The post mortem

It's 1:57 am. I'm so tired. It's been a rough week for sleeping. I need hope in a dark world right now. I'm lying awake in my room and I hear my son cry. That sound is usually followed by a sense of anxiety or frustration. I know all he wants is his way. But I'm already awake. And I'm lonely and scared and Terrance is out of town so I go to him. I ask him what's wrong and his raspy, half asleep voice explains that a giant spider was just in his bed. I remind myself to take down the Halloween decorations and to stop screaming when I see spiders in the house.  I gather him in my arms and hold him. I need something good in my life. "Wanna snuggle yah bed" he begs. I let him sleep with me. I look at him as he drifts to sleep. He flops over and nuzzles his head into the crook of my arm. I lean down and kiss his head and the smell of his childhood innocence is intoxicating and tears well up in my eyes. I need his innocence again. I need the hope back. And then the responsibility I feel to raise him to be a good person weighs on me so much I almost suffocate under it. And then he sighs a contented sigh and I squeeze him a bit and let my face fall into his hair and that smell is there and I finally drift off. He's my hope. I need to sleep so I can get up tomorrow and raise him to be the kind of person that wants to tear down walls, not build them. 

Thoughts on the 2016 Presidential Election

You just elected a man who is the face of a world where if your daughter gets raped, it was probably her fault because her skirt was too short. You have to look her in the eye and explain why an unprepared, underqualified man gets chosen for a job over her because his hate speech resonated with angry people who have had to sit through a powerful Black man telling them what to do for 8 years. That no matter what she does on her own, her husband's actions will always be more important to talk about than her own. 

There's a lot of rhetoric coming out of the right about how the left is being worse than anything Trump did. This is the problem. Because if you truly believe that, you're only hearing what you want to. You ignored the parts where he incited violence because you didn't like Hillary. You ignored the parts where he advocated for sexually assaulting women because he has more money than them. When he objectified his own daughter and only wouldn't date her because of those pesky, cross-cutting social norms society has embraced that make it wrong to find your offspring sexually attractive.

I absolutely understand that the email issue is about more than just the emails, that it was a symptom, for you, of maybe something worse. But I'm still grappling with how you let a "maybe" outweigh a blatant disregard for so much of this country and the people that make it great. 

There have been rallying cries on both sides to unify. I'm trying. That will probably be easier to do when I'm well rested. When I stop waking up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep because the country which I love so fiercely elected a man who causes terror in the hearts of so many people I love. When I get physically sick thinking about what this means for climate change. When I can't quiet the gnawing voice in the back of my subconscious that tells me that he was elected because she is a woman that doesn't subscribe to your expectations of how a lady should act.  

I can't get behind the #notmypresident movement because it goes against my belief in our country and what it could stand for. I won't riot in the streets. I certainly won't burn a flag. What I'll be is fearful that what's about to happen will irreparably impact a world that my son has to inherit. That so many people that I walk amongst on a daily basis didn't think racism and misogyny and xenophobia were big enough reasons to not vote for someone.

9/11 is a tough day for me.

 I had no more a connection to the attacks than the next person; I didn’t know anyone who died personally. I had been to the Twin Towers just once, and it had already become a memory that existed simply because people told me I had done it. None of that matters, of course. The point was to hurt us all. And it did hurt me.

Life can be now divided for so many of us into before and after. So much of the ramifications permeate our daily lives that it’s hard to remember the before.

It was my junior year in Wilmington. I was the last one to leave that day. I was standing in the kitchen of our house on Chestnut Street, watching Good Morning America while I ate a bowl of cereal before class. The sky in New York was so blue.  Charlie Gibson reported that there had been an accident, that a plane had crashed into the twin towers. It was all so innocent. There was not anxiety, no pretense. Just reporting a weird occurrence. The pilot must have had a heart attack. The plane malfunctioned.  They cut to the Towers about 30 seconds before the second plane hit.  I dropped my spoon and it bounced on the floor as the anchors came to the realization that we were under attack.

I spent the next week on the couch, obsessing over the coverage.  Calling everyone I know to tell them I love them.  Wondering how this could happen. How could people hate so much? We were all a little hardened that day.  In the after, life is less innocent.  

14 years since 9/11 and I can’t really talk about it without crying. As I type these words, my eyes have welled up with tears. It’s a different world, the after. 

I no longer have a baby. I have a toddler.

Let me let that sink in.

As of 2:57PM today, he has been on this earth for 8765.81 hours. Today is cause for celebration. Logan is ONE! How did that happen? Watching him grow is amazing. I’m so happy he’s healthy. He’s walking and talking and barking at the dogs. He laughs at hilarious things, like dancing. He cries at tragic things, like being left in his crib so I can shower in the morning. He’s becoming a little person, and for that I am grateful. But also, a little sad.

Let me be clear. Having an infant was work. The hard times were harder than I could have ever prepared myself for. It was a year spent wondering if I was doing it right. If he was OK. Why he wasn’t rolling over or standing or eating or sleeping exactly how the book said he would. It was a year of sleepless nights. Of early mornings. Of feeling like I was failing, But occasionally of feeling like I was doing OK. All in all, the good moments outshine the bad. The stress of a night filled with hours of screaming was simply eliminated with a smile. The fits of despair that came from trying to feed him with a spoon melted away during a snuggle filled nursing session.

Before I was a mother, I would have secretly judged the kind of mother I am. I breastfed, even though it caused me pain. I would be a stay at home mom if I could. I coslept because it was the difference between sleep and no sleep. I wasn’t ready to leave him for a night at 6 months. I refuse to go to the gym because I can't leave him in day care for another hour every day. I’ve let motherhood consume every facet of my life. And you know what, I’m not even sorry. I would not change any of it. He’s a baby for the blink of an eye.  

Even with all of the work that went into keeping my little person alive over the past year, I loved it. I loved even the hard moments. I know that I will love what’s yet to come. I know he’s entering a fun stage. But part of me already misses my baby.

Bittersweet is the label I would give today.

Happy Birthday to my Mr. Buggles, my Logi Bear, my Poopers, my Logan.  

Goal updates

In the interest of full disclosure and accountability, I'm going to try and update goals once a week-ish. Hopefully, that will make me blog more, and then my blog will take off and it will be more of like a "lifestyle website" with recipes and upcycling and crafts and clothes and stuff. Kind of like Blake Lively's Preserve or Lauren Conrad's site. You know, I could be more of a lifestyle brand.
Because I'm the same as them.
Just without the looks, money, or purpose.

Yet.

Back to the business at hand. Goals.

1. I weigh a lot

So, I didn't weigh myself before I set my weight loss goal. I weighed myself last week. I was a little saddened by the number that looking back at me. I'm not happy, but OK with it for now. If my career in health assessment has taught me anything, it's that you need baseline to set a goal because you need to know what you have to improve on. I have a lot of room for growth (or loss, as it were). 

I'm trying to work on this. I've been very consistent with my 3:00 work break workouts. The problem is they only last about 5 minutes. Nobody's losing weight on 5 minutes of activity a day. So I'm trying to add more in. Today, I took the opportunity to walk to work in the freezing cold and I used my lunch break to do a 20 minute workout. Little tip for you new moms out there - jumping jacks are tough when you have pelvic floor dysfunction. If you want to start this program at your office, I recommend a change of clothes. ALL of them. And I'll still do our workout at 3.

My office workout for today. The title of the picture is " WANT THIS BODY?"
Why yes, yes I do. 

I made myself promise that I would drink more water. And I have - I'm down to a can of diet coke a day (you might have heard of their stock crashing recently because they lost their biggest buyer). I'm probably getting 80-90 ounces of water a day in. 

I'm pretending the elevator is out of service. Even if I really want to take it. 

I can't quit the candy. I just can't. Maybe if I master the workouts and the water and the elevators, maybe then. But I need something. 

So, all in all, I'm satisfied with my efforts. My next weigh in should let me know if I should be, or if I'm sitting on a throne of lies. 

2. My wallet does not weigh a lot

I've done the worst with this resolution. 1 week in and I'm already a failure. I have excuses, most of them sound something like "I packed my lunch but didn't have time to eat breakfast so I ate my lunch for breakfast and now it's 9am and I'm starving so I have to go buy lunch and 45 snacks since I'm doing these 5 minute workouts so I have to refuel." This week has been better than last. Next week will be better than this week. 

On a positive money note, the tenants in our NC house let us know that the roof was leaking and we thought there was an issue with the furnace at our new place, one of which was free to fix and the other was less than $20, so I'd like to get credit for thousands of dollars saved on home repairs if I could. 

Terrance did find out that he's getting a bonus at work, which we'll hopefully use to pay down some stuff and do some improvements on the house that we need. That will be nice. 

Overall, I'd give myself a C on this one. 

3. Purposely purposeful 

This one is going pretty great. On a lark, I applied for a job at Harvard.  They called me for an interview. NBD. Harvard University. The one in Cambridge, MA. John Kennedy's HARVARD. So maybe someday, someone somewhere will utter the phrase, "oh, you know Kelly? The one from Harvard?" Or I'll be hanging out with my new friends on The Cape and we'll be all like "I know the 18 foot sailboat is the better choice, but I really like that yacht" or something. In reality, I did some digging and the salary would make it tough to accept if they offer me the bottom of the range, I'll need to negotiate quite a bit. I kind of have to decide if taking a hit on goal 2 is worth achieving goal 3. And that's if I get an offer. I fully understand that there is not a large enough font for the weight of that if. But for a little bit, things are better. In the words of Joseph Addison, "three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." 

I have the something to love, and now I have the something to hope for in my goal of something to do. 

So there we have it. Not so bad for the first of the year, especially since winter finally arrived. (See below)

so. cold. 

My walk to work this morning. 

GOAL 3: What do I want to be when I grow up?

The third and final stop on the Kelly Bragg #2015newyearnewyou express is to figure out what I'm doing with my life. In the past year, the following phrases have come out of my mouth:

- I think I'm going to go back to school for an MPP
- I think I'm going to go back to school for a PhD
- I want to be a health policy analyst for a non profit or an NGO
- I want to be a Real Housewife
- I'm going to look into the DO program at OU
- The MCATs seem hard
- The CDC is hiring ebola workers, that sounds fun
- I thought about law school for when Logan goes to school, but maybe I'll try hair school instead
- I really bombed that LSAT practice test
- Hair school is $30,000 for 13 months
- Kris Jenner is brilliant.
- Maybe I should try art school.
- Or event planning.
- Or interior design.
- Or industrial design.
- But Terrance, public health does make me happy.

That last one came as part of a conversation that Terrance and I were having about me looking for other jobs and he very earnestly, without a hint of irony, said "have you ever considered doing something that makes you happy?" I assured him that I like public health. He quickly replied that I've never seemed like it. THat I seemed most happy planning parties and showers. These things have always been hobbies for me. Hobbies I enjoy and that I'm good at. But as a career? I really do like public health/health education. I believe in the public health system and what it does. I think it's unbelievably valuable to society. Which is, perhaps, why I get so disgruntled. I don't feel like what I do impacts anyone.

Because the purpose of this is to discuss the future, not the past, I won't elaborate on where I've been. Just believe me that I've been underutilized.

So what is the resolution here? To get a new job? Maybe. To switch careers if I need to to be happy? Possibly. I think it's more to figure out which one of those makes the most sense for me. How am I going to go about that? Here's the loophole for this one - the resolution is actually to figure out what I'm doing, not actually do it. So I have some time, but I have some ideas. To be successful with this resolution, I'm going to:
- continue applying for new jobs. I'm going to try for 1 a week. My rule for new jobs is that I have to apply for jobs that I never would have before. As long as I feel like i could do a good job, I'm applying, regardless of if I meet every requirement. I also need the job to pay a set amount, based on where it is.
-explore other career options. How do I become an event planner? Look into courses on interior design. Sign up for the LSATs. Something, once a month that gives me the opportunity to explore the world beyond my comfort zone

Hopefully, if I do these things, by 2016 I'll be either ridiculously happy, ridiculously wealthy, or both. I'm hoping for that third one.


So there you have it: lose weight, lose debt, and gain purpose. Those are my goals for 2015. They are all challenging in their own way. I don't realistically think that I'll achieve all 3... but wouldn't it be a trip if I did?

GOAL 2: Money

I've got Dom Perignon tastes on a Bartles & James budget. 

The overindulgence that I spoke of yesterday extends beyond just food, it also applies to purchasing things. 
Everything from shoes to baking supplies to, unfortunately, houses. I have made a life of buying things which I can't afford and I've often blamed my low wages on my nonexistent bank account balance, but the truth is that my personal lack of control is more to blame than the fact that I'm underpaid (I will always maintain that I should be earning more, but hopefully resolution 3 will take care of that. And really, you are supposed to live within your means. It's dress for the job you want, not spend that way, Kelly). Terrance and I had a discussion the other day we're both tired of the way we live. We want to be more in control of things. I read a story years ago about a couple that went one year without buying anything they didn't need. They bought food only at the grocery store - no trips out to eat. They checked out books and movies from the library - no cable, no Barnes and Noble, no movies. No vacations, weekend trips, day trips or trips to the mall. They didn't spend anything they didn't need to. This sounds like a boring life, but they were also able to pay off a substantial amount of debt by the end of the year by only doing that. And, as an added bonus, they were happier because they learned to live on only what they needed and not what they wanted. They appreciated everything around them so much more. They tried new foods, they just cooked themselves.These are values I wish to install in Logan. It's important to me that he understand how important it is to be smart with your money. So starting in January, we are going to try to go 12 months.

Three hundred and sixty five days of conscious minimalism. It will be hard. I am frugal. I buy clearance shoes. I just buy a lot of them. I will make lists and set budgets and clip coupons. I will do this. I'm not willing to put my debt out there. Between the two mortgages, car payments, student debt, and Visa, it's a lot. I don't plan on being debt free by 2016. But I'd like my debt to shrink. 

(I'd like to at least be rid of Visa. That bitch is annoying.)