Life These Days

It’s 7:47pm on a Tuesday night. I’m still wearing my work clothes. But have traded the high heels for bare feet.  My hair is long overdue for a cut and color. I’m on my second glass of wine. Dishes are piling up in the sink and the laundry has been neglected. The time since we got home from hectic work days has been such a blur. Soccer ball kicking, swinging high in the backyard, neighbor chatting, work e-mail checking, leftovers reheating, Modern Family watching, Let it Go singing, bath time playing. 

It's hard to imagine by life before these moments. And it’s hard to impinge them without them. 

The days are a blur and they are long. They are exhausting and try my patience. They are filled with love and warmth and lots of giggles.

My house is a mess and my to-do list is shot.

But it’s ok. I’m doing alright. I’m raising a beautiful, sweet little girl. I’m supporting a loving spouse who gives back 10x what I give. I’m a working mom who’s doing her best to make a difference in the lives of others. 

These moments are fleeting. I will make it through today and so will you. Tomorrow will come and we will do it again. And we’ll look back in a few years and be relieved that we survived these moments and proud of what we accomplished in them. 

But for tonight, let’s unplug for a minute, cuddle up with those who hold our hearts, and soak up these fleeting moments. 

*M

10 Years and 10,000 Memories

Last weekend, we loaded up the car and made the trek to Wilmington for my 10 year college reunion. 10 years. It seems like a lifetime and a blink of an eye.

When we got there, we were joined by three of my closest college friends. We keep in touch via regular e-mails but the four of us have not all been together in several years. They are the kind of friends that everything easily falls into place when we are around each other. It's like we've never been apart for more than a day.

The four of us got to know each other working in Housing and Residence Life at UNCW. We spent countless hours together in trainings, dealing with undergraduate shenanigans (like the time the boys on my hall managed to flood the entire 4th floor), and kept each other company during late night/early morning front desk duty. We worked hard and we partied harder. (We were in college. That's what you are supposed to do!) We did silly things. They made me laugh harder than anyone else could.   And they loved me even when it was hard for me to love myself.  No guy ever came between us and we didn't have time (or patience) for pettiness. We supported, encouraged and stood up for each other.

Ten years of post college experience have taught me that friendships like that don't come along every day. These are women who have really shaped the person I've become since college. Each of them have contributed to pieces of what feels like the complete puzzle that makes up me. I've learn from them that there is a softness to being tough, that true commitment to making family a priority is not always easy, and how to be comfortable in my own skin.  I owe a tremendous amount to these women.

I'm looking forward what the next 10 years has in store for us.

Then....

And now.

Hello 2015 and Hello Puerto Rico!

It's been an amazing start to the new year. I enjoyed almost two weeks at home over the holidays visiting with family, resting, eating and playing with Emily! I came back to work refreshed and re-energized.

This past week I had a disruption in my "normal" work schedule. I have probably mentioned before, but I am fortunate to have been chosen as a policy fellow with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Every other month, I meet with 14 other advocates across the country to discuss how we can better  use child well-being data to drive policy and results. This program will last until February 2016 and each time we will travel to a different city/state where the participants live and work. Luckily for us, one of our classmates lives in PR. So on Monday, I left freezing cold and rainy South Carolina for warm and sunny San Juan, Puerto Rico! 

Most of the week was spent in a hotel conference room over looking the ocean. Inspiring but also a little frustrating because here we were working hard and the beach was RIGHT there! But on Wednesday, we got out of our little container on a bus. We ventured about 45 minutes east from San Juan to Loiza to visit the Boys and Girls Club of Loiza. The trip there showed a stark comparison of the fancy tourist areas to the real life, impoverished areas of the island. 

At the center we had a tour of the beautiful center and participated in a data walk (child well-being data is printed on large posters on the meeting room walls. Participants walk around the room and discuss their observations and reflections on the data). In terms of child well-being, it’s one of the worst areas in Puerto Rico: 60% of children under the age of 5 live in poverty, the infant mortality rate is 9 per 1,000 births, 63 out of 1,000 children are victims of child maltreatment and almost 47% of children are being raised solely by grandparents.  After the data walk, we had the chance to talk with the Executive Director as well as teens at the club. There were three things that struck me:

1. Eduardo, the Executive Director, is passionate and has been instrumental in taking the Boys and Girls club from 30 staff and almost to the point of having to close their doors due to lack of funding to more than 300 staff and 11 clubs across the island. But he said, despite the success they have had with the club and the programs they provide, he has seen things in his community get worse not better. It was his realization that these programs alone are not enough. It takes passionate people willing to come together to advocate for wide spread change that will improve these numbers and the lives of these children. Passion and also a little bit of faith. 

2.   The similarities in both the data and in talking with teens. I could have easily been sitting in a Boys and Girls club in South Carolina. The personal stories, the challenges, the desire to connect and belong, and the hope for a better future resonant regardless of our geographic location.

3.  One of my colleague on the trip said it so well “the kids are alright, it’s everything around them that is not.” Shaqui, one of the 16 year olds we talked to, wanted us to take back and tell others that “they (the teens) are ok. We have friends, we do normal teen things. We like art and we are happy.” They don’t all see (as we see looking in) the poverty that they are born into or the lack of opportunity that may lie ahead of them. It’s our responsibility to tell their improve the systems around them.

It's hard to leave a place like this without my eyes being opened a little wider and forever feeling changed. I'm grateful for the experience and returned to South Carolina a little emotional but with a renewed passion and a full cup. The challenges are tough and the solutions aren't easy.  It's up to all of us, as advocates, to find them and make this world, whatever area we find ourselves in, better off by us having been there. 

*M