eunice ann

tales of a girl trying to make sense of it all.

renewal.

by

woman-driving

I hadn’t owned a car in four years, so having a valid driver’s license wasn’t even on my radar until I decided it was time to buy a new car.

My license had expired almost a year prior, so the morning before I went to the dealership, I thought it would be a good idea to renew it, in case I wanted to, you know, test drive a car. 

I Uber’ed over to the DMV office so I was there right as they opened. Unlike the last time I had gotten my driver’s license renewed (which was also a big to-do), there was no line wrapped around the building waiting for the doors to be unlocked. I stepped up and grabbed my number.

Four! Yessssss! (This is the equivalent of hitting the lottery jackpot, isn’t it?) I may or may not have done a little dance in the foyer before taking my seat on the bench that I’m sure was a repurposed church pew.

Number two was called and I took a quick glance at the checklist of items needed to renew your license. I was missing proof of residence and I had moved (several times) since the last one was issued.

Shit.

I jumped up and called another Uber to pick me up, take me home and bring me back. It took all of ten minutes round trip. I leapt out of the car, ran into the DMV and grabbed my new number. 

Eighty-six. What the fuck?! Did I hit a time warp while I was gone?

I slumped down in the church pew and waited my turn, which miraculously took less time than I was expecting with that garbage number. Perhaps more people forgot required paperwork at home too. I stepped up to the window and handed the woman my documents while casually joking about how lame I was for not making it in to renew it for almost a year.

She glanced at my old, useless license and said, “Wow, you barely made it under the wire! Four more days and you would have had to re-take the driver’s test!” She laughed, I laughed.

Whew.

Click. Click. Click. “Oh.” 

“What?” 

“Looks like your driver’s license is suspended.”

Suspended?!?!

“You’re going to have to take that driver’s test after all. But first, you’re going to have to pay off this outstanding ticket.”

“What ticket? I haven’t had a car in four years, and the little bit I drove, I certainly never got a ticket.”

Clickety click. “Looks like from June 15, 2012.”

Four days before the accident that totaled my last car. It’s all becoming clear. I got pulled over for texting and driving (well, updating my Facebook status about a stellar Habitat for Humanity Selection Committee meeting, yep, that definitely could have waited). It was a $72 ticket that I had shoved into the glove box, hoping to pay it within a couple of weeks when I got a new job. It was probably still in there when I had the car hauled off a few days later, and I never went to pick up my personal effects from inside because, you know, I didn’t have a car.

“It’s going to be $350. But you can’t pay it here, you have to go to this website to pay it and you won’t be able to renew your license until it’s paid. You’re going to have to take both the written and the road test as well.” 

Oh my god, are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been driving for 23 years and I never even took the road test. I just took driver’s ed and brought my little yellow card down to the DMV and they gave me a license that didn’t expire until I turned 60. Why did I ever leave Arizona? Wait–don’t answer that. 

She continued while I was lost in my reverie. “You can pay it today, but it generally takes a couple of days for it to catch up to our system, so you won’t be able to renew your license until Tuesday at the earliest.” 

Shit. I’m supposed to be buying a car this afternoon. 

Since my boyfriend at the time had been kind enough to arrange a personal meeting with the GM of the dealership, I really didn’t want to cancel. I paid my ticket and headed to the dealership for my appointment and proceeded to look at a selection of cars that were curated for me by the GM before turning me over to one of his salespeople.

“Which one do you like?” the salesman asked. “Do you want to take one out for a drive?”

“Well, about that…my license isn’t valid and I can’t get it renewed until Tuesday at the earliest, so I can’t test drive anything today.” 

“Oh. Well today is Friday. There is no guarantee that these cars will still be here on Tuesday.” Typical car salesman. “If you put an offer on one, I can hold it until then.”

Interesting. I thought about it for a minute and ended up putting an offer on a cute black Lexus sedan and got approved the following day. I now owned a car. That I couldn’t legally bring home. Doing things backward is the story of my life.

I headed down to the testing office of the DMV first thing on Tuesday morning and was surprised at my dumb luck that once again, there was barely a line. I couldn’t believe my luck.

I stepped up to the counter, smiled at the grumpy looking man and explained that I needed to renew my suspended license.

“Well, first you’re going to have to pay a reinstatement fee of $85. Then, you’ll have to take the written test. That will cost $11. It’s 25 questions and you’re allowed to miss 5. If you fail, you can take it again today, but it will cost you another $11. If you pass, you’ll be issued your driver’s permit, which will cost you $16 and then you take the road test before you’re issued a new license.”

“I only have to get 80% to pass? That’s a B minus! No wonder no one can drive these days. You don’t even have to get an A on the driving test to pass!” I laughed hysterically. Grumpy DMV Guy was not amused.  He pointed me to the computer terminals where I would be taking the written test.

I swept through the first several questions with ease, but as I got into the thick of it, I missed a question about cell phone usage. 

Cell phones were barely a thing when I got my driver’s license. I was still begging my parents for a pager. I did know that the ticket for texting and driving cost $72, or $350 if you waited four years to pay it, but that wasn’t on the test.

I got through a few more and got another couple of questions wrong.

Marijuana was also not legal when I got my driver’s license. How am I supposed to know that the rules are different than using alcohol? Isn’t the general rule of thumb that pot and driving don’t mix?

I looked down and I was on question 25 out of 25 and I had maxed out my number of allowable incorrect answers. My heart started beating a little faster, my palms started sweating and my breath got really short. 

Gotta get this one right. I’m already a loser who got a B minus on her written test after making fun of all the losers that got a B minus on their written tests. I cannot bear to go back to Grumpy DMV Guy with a failing test.

I don’t even remember what the question was, just that I wasn’t sure and I totally guessed at the answer, clicked submit and held my breath. Pass.

YESSSSSSSSS!!!

I stepped back up to the counter, feeling accomplished and Grumpy DMV Guy flatly congratulated me, then informed me that there was a three week waiting list to take the road test. 

THREE. WEEKS.

I am never getting my driver’s license renewed. 

I didn’t think that the car dealership was going to hold my car for three weeks. 

I headed in to work and as I was retelling the saga of getting my license, a coworker overheard and said, “you know there’s a private place right next door to the DMV that will take you out for $75.” 

Of course Grumpy DMV Guy didn’t tell me that. At this point, renewing my driver’s license has cost me a total of $462, what’s another $75?

The next morning, I went into the testing center and paid my $75, but they didn’t have an appointment available until the following afternoon. 

I am never getting my driver’s license renewed. 

When I returned the next day, the girl at the desk did not get the memo that I needed to use one of their cars for the test, and she had the last one out with another student for driver’s ed and told me that they would be gone for four hours.

I am seriously never getting my driver’s license renewed. 

I must have looked like I was about to cry because after explaining how I bought a car that I can’t bring home until I have a valid license, because mine was unknowingly suspended for an old unpaid ticket, she offered to let me use her personal car. While I admired the offer, I told her I couldn’t let her risk her job for that, and I would just have to come back the next day. I was frustrated and tired as I went to leave, another instructor pulled up with a car and I was able to complete my road test that afternoon.

I passed. I didn’t even care at that point if it was legit or out of sympathy. I walked into the DMV, slapped another $25 on the counter and was told I was not allowed to smile for the camera.

It’s fine. At that point, I didn’t want to smile anyway. 

This post was inspired by a prompt or theme from illuminate. This monthly membership was created by the editors of The Kindred Voice to encourage more people to write and share their stories.

forgiveness.

by

Today, Alissa started 7th grade. It was bittersweet for me. Not because of how quickly she’s growing, but because I have been fighting this feeling of failing her all summer long. 

Many of you know that running your own business is a lot of work and a lot of uncertainty. Especially financially. This summer was a major departure from last summer for us, where I had a steady paycheck and I didn’t have to say “no” to pretty much everything, or scrape change together so she could have an afternoon at the pool with friends. It’s been something that I’ve struggled a lot with this season. My business is officially only four months old and while I’ve enjoyed the freedom that working for myself has provided, I haven’t loved the spotty income. I know this is only temporary, but for all of my adult life, I’ve managed to tie my feelings of worthiness to the sum total in my bank account. 

We had big dreams for the summer. We were going to spend two months traveling and experiencing new things. We were going to find a new place to live and get Alissa a new dog. We were going to put together Alissa’s dream bedroom. We were going to do a lot of things. 

And I failed to deliver on every single one of them. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t afford to. And that killed me.

Last week, we went back to school shopping and Alissa had done a great job of getting the school supplies list organized so that we could find everything in the store easily because she knows just how much I loathe this necessary task. What she didn’t do, however, was take into account my limited budget when selecting her items.

When we started looking for the first item on her list–a box of markers–I noticed that she had chosen a set of $5.99 dual tip Crayolas and I panicked.

“Why do you need these markers?” I asked.

“Because then we don’t have to buy two sets of markers,” she replied. Her reasoning made sense, but not to my budget conscious brain.

“Well, two sets of markers at $0.99 each are still less than these fancy markers.”

“But then I have to have room for two sets of markers.”

She was great at justifying her selection. I was not great at being argued with. I said, “I can’t do this right now,” and left the cart with the lone pack of six dollar markers sitting in the middle of the aisle and walked out of the store. 

I was more upset that I actually had to care about the fact that I couldn’t afford six dollar markers than the fact that I was arguing with a 12-year-old in public about markers. A year ago, she could have had all the six dollar markers she wanted.

This is the first year that she didn’t get a completely new outfit for the first day of school. I had bought her a new pair of sneakers last month, but getting a new outfit just wasn’t in the budget this month. I feel like the world’s worst mom because I couldn’t do our usual back to school shopping ritual this year. 

I know, first world problems. 

But the funny thing is, as much as I know that she cares that she didn’t get a brand new backpack or a brand new outfit this year, she was far more forgiving of me than I have been with myself about it.

I have been beating myself up for weeks because my business is still a little groundling and I’ve used up what little nest egg (aka our travel fund) I had been subsisting on to get us by. The child support that I was finally awarded back in March has been coming in so inconsistently, I have had to stop adding it to the budget. I feel like I’m failing my daughter, but I realized that I’m not. I’m actually showing her what it looks like to chase your dreams with unwavering confidence. 

When she’s older, I hope that she’ll look back on this time of struggle as a positive stepping stone. One where she saw her mother commit to something so fiercely that she beams with pride when she tells others about it. 

I’m learning to forgive myself for making the choice to start a business instead of finding a new job. Although this summer lacked the paycheck and the travel that I had anticipated, it did allow me to spend so many days with Alissa, and that time will be cherished forever. 

This post was inspired by a prompt or theme from illuminate. This monthly membership was created by the editors of The Kindred Voice to encourage more people to write and share their stories.

the slob.

by

I pulled a pair of dirty underwear out of the crease of the couch this morning. You would think that it surprised me, but it didn’t. It’s starting to feel obnoxiously normal these days.

  • messy-room
  • cluttered dresser

My 12-year-old daughter is a total slob. Last week, she spent hours looking for her favorite pair of shorts only for me to discover a few days later that they had been swallowed by the same chasm the dirty underwear came from. I’m scared to think of what else is in there.

Although she successfully rearranged all of the furniture in her room by herself last month, I haven’t actually seen the carpet since sometime around Christmas when she bought a new rug on Amazon. I have no idea if the rug is even still in there.  

She spent the night at a friend’s house the other night, and when I went into her room to feed her fish, I’m not sure of what I stepped on in the four-foot path from the door to where the tank is. As far as I know, nothing that crunched under my feet was alive at any time. The jury is still out on that one.

After I fed the fish (whom we’ve had for six weeks now and we are both amazed she is still alive), I took a glance around the disaster that is her bedroom and spied a heap of dirty tissues crowding the floor, next to the empty wastebasket. I scooped up the tissues, only to find them intermingled with a few smelly, crusty socks. These socks were only a mere foot away from the laundry hamper, which, instead of being filled with dirty laundry, is filled with an electronics graveyard and some other random things. The dirty laundry is currently hanging out with the pile of clean laundry, still with creases in it, on the floor.

On the other side of the bed a dried-out disc of fluffy slime caught my eye, clearly forgotten in the middle of play. I tossed it in the trash can, thankful that this blob wasn’t stuck in the carpet like the last one and spied a can of Pringles laying under the folds of a blanket. I picked it up, expecting it to be empty and was surprised to find a brand-new can, just cracked with only a few chips missing. I was shocked not to find an army of ants teeming from it.

I could have spent more time in there, but then I might not be here to write this post.

When she got home later in the evening, I told her that her room was disgusting and that she needed to clean it up. Her response was probably the most shocking of the whole ordeal–“It’s really not that dirty.” And then she launched into several examples of why my perception was inaccurate. Her explanation of why the tissues didn’t make it into the basket was because she had forgotten to put a bag in it. So, rather than getting a bag and throwing away her things appropriately, she decided to toss them on the floor. 

This coming from the kid who brought out a coffee mug that was growing a layer of mold with the remnants inside the day prior and now refuses to drink from it again, even though it’s been washed.

I’m not the tidiest of people, I’ll admit, but when I’m offended by her slovenly ways, I think that says something. I’m not exactly sure how to remedy this situation. I mentioned the article I read online the other day about the habits of tidy people, hoping that would instill something in her, but she kind of looked at me with a blank stare and continued on with whatever she was doing.

I’ve considered taking to the public shaming my friend did once last year by posting the photos of her room on social media. Somehow, I think all that will get me is a few comments in support of my dilemma.

I remember just a few years ago, being grateful that I wasn’t the mom of a boy. Boys are gross and disgusting. Boys smell and sweat. And boys of this age leave sticky things laying around that I don’t even want to touch.

Turns out, girls are just as bad.

This post was inspired by a prompt or theme from illuminate. This monthly membership was created by the editors of The Kindred Voice to encourage more people to write and share their stories.

on writing.

by

writing-computerI learned a hard lesson a couple of months ago. It’s one that I teach clients about all the time.

Back. Up. Your. Files.

I wish I had listened to my own advice.

Upon learning at the beginning of June that my site hosting had expired and I missed the reactivation window by a mere 48 hours, I lost all of the work that I had created since September. ALL. OF. IT.

Which led to a bit of panic, devastation and some rage. At the end of May, I had written what was probably my most vulnerable writing and published it the week prior to getting unplugged. I was scared shitless to put it out there, but once I did, I felt amazing. I was proud of that work, and when I put it out there and received some really incredible support from my writing community, I felt validated. I felt good. 

And as quickly as I put it out there, it was gone. Poof. As if it had never happened.

(Another lesson learned: Don’t write posts directly into WordPress, in the event that you did not recently back up your site and lose everything you’ve written for six months. This is a lesson that I am flying in the face of as I write this.)

But what this little bump in my blog’s 15 year road really taught me is this – even though those words I wrote back in May may be gone forever, I got that story out of me. I owned it, and I shared it. It may now be a ghost, and maybe only a few people saw it, but whether or not people read what I write is not the point. I may attempt to rewrite what was lost, or I may let that story die among the binary code of the interwebs. I don’t know yet.

Funnily enough, in the two months that my blog has been down, I used that as an excuse not to write. I thought if I didn’t have a place to publish what I was writing, it wasn’t worth doing. Although I’ve had stories to share, I’ve pushed that desire aside because of the lame excuse that my blog was down and I didn’t have the time or patience to restore it.

But the truth is, I miss writing. I love writing. I never considered myself much of a writer, but my very best friend always tells me how much she loves reading even the emails I send because she loves the way I write. I write because I love to share stories and that makes me a writer.

This morning at the library, I picked up a copy of Creative Confidence. It happened to be on the same shelf as several other business books I grabbed while I was there, but I cracked it open and started reading. The message of the book is that we are all born with creativity, it is an inherent part of human nature. We just need to overcome the idea that we are not creative.

It’s that way with writing too. I just need to remember that so that I can find the motivation to continue to share the stories I hold within.

This post was inspired by a prompt or theme from illuminate. This monthly membership was created by the editors of The Kindred Voice to encourage more people to write and share their stories.

{book club read} her body and other parties.

by

her-body-and-other-parties

This month’s book club selection can only be described in one word:

Weird.

Jenny warned me, but I don’t think that her comment, “just so you know, this one is weeeeeeeird,” as I picked up my copy from her could have adequately prepared me for the level of oddity this book maintained throughout.

I guess I should have listened more closely when our book concierge at BookBar told us about the science fiction/fantasy bits. I’ve never really done well with either of those genres. I guess I’m just too much or a realist.

It also had a whole lot of sex that I wasn’t expecting. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t realize how uncomfortable reading about sex feels to me (and I drudged through the entire 50 Shades of Gray series).

There were a couple of stories that I really enjoyed, however. Stop reading if you don’t want any details of what happens in some of these stories.

“The Resident” was a good one where this writer ends up in the mountains at an old hotel that reminds me of The Stanley Hotel (along with the creepy overtones of crazy shit about to go down at any moment). Although I still want to know about the boils on her body.

Strangely, I also liked “Real Women Have Bodies”. Although I expected it to be more about how we should appreciate women with curves, I rather delighted in the idea that women are fading out of visibility, but continue to exist by being sown into beautiful ball gowns. Personally, I feel like women are far from fading, but the commentary on our role in society was apt.

I did not like “Especially Heinous.” It was boring as shit. But it did make me want to watch Law & Order: SVU. So there’s that.

Also, “The Husband Stitch” was a little predictable – yep, her head falls off.

 

being present.

by

phone-addictionIt’s no secret that we are on our phones way too much. I mean, they have become an additional appendage practically. We have them in our hands constantly, and when they aren’t, they are within arm’s reach. But have we stopped to think what message we are sending to those we choose to spend time IRL with when we can’t put down our phones?

You aren’t as important to me as whatever is on the other side of this device.

Ouch.

When my daughter said to me for the first time, “I swear your phone is more important to you than I am.” It hurt. Deep. She was five. And while I know that’s not even remotely true, that’s what she receives from me when I have my nose in my phone while we are spending time together. And we both do it now–I honestly can’t remember the last time we enjoyed a show together and neither of us had our noses in our phones simultaneously.

This summer, I attended a friend’s wedding and made a conscious decision to leave my phone in my purse for the night and enjoy the evening. I pulled it out for a couple of quick snaps of my kiddo, because she looked absolutely stunning that evening, but for the majority of the night, my phone was tucked away.

A few days afterward, she posted a request on Facebook that her guests share their photos from the night, and my first reaction was guilt.

“OMG. I don’t have any photos to share! I’m a horrible friend!” I felt so bad that I made the choice to focus on enjoying the company of other guests and celebrating my friends that I didn’t have any physical memories to share with the couple later.

I bathed in that guilt for days until the bride told me that of all the nice things she’d heard about what her guests enjoyed about the wedding, meeting me was among the top responses. Because I chose to show up and be present, I may not have left any physical memory of the night, but I helped to provide good memories for those that I got to know that night.

You see, I showed up that night not knowing anyone but the bride and groom (and my daughter). I could certainly have stayed in a corner on my phone, distracted by the world away from where I was. But I chose to be present and enjoy the company I was with. To engage with other guests and incite conversation. That night will be a memory that I cherish for a long time.

 

teaching our girls to become strong women.

by

ea20.jpgI’m going to throw a non-humble mom brag out there. My daughter is awesome in so many ways, I can’t even count. She started traveling alone at the age of 8. She plays flag football. She’s a leader in her school’s Kindness Club. She does Lego robotics. When I tell her to do something constructive, she builds a website or starts a YouTube channel. She has her own debit card and is more responsible with her money than I am. And even though some challenges are met with tears and frustration, she doesn’t seem to realize that many of them seem to come as easily to her as breathing.

I enjoy watching her, mostly because I look at this little human being that I created with complete and utter awe. Mostly because I wish I had been the girl that she is at her age.

A few weeks ago, I took my now 11-year-old to a girls’ craft & create night. I ran into a friend I haven’t seen in awhile, and after I greeted her with a hug, my daughter formally introduced herself, handshake and all, to my friend. It was a seemingly normal event in my book, as my daughter regularly interacts with adults in such a manner. Yet my friend was completely taken aback.

“Oh my gosh, she’s amazing! I have never seen a child her age interact with a complete stranger with such confidence!” my friend exclaimed. A new mom herself, my friend expressed her desire that her daughter would some day be the same way. I couldn’t exactly tell her how to do it, because even I wasn’t so sure how my kiddo found her charisma.

It’s taken a lot of interactions that resulted in responses like this to realize that my kiddo isn’t normal—in a totally good and amazing way. It got me thinking about how the heck she became such a strong and independent young woman at such a young age.

I realized that strong women aren’t born. They are made. But when I think of what it takes to have the kind of tenacity and resilience that makes us strong, I think of overcoming failure, heartbreak, and trauma. All of my favorite women of history have their moments where they overcame adversity to find their strength. It’s the classic hero storyline.While my daughter has certainly experienced some pain in her young life, I couldn’t place a finger on where this Wonder Woman personality came from. And then a friend told me, “you taught it to her.”

Um. What?

It took 30 years of my life, a painful divorce, an accidental pregnancy, and literally losing just about everything I own to be the woman I am today. What on earth could I have possibly taught my young child about being a strong girl? Could it be possible that I showed my child how to be strong without having to overcome a mountain of pain?

Our girls are constantly looking to us to teach them, even when they aren’t expressly asking for a lesson. They learn by watching…

They watch us criticize that extra bit of belly flab we can’t seem to get rid of.

They watch us with our noses in our phones, interacting with Facebook instead of them.

They watch us worry incessantly over whether or not we’re doing this mom thing right.

They watch us overcome challenges with dignity (and also the ones where we fall flat on our face).

All the times that my daughter watched me scrape change together for bus fare, or celebrated with me for landing my dream job, or sat with me while I cried over my parents’ divorce, she learned what it takes to be strong. She learned that failure is okay and always comes with a lesson. It’s what we do with that lesson that matters. She learned that there will always be critics, but as long as we believe in ourselves, no one can take away who we are. She learned that no pain is permanent, but the emotional scars we carry gave us our character. She learned that forgiveness can be the hardest thing in the world to do, especially when the person we need to forgive is ourselves.

We really can teach our daughters how to ignite their inner strength without having to overcome adversity to learn it. What’s amazing is that by doing that, they’ll be more prepared to handle it when life throws them heartache and defeat. And then our girls will rise up and be strong.

This post was originally written for Holl & Lane Magazine.

stuff your sorries in a sack.

by

We apologize too much. And I mean waaaaay too much.  As women, we are even worse than men. We apologize for everything. And most of the time, we don’t even realize we are doing it. How often do you find yourself doing any of these things?

“Oops! Sorry!”

You just bumped into someone in the grocery store by accident. Or maybe you didn’t even bump into them, you just needed to pass in front of their line of sight while they’re stopped in front of something, or your cart is hogging up the aisle and you move it to let someone pass. Regardless of what’s going down, you didn’t do anything wrong, but you need to show that you acknowledge that you are unintentionally in someone else’s way. The words just come tumbling out of your mouth like a reflex.

No. Just stop, okay?

The proper response is, “Excuse me.” When did we stop using our perfectly good manners and start feeling guilty for something that is a normal part of everyday life?

Now, if you have a toddler that is doing donuts around someone’s ankles and they end up dropping the custom sheet cake on the floor, it’s absolutely okay to apologize.

 “Sorry I am late to respond. {Cue completely legit reason}.”

As one of my favorite systems administrators says, “there is no such thing as an urgent email.” I would say that sentiment also extends to texts/social media posts.  We’ve created a norm of always always available, instant gratification laden heavily with an expectation that all conform.

In an effort to be more productive at work (because there is no such thing as multitasking), I’ve turned off the email notification that pops up in the corner of my screen. I’ve turned off most of the notifications on my phone as well. I check my email/Facebook/Instagram on my own time and respond accordingly. It’s a regular occurrence that someone at work IM’s me moments after sending me an email with the question, “did you see my email?!?!” and then proceeds to be flabbergasted when I said I hadn’t yet. Unless the communication is of extremely urgent nature, it’s okay not to respond right away.  If you need an immediate response, pick up the phone.

Otherwise, simply responding is good. You can always throw in, “what a crazy day it’s been!” to explain your delay without apologizing.

Realistically, you don’t need to justify your reason for being slow to respond. If you haven’t responded yet, I’ll assume that you’re busy and will get back to me later. Or if you’re my sister, I know that you probably have your nose buried in homework and you may or may not ever get back to me until the next time I reach out. And that’s OK!

“Sorry, I didn’t know…”

The scenario—you invite friends over for dinner and one of the guests doesn’t like something you worked hard to prepare. Your response: “Sorry, I didn’t know about your dietary restrictions.” Or, even worse, “I didn’t know you were allergic!”

No. Just. No.

As a mother, I do my due diligence to ask the parents of my daughter’s friends if I have any allergy needs to worry about. I ask this from a first aid perspective more so than a culinary aspect.  That said, if I know that you’re allergic to nuts, I’m not going to serve you a Thai curry with peanut sauce.

You don’t need to apologize for not knowing something that you shouldn’t be expected to know. Really. I promise. A better response is, “Oh, I wish I had known!” and then you can decide if you want to offer an alternative to your guest.

If you are invited to eat at someone’s house and you have dietary needs, it’s your responsibility to communicate that to your host, without the expectation that they accommodate you. I have a friend that is on a very strict diet and she makes no shame in bringing her own food, just in case the host is serving something she’s not able to eat.

“I’m sorry. What I meant was…”

When someone disagrees with an opinion we present, we are quick to adjust our position to avoid the conflict.  Why do we do this?

I’m sure it stems from the new social norm that we’ve created with our uber political correctness that we are deathly afraid of offending someone and/or we do our darndest to please others and fit in. We appear to be overly polite with one another, even though as a society, we are less kind and empathetic.  We seem to have lost the importance of staying true to ourselves, first and foremost (probably because we’ve been conditioned to believe that is selfish, instead of a way to practice self-care, but I digress.) But there is a core difference between calling an Asian person “Oriental” and saying that we don’t prefer to eat sushi. And yet, we’ve managed to pull these two very different mindsets into the same categorical level of offensiveness that is worthy of apology.

The words “I’m sorry” have become so overused that they have become virtually meaningless. We’ve even gotten accustomed to apologizing for not feeling sorry about something (#sorrynotsorry)!  Are we really apologizing for these things?

I don’t think we are. Because we’re not sorry.

I really hope not, anyway.

So why have we been conditioned to apologize so much?

I think what it really boils down to is shame. We are SO good at shaming each other and feeling shamed. It’s so prevalent in our society that one of my favorite social experts, Brene Brown, has dedicated her life’s research to shame and why we feel it. We have failed to own our stories, and instead, in our great pursuit of acceptance, we are quick to apologize for who we are, lest we be judged by others.

I’m going to challenge you to put out a “sorry jar” and start dropping a quarter in it every time you apologize for something you shouldn’t. At the end of the month, you’ll probably be able to take yourself out to a nice dinner, or get some new shoes. Let’s make a conscious movement to save our sorries for when they are really necessary.

unicorns and rainbows and marketing genius.

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Yes. I know. I’m late to the party. Like, way late. Story of my life, actually. I’m not just the one that shows up fashionably late, I show up late enough that I know darn well I probably missed the highlight of the night.

Unless the party has drag queens, then I’m totally the first in line.

Also, my tardiness problem is considerably ironic, given that I tend to be an early-adopter on pretty much everything else. Gmail, Facebook, Pinterest, Ello? Yep, I got in on all of those when they were still invite-only. (What’s Ello, you say? Yeah, it never really took off, but they seem to still have a pulse. That’s cool.) So I do like being the first. For sure. I think it’s part of my first-born nature. Always the leader. Except sometimes, like now, when I’m talking about something that happened a month ago and pretty much everyone except for Wishbone has all but forgotten it.

Which, if you want to talk about the culinary abomination that was the Unicorn Frappuccino, that’s probably a good thing. But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about the marketing brilliance that made baristas across the country loathe their little blenders for a solid week.

You see, Starbucks is kind of brilliant in the way that not only do they pay attention to what their audience loves, they actually do a great job of responding to it. Why else do you think that in addition to a cup of coffee, you can get a variety of teas and shakes, have a virtual workspace with free wi-fi, and pull those bumpin’ beats into a Spotify playlist? Starbucks really knows their customer. Whether you’re a Lululemon-wearing soccer mom, a business exec, or a teenager grabbing a break between algebra and bio class, they have something for you.

And so they watched as the Millennials and Gen Z’s obsession with unicorns—from unicorn hair to unicorn decor—rose, all in the name of expressing their uniqueness among the masses. (Don’t get me started on the irony of going so headstrong into being an individual that you jump onto a uniqueness bandwagon.)

And they joined the masses.

Brilliantly.

The first rule about guerilla marketing campaigns is you do not talk about guerilla marketing campaigns. The second rule about guerilla marketing campaigns is you do not talk about guerilla marketing campaigns. So the cute little intern, sitting in the product development meeting, frantically taking notes (and by taking notes, I mean SnapChatting her besties), hears about this new drink that is sure to please the masses.

“OMG. We are totally going to make a unicorn drink! FTW! Shh. Don’t tell anyone.”

Becomes the secret whispers and speculation among friends.

“So I heard this rumor that Starbucks is making a unicorn drink. Is that really a thing?”

And then the badass peeps at Mashable get wind of it and they need to know, is this fake news, or is this a thing?

“OMG. It is a thing. And it’s limited. And it’s going to be released on Eunice’s birthday eve, how perfect!” Okay, so maybe I’m lying about the fact that they picked April 19th in early celebration of me, but still. They honed in on some serious economic gold—the phrase of scarcity, “LIMITED EDITION.”

And the masses hoarded to Starbucks on April 19th in hopes that they would be among the small (and by small I mean the entire Starbucks culture of a few million people) to experience the magic and blow up social media with photos and reactions as if they just received an invitation to take the next shuttle to the International Space Station. Which opened up a divide between the likes and dislikes of the actual product, along with hilarious memes and the healthy-minded weighing in on the sugar content. The Internet(s) were abuzz with unicorn madness

Loved it (weirdo) or hated it, Starbucks clearly gets the gold star for winning that campaign. They made a ton of money, a crappy product, and got tons of free publicity. They are my viral marketing heroes.

the ever-loving impostor syndrome.

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I’ve spoken to a couple of different friends recently about the impostor syndrome—you know, the one where you feel like you’re failing at meeting your own impossible standards and everyone is going to see you for the fraud that you aren’t? Yeah. I know it. I know it well. I started young and we’re practically besties because we have a chat every single day. It usually goes something like this:

“Who are you to make such a bold assertion in this meeting? You’ve only been practicing marketing for like 10 years. Your degree isn’t even in marketing. You know this. I know this. And even though you delivered that with all the confidence in the world, they know this.”

Sigh. “You’re right.  I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I’m probably going to get fired when they realize what a fraud I am.”

“What in the bloody hell?!?! You do realize that you were promoted into this position precisely because of your knowledge and expertise. You are a smart, strong and capable woman and your colleagues respect the hell out of you.”

And so it goes. Funnily enough, because I’ve shared this same conversation with so many of my similarly educated, experienced, and frankly, bad-assed peeps, I know I’m not alone. And I’ve observed a very obvious thread with all of us.

I previously worked with a woman who was so overly confident in herself but in reality, was grossly incompetent in both her job and among industry peers. She was all pomp & circumstance with no substance. What was funny is that everyone could see her incompetence but her. She truly loved by the mantra, “fake it till you make it,” but never actually made it. In fact, I don’t think she ever even made the attempt to make it. We all smiled while she clung tightly to the accolades the rest of us earned. She needed it; we didn’t. We knew, deep down, the value of our own worth. Despite the fact that we both held leadership roles within the company, how did I know that we weren’t the same? How was I able to recognize the impostor in her and still think I was one too?

I tend to think that those of us that are not true impostors, but constantly struggle with impostor syndrome carry a few of the same traits:

  1. We are willing to be vulnerable. Usually, when you get into the cycle of self-doubt, you’ll reach out to someone to have your freak out moment. You ask for feedback. You can admit that you don’t have an answer. True imposters rely on their faux confidence to carry them through. They don’t ask for help because they don’t think they need it.
  2. We are willing to fail. When you’ve accepted that no one is perfect and mistakes allow room for growth, the idea of failing is exhilarating instead of scary. We wear our scars like badges of honor and we aren’t afraid to take a hard step back and re-evaluate our journey before moving forward. True imposters cower at the idea of failure and will either sweep their mistakes under the rug or leave them on someone else’s doorstep.
  3. We struggle with accepting praise. Humility is a core trait for those of us who struggle with impostor syndrome. When commended for a job well done, we tend to minimize our contribution or highlight everything that wasn’t perfect. What we don’t realize is that no one cares. Accept the compliment. Move on to the next thing. True impostors not only thrive on praise, but they are willing to accept accolades that don’t belong to them.
  4. Mistakes are crippling to us. Somehow, even the smallest mistake or oversight is magnified to epic proportions. Not only that, but we can allow the smallest infraction to invalidate our whole being. “Oh my gosh, I forgot to put a comma there! Why did they ever give me a bachelor’s degree in college?” True impostors likely didn’t even notice the mistake. And it was probably huge.

Chances are, we’ve all had these moments of feeling less than. Whether it’s at work, or in motherhood, or when you just can’t quite nail that crane in yoga, whenever we wade into territory that is familiar with a little bit of newness, the doubt creeps in and the impostor pipes up. Lean in to that resistance and remember, “You is smart. You is kind. You is important.” ~ Aibileen, The Help