Me

While counting my blessings and sharing my gratitude, I'd like to go ahead and publicly admit how grateful I am to be me.  I haven't always felt this way.  Being me can be a pain in the ass, to be sure.  In fact, my tweens, teens, and much of my twenties were consumed by angst, despair and bad hair.  I alternated between extremes.  I was at times plagued by a ruthlessly self-inflicted perfectionism, never living up to my own unreasonable standards for myself.  At other times, I was lost and looking desperately for something to hold onto, something to fill the void inside of me.  As I moved deeper into my twenties, the hair improved but the sense of belonging didn't.  I was high, I was low, but always lonely and searching for sanity somewhere outside of myself.  Where, I wonder, do we first get the notion that we are supposed to be insecure?  What makes us afraid to love ourselves as deeply and as fully as we love others?  Why is it OK to say "I am grateful for my dog, or my child, or my husband" but it seems totally taboo to say, "I love ME!"   Well, guess what...I'm doing it.  I'm admitting it, right here, out loud, in print, boldly and with out apology:  I absolutely LOVE BEING ME!  I have found that four decades of life experience have brought, along with a few wrinkles and a slightly smaller (and lower) bra size, a tremendous freedom.  I rejoice in the freedom to embrace my imperfections, my flaws, and my failures.  I have found that as I pour love and self-acceptance onto these ornery inner-demons, they lose their power over me.  I have also found the courage and the audacity to be ridiculously happy!  It has become a joyous privilege to develop, share, and celebrate my God-given talents.  It's fun to look in the mirror and see my own smile.  I love loving people and I love life!  I really enjoy being me. There is nobody else I would rather be.  

Dave

Dave is with out a doubt, as my mother will be quick to tell you, the best thing that has ever happened to me.  He zigs where I zag, is calm when I'm crazy, and anchors me to something so solid and real, enduring and true.  He is at once both my leading man, and my best supporting man.  He's a total turkey and he drives me nuts, don't get me wrong.  But he is an utterly irresistible combination of strength and silliness, impossible not to forgive for his relentless stubbornness.  As a father, he is consistent and gentle, tender but tough, and always fully engaged whether in the reading of a bedtime book or the pitching of a ball.  He coaches, he primps, he plays, he allows himself to be dressed up, and he laughs out loud a lot.  As a role model, he is a fireman, a photographer, a hockey player as well as coach (mine) and referee, and a board member with Habitat for Humanity.  He's the type of man you hope your son will grow up to become.  As a husband, he is my source of comfort and inspiration.  Although I value his advice above all others, he only gives it when asked.  He believes in me with all his heart and never fails to make me feel treasured and adored.  He's my best friend, my Hercules, and my heart-throb.  My gratitude begins and ends with him because he is the foundation for all the rest.  Happy Thanksgiving to my very most favorite turkey of all!

The Timmy Way

 So, I looked away the other day, and when I looked back this handsome young man was standing there exactly where, I swear, I left a little boy.  It became suddenly urgent, I felt, to capture him at play, immersed in the magic of his boyhood before he reaches out his hand and asks to borrow the car keys.  Timmy is the spitting image of his daddy at that age, so much so that he mistook a kindergarten picture of Dave as his own.  In fact, Timmy is a Dave mini-me in many other ways, too, not the least of which is his infuriatingly unapologetic stubbornness!  He, like his father, and my father, is a fiercely free-thinker, unwilling to do anything asked with out first questioning how and why... Although eager to please and do his best, he simply will not comply with instructions just because, but finds his own approach, making sense of the task at hand in his own context.  At our house, we call this "The Timmy Way."  "Mommy?" he asks, "Do I have to color this project the way we do it at school, or can I do it the Timmy Way?"  Why he asks, I don't know, because regardless of the answer, it will be The Timmy Way.  Truthfully, (most days) I wouldn't have it any other way.  The Timmy Way is cool.  Partnered with an inexorable charm, an irresistible smile, and eyes so blue you can see right through, the Timmy Way has made my little man a Big Man on campus. It is like a special force-field.  Everybody wants to be near it.  The boys in kindergarten say, "Sit here with us, Timmy!" because the other boys stick together, and the girls say, "Sit by me, Timmy!" because they have seen those blue eyes up close.  But Timmy sits where he wants to, not to snub any friends, but because he simply has to follow The Way.  Some days he sits with the girls, some days with the boys, some days by himself, and other days, when I am extra lucky and staying to volunteer, he sits by me.  On these days, I silently gloat at the other children.  I win!  One more day for mommy to snuggle her Timmy Bear before the Timmy Way takes him far away, out into the world where fiercely free-thinkers carve out unique, beautiful lives of their own design. 

Miss Emily, Who is Almost Three, Oh How Grateful I am for Thee

Long abandoned blog, I felt the need to return to you to pay homage to a little girl we both know and love.  I've been counting my blessings for the 30 days leading to Thanksgiving, and on this 26th day of gratitude, my heart is filled with appreciation for a certain little blonde bundle of mischief.  Emily has turned our world on its head, giggling while she watches it spin.  She is the center of our family life, and each and every one of us would do anything to make her laugh and to feel the pull of those little arms thrown around our neck.  A friend recently questioned whether the true head of the Hulse household is Dave or me, to which Dave replied, "Neither of us.  It is Emily, of course." Emily is already in many ways the person I aspire to be:  fearlessly true to herself, confident, exuberant, tender, gleeful, and utterly certain of her God-given right to be absolutely fabulous.  She is at the same time gentle and kind, quick to make others smile and feel good about themselves.  It astounds me watching her, a two-year-old who can walk into a room of beautiful girls and, rather than question her place or covet this or that belonging, she makes the rounds and tells each little lady how pretty their dresses are, and how nice they look.  My hope and prayer for her is that she may somehow retain this self-assured poise and magical innocence, even when adolescence brings mean girls, calorie-counting, and boys who aren't worthy into her world.  May she always and ever be my sweet Miss Emily.