Playlist Prompts #1: "Dear Winter"

Hello, friends! Happy November! 

Last week, I asked five people - Lindsey, Melissa, Rachel, Kelsey, and my brother Zach - to give me five random songs. I then came up with five songs of my own. I assigned each song randomly to a day in November (except for one that wasn't random, but we'll get to that when we get to it). These songs will act as my prompts as I challenge myself to write every day! I'm particularly excited because this is the most unusual playlist ever compiled.

Today's prompt, courtesy of Lindsey, is the song "Dear Winter" by AJR.

Oh man, friends, I felt this song in my bones. "Dear Winter" is written to a future child named Winter, listing a father's hopes and dreams for them. However, this familiar theme is overshadowed by the singer's yearning for a relationship. He wonders if there's anyone for him - if he'll ever get a chance to meet either his imagined wife or child.

The last part of the song felt particularly true to me (albeit gender-reversed):

"Dear Winter, I'm looking for your mom. I gotta find a girl that doesn't mind that I'm inside my head a lot. Winter, it won't be too long. First, I just gotta find your mom."

I have so many dreams, and all of them revolve around having a family. It's true, of course, that I have a family: my daughter, my parents, my brother and sister-in-law and nephew and niece, my grandma and aunts and uncles and cousins, my friends who are like sisters and brothers. All of the people I just listed are wonderful, but I want to meet my person, you know? I've seen my parents and my brother and sister-in-law and my grandparents and so many others in such amazing marriages and I want that for myself. I always thought that would happen for me. I still do, but the fact that I'm nearing thirty and can still count the number of dates I've ever been on with my fingers makes me question whether this is going to happen for me. It makes me question if there's something wrong with me. 

I've never written to a future child, but I write to my future husband in my journal all the time. I tell him what I hope he'll be like and the adventures I hope we'll go on together. I talk about how I just want someone to go home to at night, a person I can always rely on. I often close out my letters with, "I hope I meet you soon." 

This song is full to the brim with both hope and anxiety. My letters are, too. Sometimes the hopefulness that I find in writing those letters outweighs the anxiety of whether there will ever be someone to read them. 

I try to hold on to the moments when my hope for the future overshadows my anxiety.

Writing Prompt #3: Mothers

Tanner's prompt for today is Mothers.

I've been a mother for over four years now. I was a foster mother first; now I'm an adoptive mother. People tell me all the time that I'm a great mom, an amazing mom, a good role model, an inspiration, that they could never do what I do.

Here's the truth: I'm an okay mom. I'm not great. I'm moody, tired, and quiet most of the time. I am an expert in "do as I say, not as I do." I'm not saying I'm a bad mom, by any means. Working with foster kids taught me what bad parenting is, and that's not me. I'm just saying that I'm far from some saint of a mother.

I like to tell myself that "someday, when I'm not depressed, I'll do better." That's not helpful, though, when my daughter needs me right now. Could I get out of this chair and spend time with her today?

Ask me tomorrow.

Stay tuned for May 12th: Stillness.

What I'm Looking For in a Man

Hello, friends.

I haven't tried any dating sites or apps lately, but when I did, I was always tripped up by the questions about what I'm looking for in a guy. I always listed things like kindness and faith and a good sense of humor, but in my head, here's what I'd like my significant other to be like:

• Gentle like Newt Scamander
• Smart like Cisco Ramon
• Fearless like Eliot Spencer
• Creative like Flynn Carsen
• Adventurous like Hiccup
• Selfless like Steve Trevor

I could go on, but I think we can glean two things from this. One, all of these people are, well, at least moderately fictional. Two, apparently I mostly like guys with long and/or casually messy hair? Take note, boys.

I want my love to be magical, you know? I want to have an epic arc that ends in an exhilarating kiss in the rain. But the fact is that those arcs are fictional, just like all of my ideal men are. None of my friends or family have met their significant others that way. I don't know anyone who regularly fights bad guys with their spouse (which possibly means your secret identities are working exceptionally well). Point is, what I'm looking for, I'm unlikely to ever find.

I want to ask, how have you married or engaged or dating people done it? How have you managed this seemingly impossible feat? But the fact is that everyone is different. There's no secret ingredient. There's no special formula. There are no perfect relationships.

So what do I do now? 

I wait.

I live my life - I don't put it on hold until I find someone.

I be my best self. 

My life is not defined by my relationship status, but that doesn't mean I can't think about it and desire a mate. I'm allowed to fantasize, as ridiculous as my fantasies might be. (My future husband will be a bow-and-arrow-wielding billionaire with amazing hair and doey eyes when he looks at me...) Ahem. What was I saying? Oh, yes. Ridiculous fantasies.

My life is not defined by my relationship status - but it is affected by it. My task right now is to live in hope, focus on the present, and remember that even when it feels like it, I am never really alone.

Single Life Struggles: Episode 3

Hello, friends. Another episode for you today.

Single Life Struggle: when you already spend nearly an hour on your daughter's hair every day, and then you and your daughter both catch lice, and suddenly you're spending multiple hours several days in a row, using and specially treating multiple combs, while also trying to get the **** things out of your hair, and you don't have anyone around to look at your own head and tell you if you've gotten them all, and you just want an extra pair of eyes and hands to help you.

Single Life Struggles: Episode 2

Hello, friends! Here's another Single Life Struggle for you.

Single Life Struggle: when you are disorganized and also bad at keeping track of finances, and you just wish you had another person around to help you sort through the mountain of papers and find the ones you need for your tax appointment today because you're not sure you'll ever find them on your own.

That's all folks- unless one of you wants to do my taxes and all other financial transactions for the rest of my life, because that would be fantastic.

Single Life Struggles: Episode 1

Hello, friends. I'd like to welcome you to what will probably become a recurring segment on the Iowa Girl Meets World show. It's called Single Life Struggles. In this segment, your host (me) will demonstrate a struggle or two in the life of a young single adult (also me).

This is the first time I've lived alone. Yes, I was alone in my University Lutheran apartment last year, but let's face it, you're not really alone when you live in the basement of a church. (Just ask me about that time two parishioners thought I was dead...) Anyway, it truly is a struggle to live alone. I have a lot of examples of this, but let's start off with this picture.

Single Life Struggle: when you have so few visitors that you don't do dishes for weeks (because who is going to see them?), and you are disgusted with yourself, but not enough to care until you really have nothing to eat off of and there is an unknown variety of mold growing in your sink, and you realize that almost every single dish needs to soak, but your sink isn't big enough for that, so you find a plastic storage bin and fill it with soapy water and put your dishes in it and still not all of them fit.

And then there's this:

Single Life Struggle: when you are living alone in a new place and you're trying to figure everything out (trash pickup, new doctor/dentist/veterinarian, good restaurants, taxes, insurance, bills, etc.) and you want to be a good citizen and recycle but that's another phone call you can't ask anyone else to make and you're just so tired of figuring things out that you save all your recycling (that's not even half of it) and keep telling yourself "I'll call tomorrow"... for five months.

This is what I mean when I tell people over the phone that I'm quite sure my house is messier than yours, thank you very much.

I know this is kind of a weird thing to blog about, but here's why I'm doing this. It's not to tell you that I don't like where I am. On the contrary, I love Enid and I love Redeemer. I'm sharing my Single Life Struggles with you because I feel alone a lot, and I don't think I actually am. These stories are embarrassing to me, but I don't think I'm the only person who struggles to wash their dishes. I don't think I'm the only person who doesn't like making phone calls. So if this strikes a chord with you, tell me. Maybe we'll both feel less alone.

(I feel like I should add - I'm sure these struggles aren't necessarily restricted to single people living alone. However, I think being single and living alone make these struggles not more difficult, but just... different.)