Sugar Says so many great things.
In a strange turn of events, after loving practically everything I came into contact with last week and writing about proposing to any number of inanimate objects, this week I hate fucking everything.
I actually joked about this phenomenon with another mom last night as we stood on a grassy hill, teary-eyed, watching our middle school’s graduation ceremony. And I didn’t even know one kid graduating. But three of my children have participated in these exercises and while many of the faces standing up at the podium and handing out diplomas have changed, nothing much else about the ceremony has changed in decades. The girls are decked out in pastel-colored dresses that brush along the grass as they wobble on high heels toward their seats, and the boys swap out their gym shorts and soccer jerseys for elegant white dinner jackets adorned with a single red rose on the lapel. Years ago I hated the getup but quickly drank the Kool Aid after my oldest child slipped on his jacket and joined the legion of young men who came before him to graduate from the town’s tiny middle school whose photos now line the walls of the school’s main floor. It’s a lovely tradition and on a clear June evening — as it thankfully remained last night — many residents, of former and future graduates, come out to stand along the sidelines and cheer for the newest batch of eighth grade grads.
I think all the crying was in anticipation of another graduation ceremony I will attend tonight but this time, I’ll have more skin in the game. This time my own child, Kid #3, will be handed the diploma and frankly, I’m pissed. I’m really not happy that this child — the one who came so confidently into the world and whom we referred to as “The Boss” from a very early age — is graduating from high school. And so I just kind of hate everything today.
I hate this totally adorable tote bag I just bought her (which I found on this adorable blog) to carry her books around this summer as she starts her college adventure four hours away.
I’m cranky that I’ll be slipping on an adorable dress I picked up this spring at Athleta a lot like this one, which can be dressed up with heels like these from Aerosoles (spoiler alert: my aging toes require me to now gravitate towards wearing more old lady-friendly heels) or worn more casually with this summer’s ubiquitous sandals.
When one is feeling cranky, there is nothing better than a handful of these divine morsels whipped up by the evil experts at Trader Joe’s.
With everyone home for the summer, the house has gotten kinda smelly between all the late-morning egg frying, trampoline jumping and sandy/wet shit my 12yo pulled out of a recently-uncovered beach bag. I made a special trip to Target this week to stock up on these amazing candles that smell super-clean and give the impression that my house is clean as well.
As if the candles weren’t enough to keep my home smelling fresh, my girlfriend — home from Hong Kong for the summer — brought me a bottle of the most divine room spray (note: for some reason I can’t find the spray here in the U.S. but you can get a candle or “pebble”) that evokes an elegant evening we spent sipping fancy cocktails at the Captain’s Bar at the Manadarin Oriental Hotel when we visited her in Hong Kong in April.
There’s been a lot of cooking going on around here with the crew home and that means, a lot of pots and pans that need to be cleaned. I’m over it. However, if one does have to keep cleaning up after people, and that same cleaner wants to keep her fingers from drying out and gel manicure from chipping, one should rush out and buy herself these dish gloves that are strangely fabulous (tip here courtesy of my favorite product tester, my mother).
Finally, in an effort to keep it all in perspective — that my babies are growing up and I am in turn growing old — I have latched onto a line I recently read in Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things in which she responds as “Dear Sugar” to a question posed to her wondering “what the fuck” life was all about. It’s heartbreaking and powerful but the bottom line loops through my head quite often nowadays: The fuck is your life.
Chin up people.
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