Spring Breakdown: Part 1

Posted on April 17, 2014 by jessiepbraun

The girls are on spring break this week, and yesterday, while driving home from the Constitution Center in Philly, my friend Dave’s Facebook status made me laugh:

I can’t help but notice that my friends’ spring break photos are a lot heavier on museums, cultural spots, and family activities, and a lot lighter on body shots, beer funnels, and bad dancing than they used to be. We must be growing up.

I have known Dave for 30 years, and while neither of us were ever shy with a beer funnel, I had to agree with his assessment. However I told him not to fret, as baby bags now come equipped with insulated beers holders. Bottles, shmottles.

In the last few months, when the stress of moving threatened to break us, Phil and I fantasized about going away for spring break. But the reality is:

We have no more money.
Go “away?” Isn’t this away? Where’s home? Where are we?
Where are our bathing suits?
We have no more money.

So, instead Phil took a few days off for a mini-staycation. A staycation, of course, is a vacation taken at home. Although I must admit I was wary about something that sounds like a good idea, but actually looks more like this:

Stay-ca-tion (n): 1. A chance to look around at the chaos that is your life and remember why you were fantasizing about an escape to a tropical island. 2. A reminder that your kids are not just quarrelsome holy terrors after school, they are actually like that all day.

But, this Debbie Downer is pleased to report that a staycation was just we needed.

We have visited some old haunts in Philly, unpacked a box or two, and saw some friends. And for the first time since our return to PA, Phil and I have just hung out: in our kitchen, drinking beers, taking turns being the deejay….we call this a Lifelab Session.

So during last night’s Session, we started talking about our most memorable spring break. Interestingly, neither his pick nor mine was of the Bahamas-wet-tshirt-contest variety. (Disclaimer: We are not saying that we were above trips that included Jello shots and pole dancing, but simply were not cool enough to consider it in the first place).

My first two years of college were rough. I left for a semester, came back, changed majors, gained weight, lost weight, drank too much, changed majors again….I think the term for this is ~~hot mess~~ “finding yourself.” Sophomore year I lived alone while all my former hall mates pledged sororities, which was conducive to “finding yourself” but was really, really lonely.

By junior year things turned around, and I started hanging out with a great group of friends that are still my b-fries to this day. We all moved in together and it was awesome – one of the best years of my life. But sometimes…I could get a little overwhelmed by the closeness. I went from being a hermit to a pack member almost overnight, and I think my happy place was somewhere in between.

So when my grandmother (Nannie) called me and said, “I can give you money when I am dead, or I can give you money now, but if I give it to you now you have to use it to go visit Helen in London for spring break,” I said, “Now is good.” Nannie was the bomb.

Helen is my best friend from childhood. In high school, I probably spent more nights on her parents’ couch then I did in my own bed. And while Helen is Taiwanese, she actually wanted to be British, and decided to spend her junior year at University of Michigan abroad.

Helen and I were so different, but I think that’s what made our friendship work. She wore vintage clothes from flea markets, I wore hippy skirts from head shops. She went to jazz clubs and punk rock shows, I went to outdoor music festivals. But when I was with her, I always learned something new – about art or music or poetry – and this felt expansive. Plus we laughed a lot and did a bunch of dumb things.

London with Helen was not about double-decker buses circling Big Ben. London with Helen was art museums and hidden gem noodle houses serving huge portions for cheap.

London with Helen was taking baths with water we boiled in the kitchen sink when our hair had finally become too dirty to tolerate.

London with Helen was sitting on the curb outside her flat, chain smoking Parliaments and drinking forties of Stella out of a brown paper bag.

And apparently, London with Helen was wearing REALLY RED LIPSTICK.

London with Helen was exactly where I needed to be that spring break.

*Because all LifeLab Sessions center around good tunes, Phil and I each created a mini-playlist to recapture the essence of our favorite spring break adventure. Here are the tunes that remind me of that trip -and my life- circa 1998:

“Girls and Boys”/ Blur: A perfect pre-game song. Tequila shots required. I mean, it can’t all be about museums – it was spring break, after all.
“Sometimes, Always”/ The Jesus and Mary Chain: I still love this song. It’s so peppy. It also reminds me of the Jesus and Mary Chain t-shirt I used to wear to torture my mother who probably thought I was in an anti-Catholic cult.
“There She Goes”/ The La’s: This song reminds me of all my girl crushes. Whatever, stop judging, you know you had one too.
“Fake Plastic Trees”/ Radiohead: Oh, Radiohead. Is it really that bad? A great song to listen to in your room in complete darkness and cry about how no one understands you, you will never fit in anywhere, wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
“Everyday is Like Sunday”/ Morrissey: How can you make a London playlist without The Smiths/Morrissey? This song is the 3rd track on Morrissey’s debut album, and it makes me think of a rainy, hungover, “cave day.” Although I heard it’s actually about a group of Australians waiting for nuclear devastation. Which is way more depressing.

Do you have a favorite spring break? What songs would play on that soundtrack?

Stay tuned tomorrow for Phil’s edition of Spring Breakdown: Part 2……

Smash Your Fears

Posted on February 20, 2014 by jessiepbraun

I recently received an email from Cameron Von St. James, asking me to help share his story. Cameron’s wife, Heather, was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma -a form of cancer caused by asbestos – when the couple’s daughter Lily was only a few months old. Heather was 36, and was given 15 months to live.

With the help of the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance, Heather was able to find the right doctors, and eight years ago on February 2, had her lung removed. In order to cope with their fears, Cameron and Heather named this date Lung Leavin’ Day and celebrate it every year. Heather explains,

Lung Leavin’ Day is about overcoming your fears. I get together with my family and friends and we write our fears on plates, and then smash them into a fire.

The timing of Cameron’s email – just days before our move from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania – was compelling. Moving is not cancer – note even close. But it is scary in it’s own way, sometimes I think more for the parents than the kids. In the last few weeks, anytime Phil would start to voice his fears about moving, I would shut it down by saying, “Look, we can’t give into that,” or “Let’s just focus on the positive.” In my delusional Mommy Guilt-gripped mind, I thought I was protecting Emma and Phoebe from our fears. Basically – for anyone who has seen The Lego Movie – I had morphed into Unikitty from Cloud Cuckoo Land: “Stay Positive! Stay Positive!”

If my therapist is reading this right now, he is shaking his head and massaging his temples.

Stuffing my fears is never an effective strategy, yet I continue to find excuses to do it. I say things like, “We just need to keep it together right now,” or “The kids need us to stay upbeat!” And yes, if the girls saw me crying into my coffee every morning, they may question my leadership abilities. But even Unikitty from Cloud Cuckoo Land knows that resisting “negative” emotions will eventually catch up with you:

What I love about Heather’s story is how she chooses to live in a place of hope by facing her fears, not denying them. Inspired by Lung Leavin’ Day, Phil and I decided to follow Heather and Cameron’s lead and write down our fears about moving, and then conduct our own plate breaking ritual. My initial list looked something like this:

Fear of the girls not liking new school
Fear of Phil not feeling fulfilled at work
Fear of us losing a sense of adventure as a family
Fear of losing current level of closeness in marriage
Fear of losing Phil to his “fans.”

The first thing I noticed about this list is my fears are more about other people than myself, which I am sure in its own way is a form of hiding from the real feelings. The second thing I noticed is that apparently I think I am married to Tom Cruise. Or maybe David Hasselhoff.

By fans, I mean his “people.” Phil is from a large family and has had a beer with pretty much everyone in the Philadelphia area. He calls it “The Long Arms of Braun.” Philly is his hometown. When I was 25, I moved there to be closer to him, because I am from New Jersey, where we are bred to be resilient and adaptable with a slight inferiority complex. When I married him, I often felt like an appendage – an accessory to his former life. Moving to Massachusetts, while sad and challenging at times, was the first thing we had ever done as a couple that was truly ours. It brought equality to our our marriage.

Love and fear are in this constant tug of war. I love Philly, and moving back there feels like going home. We have a wonderfully supportive family and amazing friends. But I also love the independent person I have become, and fear that moving back into our comfort zone will make that person disappear.

So I guess my real fear was not about losing Phil, but losing myself. Which seems silly when I say it. But not scary.

After sharing our fears, we wrote them on plates. Well, paper plates. Our plates were already packed.

An while paper plates don’t break, they definitely burn.

The whole experience made me feel lighter. When I look back at our lists, some of our fears are real – usually the things out of our control. Other fears are real but manageable; fears that require planning and taking action.

But some fears are just not real. My fear of losing myself is not real because I am right here. I can feel my feet on the ground and the computer keys under my fingertips. The fear of losing myself is an old fear…that I am not brave or smart or independent enough to do something scary, or be my own person.

But I have. And I am.

But I guess I had to write it down to realize that.

Setting it on fire also helped.

Please support Cameron and Heather in their commitment to raising awareness for mesolthelioma by spreading the word about Lung Leavin’ Day. You can learn more about Heather’s story here.

Then, go smash some plates.

My Dog Is Dead and We’re Moving: How to Choose an Attitude of Abundance

Posted on January 16, 2014 by jessiepbraun

“My dog is dead and we’re moving.”

This was how Emma greeted her bus stop pals on the first day back to school in 2014. Happy New Year!

But that’s my firstborn. In all of her 7.5 years, she has never been one to sugar coat things, and she tells the truth. The whole truth and nothing but, whether you’ve had your coffee yet or not. So put on your helmet.

Our dog is dead, as you already know, and yes – we are moving. AGAIN. When I told my friend Kathy she said, “You move more than an army wife.” Yes, except we are not nobly sacrificing ourselves for the good of this country, nor is Phil out in the trenches fighting for freedom and justice for all. He is fighting to make “validation sexy.”

But hey, if he didn’t, who would?

Alas, it is a position within his current company that sends us back to our beloved Philadelphia – 18 months, 2 rentals, and 1 house purchase later.

This was a bit shocking at first. We have only been in this house for six months.

I’m still unpacking from the last move. It was only a month ago that I got one of those silverware drawer organizers at Bed Bath and Beyond. Opening that drawer gave me such pride in my attempt at organization. But now, as I reach for a fork – destined to be thrown back in a moving box – I think, I can’t believe I actually used a tape measure for this shit.

I am not going to lie, I spent a day ~~or three~~ in my snowman pajamas. I wondered if Phil had unconsciously manifested this re-re-location by never changing our license plates.

I just felt so…..torn. Sure, there are many benefits to moving back to Philadelphia: family, old friends, the Phillies, WaWa….

God I do miss WaWa.

But, even a 24 hour store that has everything from Midol to mac-n-cheese cannot compare to this:

Yet compare is what I continued to do.

In high school, I had a friend who was trying to decide between two colleges: Tulane and JMU. They were both great schools and she was having a hard time choosing, so she made a comparison chart. I only remember the first bullet point:

Tulane: Smelly

JMU: Not Smelly

She went to JMU.

I began to notice that both Phil and I were taking the Smelly-Not Smelly approach in order to feel better about our decision. For example:

Boston: Crazy Cold

Philly: Normal Cold

Boston: Lobster Rolls (no thanks)

Philly: Soft Pretzels (yes please)

One night over a ~~bottle~~ glass of wine, a rapid-fire compare and contrast ensued: Boston doesn’t have a Liberty Bell! The ocean is too cold in the winter! It’s a 30 minute drive to Target! I hate clam chowder!

Our Bash Boston list became increasingly more shallow and sophomoric, yet the negative energy ~~and booze~~ continued to fuel our bad behavior. We finally hit bottom when Phil said, “The women at Lululemon in Philly are hotter than the women at Lululemon in Boston.”

Oh, Phil. That’s just weird. Way to ruin the game.

With the Bashing Phase over, I moved into the Avoidance Stage. I stopped going for runs along the rocky cliffs. I drove circuitously in order to avoid the scenic route through the harbor, where, on a clear day, the sun reflects off the water and the lighthouse stands proud in the distance.

The Avoidance Stage came to a reluctant end when I ran out of episodes of The Real Housewives of Anywhere. I had no where left to hide. Now I had to actually let myself think and feel again (dammit!) and ask myself, Ok, what is going on, here?

I was scared. Scared of feeling sad. Scared of missing this truly magical place and the people in it. Scared of never being as happy as we have been here.

Then I read this line in a daily reflection book by Julia Cameron:

Life is what you make it.

Our life here in Scituate has been awesome and abundant because we decided it was going to be awesome and abundant. When Phil’s work brought us to New England, we literally picked a town off the map of MA and said, “This feels right -let’s try here.” This was huge for us, having always lived near family and in familiar places. Sure, there was some lonely moments, but we dedicated ourselves to believing our own bullshit: “This is going to be GREAT. This is going to be the best thing we’ve done YET. We are going to meet some amazing people.”

And you know what? It was. And we did.

But this move back home to Pennsylvania holds the same possibility of abundance and awesomeness – if we choose to invite it in.

Emma said at bedtime, “What if I don’t make any friends?”

“That’s impossible,” I said.

“How is it impossible?”

“Everywhere you have ever gone, you have made friends. You made friends in the sandbox, at the playground, on the beach, in school. You make friends because you love people. So all evidence supports you making friends again in Pennsylvania.”

She seemed to accept this as plausible. I think because I used the word evidence.

Acknowledging the good you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. -Eckhart Tolle

Life is so good right now. And there was a time where I might have said, “Well, this is as good as it’s gonna get. I’ve filled my happiness quota. It’s all downhill from here.”

But this line of thinking made me a miserable f***k.

So I’m adopting an attitude of abundance. Instead of assuming every blessing will be my last, I will assume there are an infinite amount still waiting for me…for us.

I am still sad to leave.