with the white-hot hatred of a thousand suns. It is my least favorite of all of my un-favorite emotions. Also disillusionment– which I guess is actually disappointment’s equally evil twin. HATE THEM, I say! They don’t teach me anything, or draw me closer to God, or make me a better person or serve any useful purpose. They just suck the life and hope out of my soul and effectively knee-cap me from trying again. (Yeah, I know– apparently, even MORE therapy might be required here.)

See, I don’t want to find out that I’m ‘pretty good’, but not ‘really good’. I’d rather faux-humbly decline to throw down with the Real Live Bloggers and just keep turning out my little posts for my small (yet select! and fabulous!) coterie of readers. I am afraid to push my boundaries in terms of content because I don’t want to be too transparent, or too edgy or too… honest. Yet the blogs I return to day after day, the ones that have moved me and inspired me to want to do exactly what they do are ALL of those things. On any given day those blogs are gut-wrenchingly vulnerable, laugh-out-loud ridiculously funny and often brimming with political incorrectness and profanity. And on any given day, I am capable of all of those things. Yet I temper myself, I censor myself, I pull back so that I won’t be too…. anything. Not that I’m dying to start blogging about my sex life, or let loose with a big ol’ string of f-bombs– hello, MY PARENTS ARE STILL LIVING. But there is a fearlessness in those kind of blogs that I really respond to, there is a courageousness in their honesty. It’s not about just vomiting out all of their private feelings about private matters all over the page, it’s about speaking their truth in their own authentic voice. (WITH some discretion and sensitivity and decorum, blah blah blah.)

I want to do that. I want to learn HOW to do that in a way that feels right to me and would maybe be something that you and others would want to read. A lot.

And that’s why I’m going to BlogHer.