Lee Skallerup

There's a song that I love, a song I don't even know how it ended up in my orbit, on my phone. It was probably in a commercial or tv show or movie and we found out what it was called and downloaded it immediately

For too many years, I beat myself up because I couldn't get organized, couldn't stop "hoarding", couldn't stop buying, couldn't stop anything. I understand some people care; a male acquaintance once came over to our house for a dinner my husband organized the same weekend I was coaching at a meet, and I had warned my husband that any cleaning would be up to him, but that wasn't good enough for said acquaintance who called another mutual friend after leaving our house and eating our food to complain about how messy I was. Telling him no YouTube or XBox until his stuff is put away does nothing because he literally doesn't remember that his stuff is or isn't put away, or that there is even any stuff at all. Their bags look like my bags and their rooms look like my room used to, and as much as I enjoy listening to my daughter and husband fight over where things should go in her room, in terms of where it makes the most sense, most of the time, I get that, well, in their minds, that is in fact where it goes, no matter how nonsensical to us, because that is where it makes sense to them.

I still felt vaguely bad about the month break and that what I did accomplish in 2018 wasn't enough, feelings left over from being in academia for so long that any time not spent writing is time wasted and potentially career-killing, but I've already killed my career, so what does it matter? I finished two manuscripts that I thought were good enough, but they aren't, and that stung, and I've revised and revised and revised and they still aren't good enough, but I had to take a break, put them aside, and just get ready to come back to them with fresh eyes and an open heart. I'm about to have two kids in double-digits age-wise, and if the son's tween years are as...intense as my daughter's have been, well, it's best not to make too many plans. I've never been called the answer to anyone's prayers, but when I called this new team about possibly coaching, that's what my call apparently was.

I never bothered with makeup growing up because of swimming; why would I spend any time doing my makeup when I was getting right back in the water? Even in college, wearing makeup would lead me to get carded because I looked like a 15-year-old trying to look like I was 18 by wearing makeup. I felt like a Barbie doll, or like a little girl who got into her mother's makeup. But it's important to me that my daughter and I can have shared experiences and shared interests to talk about, so I started caring more about my clothes and makeup.