Becoming Real, Making Things Awkward, Freaking Out a Little...

How is life going for everyone? I hope to write something with more shape to it soon. What a doozy of a couple months it’s been! Remember when I said 49 was my power year? Well, I think that this kind of power is special in that it feels a lot like uncertainty and weakness! I’m in some serious liminal spaces right now. In the last two and a half months, we’ve helped move two of our daughters out. The Byrdies are launching!! Our son, the youngest, is at James Madison University working on his undergrad degree. It was so nice to have him home for a whole month during winter break. Along with hosting holiday dinners, we threw an engagement party for my daughter, Zaidee, who is getting married in June! Meanwhile, we’ve been getting ready to put our house on the market. Yesterday the realtor came with the photographer to take the pictures for the MLS listing. It’s getting real! (And it’s been a lot of work to get ready!) But it’s also kind of scary. We moved into this house thinking of it as a ten-year plan and then reevaluate. Somehow, it’s been ten years already! We love the area we are in and hope to get something different, less cookie-cutter, nearby. But it’s scary to take that step. Where will we land?

I’ve also started taking two classes that I hope will go towards the Master’s program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling that I’ve applied to get into full time this fall. Your girl went back to school and she is loving it! Here’s the shirt that I wore on the first day of class.

I wasn’t planning on anyone seeing it, just a little inside joke with myself, wearing it under my fully buttoned cardigan. Kind of like a superhero shirt. But, that dang classroom was so hot, adding to my nerves and the coffee I was drinking, and of course I had a hot flash on my first day of school!! I kept pleading with myself to just suck it up and whatever you do, Aimee, don’t take off your cardigan. Well, my face got hot, I started to feel like Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, and…I had to reveal my superhero shirt. So that happened. The gig was up on day one. Whatever normal-esque persona I was trying to pull off to my professor and fellow classmates fell apart. Now they know I’m a superhero.

So that is one of my funny school stories. Plus, when my daughter was in grad school, she put a bunch of cool stickers about herself on her computer. All her fun speech pathology friends did too. I thought that was awesome; I love stickers! Gen X over here, I had a fantastic sticker album in the 5^th grade. I bet if I could get a hold of a good scratch ‘n sniff sticker now, it would take me right back to some of the best, wonder-filled childhood feelings. Does anyone remember oilies? Those were so dang cool! When my girls were little, I went out and bought them sticker books and a bunch of great stickers to start their collections. But it didn’t catch for them like it did with me and my friends of the best generation ever. Anyway, I was so glad my oldest daughter finally got how cool stickers were. And you bet I went all ham and filled my own computer case with Aimee stickers. I’ve had them for a while, so it didn’t even hit me before going to class that they might be weird.

I strolled into my first class at my calculated 5 minutes early (was going to be ten, but I got behind a dang school bus on the way!)—you know, calculated as to not look like the eager old lady starting school, but somewhat early because I am her. But to my surprise, the classroom was already full—I was the second to the last person to arrive—and everyone was already set up with their computers on. What the heck? The professor wasn’t even there yet. It wasn’t until I scurried to find a seat, rummaged through my vintage bag with birds on it, and whipped out my own computer, struggling to figure out how to get on the internet (in which I embarrassingly asked everyone), that I realized mine was the only computer full of stickers. A few had cases with a pretty design, I saw one with a lone sticker on it, and most students had no case at all. All of the sudden, I felt the weight of my gangsta Golden Girls, “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m a Little Cooler,” and “Bourbon: magic brown water for fun people” stickers telling on me.

You guys, I don’t fit in. But it’s okay. I gotta be real. At first I was a bit intimidated, returning to school at my age and discovering how intense these young students are. But I got this, and my classmates seem pretty great. So do my professors.

Also, I need to find a partner for a project that is worth 30% of our grade in my other class and I am just starting to learn names and personalities and am really afraid to ask. That’s so much pressure! I feel like I’m back in the second grade, with a check “yes” or “no” note, “Will you be my friend?”

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I warned you that there was no shape to this post; I’m all over the place just like my life is right now. So if you’re following, I have less than a year left before the big 5-0, we are becoming empty nesters and just moved two daughters out and in their new places in two and a half months, my adult “kids” are killing it, I’m planning a wedding for my daughter, went back to school, am about to put my house on the market (and need to find a new home!)…But friends, that is not all: I have a book coming out in April!! Have I lost my ever-loving mind? Am I having a midlife crisis? I have to tell you that I am equally excited and terrified about everything right now. My back is screaming at me over all this.

This book means a lot to me, and the evangelical culture that it is releasing into is unpredictable and hard to even recognize. You guys, I don’t fit in! It’s a personal book blending memoir with contemplative writing and teaching. It’s about finding your face. And what our faces summon out of the other. It’s about finding meaning and asking, what does it mean for God’s face to shine upon us? I am seriously living that right now. And the disruption of the public harassment and spiritual abuse that I went through has taken years to unravel all the trauma & disillusionment, causing me to really look inward. I will have much more to share about this, but I do want to share a great deal that Barnes & Noble is offering: 25% off your pre-order of Saving Face if you are one of their Premium & Rewards Members. It only lasts until Friday, February 7th. If you are thinking about reading it, preorders are really helpful in demonstrating early interest in the book and determine how many copies they want to carry in the physical stores, so please take advantage of this deal! Also, I will soon be sharing some perks for my Substack subscribers who preorder, so save your receipt email.

Here's what to do:

Just add code PREORDER25 at checkout. You can find the book here.