Moved to Substack

Hello!

I've moved my blog to Substack, where it's easy to subscribe to emails. And there's a nice community.

If you'd like to follow me there, I'd be so grateful: https://lisamjordan.substack.com/

Hugs, 

Lisa

When I looked in her eyes, they were blue but nobody home

This is a little story about connection.

I'm an introvert, which sometimes surprises people. Sometimes people tell me I'm wrong. 

But really, all that means is that I need alone time to recharge. When I get over-peopled, I get really crabby and stop functioning.

It doesn't mean I'm shy (although I was for decades). 

It also isn't the reason I go off on a million tangents and inappropriate things sometimes fall out of my mouth. I think those can be attributed to ADHD or some other undiagnosed neurodivergence.  

Anyway, the point I'm making is that I love community, and long before I understood that it was my nature, I've worked to build community.

People are everything to me. I honestly feel there is nothing more important than the people I love who love me.

(Yes, OK, water, food, shelter, healthcare. But for my emotional and physical well-being, I need my people.) 

The reason I'm writing this is that I'm going to leave a really broad community I've been part of for what I realize is about 17 years. 

Time is weird.

I've been blogging longer, but I've been less and less consistent with the blog. Plus FB can be so passive. Writing takes creative thought and energy.

So I've been thinking about it for a while, and it's been hard, because I don't want to lose connection.

When I started blogging—and I'm not quitting—I was single, heartbroken, and in absolute crisis.

Emotional crisis like all of the lies my family kept secret for decades about my dad's suicide attempts, all the lies we told ourselves about being fine, those were absolutely choking me. The family dysfunction, which we didn't recognize as such, had molded me into someone who couldn't sustain a healthy romantic relationship.

And all I wanted was someone to love me. I hated myself. I was convinced that I was unlovable. That nobody would ever love me.

I started blogging, and the only people who knew about it were my closest friends and some family. Back then DC had this wonderful blogger community. We read and commented on each other's blogs.

We were online weirdos with varying degrees of concealed identities who shared our weirdness with the public and we liked each other for it.

Complete strangers started reading my blog. And the ones who liked my weirdness stuck with me.

And some of my invisible friends became in-person friends. Some I've never met, but we've still been friends since before Nick and I even met.

Such is the power of online community.

Late in 2006, when one of my besties moved in with her boyfriend, who it was very clear would become her husband, and another of my besties moved away for an amazing job, I was suddenly all alone.

I wasn't actually alone, because of course we were still friends, and I had other friends. But these were my see-all-the-time-call-in-crisis besties.

This was before I'd gotten very far in therapy. I was still crying all the time. I was still wondering why the boyfriend I'd broken up with didn't love me. I was hoping he'd change his mind and we'd get back together.

But I was frantically doing all this internet dating in case. Because I was terrified of being alone.

Basically, I was fucking insane. 

So at some point that fall, edge of winter, I realized that suicide was an option. For me, I mean.

Even though I was 11 when my dad first attempted suicide, and 18 for his second attempt, I'd never considered it as a personal option. Not through crying every single day and gaining 40 pounds my freshman year of college. Not through my worst breakups. 

But one day I realized: when my parents were gone, because I wouldn't do to them what my dad had done to us, I could leave.

And this idea was such a relief.

The option was there for some future time. I could put it on the shelf, and take it out when I needed it.

I didn't ever have to be completely alone and miserable.

That was incredibly calming. 

Then here's what happened. I progressed in therapy. And I got very into the blogging community.

This combination saved me.

I mean this literally.

The following spring, my dad attempted suicide and very nearly died. 

He wasn't breathing when EMS found him. We had to sign a paper at the ER allowing them to re-intubate him, to change from the emergency intubation to one that could be long-term in the hospital. We had to acknowledge that he might die during this procedure.

And then they told us, should he survive it, he might not ever wake up. If he did, he could be brain dead. We'd just have to wait and see if he woke up.

It took hours and hours to get him into the ICU.

One of my forever besties was with us, and we left at maybe 3:00 am? I can't remember. My mom wanted to stay. We drove to my parents' house to sleep.

I couldn't sleep.

So I got online, and I shared my biggest, worst secret on my blog. I said that it defined me, but was not about me.

I think about that now, and how sad that is. 

It really did define me. My life, and my mom's, were focused on keeping my dad alive. And he kept trying to leave.

I didn't know how people would react. Suicide was even more stigmatized then. 

I just knew I wanted to let it out. To scream it from the rooftop. To find some relief from holding it.

What I got was a tremendous amount of support.

One of my dearest friends became one of my dearest friends precisely because of that post.

I didn't know I needed all that support. But my gosh, I did.

And so, between working with my therapist and pouring my heart out on my blog, I started to heal.

I firmly believe I could not have done this without my online community.

I had and still have amazing in-person friends. But it was different.

And the reason all this is bubbling up is because for the longest time, I loved FB. I reconnected with so many long-lost high school friends, Peace Corps friends, and family friends in far-flung locations. 

Out of nowhere, this site eventually became integral to our lives.

In moments of anger I say I hate people, and India gives me a look and is all, "You love SO MANY people!" She's right.

I love so many people.

But I also, in the current regime, have very high anxiety. And I have never been any good at moderation. I am all or nothing.

It's part of my charm. It's extremely frustrating. I contain multitudes.

It would be one thing if, like a friend of mine, I could log on to post things on my great community Buy Nothing group. And then log off.

Or check in on a few friends, and then be done.

But no. This is not me. If I'm in at all, I'm all in. 

And right now, I'm posting and reading about one political horror after another. And I see very few posts from friends. I mostly see ads and random posts from all kinds of groups I'm not part of.

Recently one of my friends said, "You don't have to do everything. You can do little things that still matter. And removing yourself from apps takes money away from them. And money is all that matters to them."

I thought about this. I thought about the person who paid a lot of money to be at the inauguration. The  person who removed fact-checking from this online community. Who owns so many of the apps I use.

So I'm doing this one small thing, slowly extricating myself.

And in case you're reading this and thinking I'm suggesting you do the same, I'm not. And I'm not judging.

I don't judge people I like. 

I really don't. I have lived through some of the craziest shit. I've done plenty of crazy.

Who am I to judge?

Unless I'm married to you, in which case I want you to eat more vegetables and work out. 

(I do, however, judge the shit out of people I dislike. Let me not pretend I don't.)

But friends? Absolutely no judgment. Make your own choices. I'm here for you. I'm an enabler, not an enforcer.

If you're a bestie and you tell me you're in a Goodbye Earl situation, I will not ask why. I will tell you I have an SUV and I can be there with an old blanket.

This is who I am.

Am I scared of feeling isolated? Of course I am. I love finding commonalities. I love connection.

I guess I'll see how it goes.

And that's where I am with that.

And the waves tell the firm coast: 'Everything will be fulfilled.'

When 2024 began, I said that I didn't want to tempt fate by saying that it had to be better than 2023. It could hardly be worse, right?

I think I'm not superstitious, but I kinda am.

And though I don't always succeed, my inclination is to hope for good, hope for better.

So I was hoping for a good year. 

Hope hope and more hope.

On December 30, 2023, we visited the family of a dear friend of Nick's, who lives just outside of Oxford. In Oxfordshire. (The shire of Oxford!)

I was excited to meet him. I'd heard about him for years.

His family lives in a charming, centuries-old stone house in an ancient, quaint, no-streetlights English village that used to be one massive wealthy family's estate.

Leaving his house in rainy pitch dark, I slipped on one of the large uneven paving stones and landed flat on my shin, splitting the skin in a long line.

Since Nick and I have watched so many British murder shows, the bulk of which seem to be set in and around Oxford, we joked that I was lucky to have escaped with my life.

In retrospect, I maybe should've sought medical attention, or at least gotten butterfly tape. I don't think stitches would've worked as it was directly over bone.

But instead, we got on a flight the next day and came home. Slowly, over months and months (and months), it healed.

First it swelled and turned colors and scabbed massively. It was gruesome. I sent photos to friends who were up for the gore.

I have a big scar. I don't mind scars. I've got a lot of them.

So I began 2024 on the heels of a joyful trip, but felled by some international non-Covid crud, still deep in grief, still healing from a double mastectomy and also suddenly this random murdery British village wound. 

A year ago I was emotionally and physically struggling, with low expectations, but hope.

Last night, as I was reviewing my year, I tiptoed through my memories in the form of photos, and doing so reminded me of how blessed I am. What a lucky year I had.

Genuinely.

Despite grief, despite the leg wound, which hurt to touch for about six months, despite pneumonia in the fall, which took about five weeks to recover from, and despite some months of undiagnosed depression.

It sounds rather terrible when I list all of them. I do realize this.

But so many wonderful things happened. 

And my approach to life, after having such dramatic reminders of the vicissitudes of fate, is now to take the opportunities I can.

There are things I hope to do in this life, places I hope to see, and sooner is closer to guaranteed than later.

I'm not saying we're no longer saving for college or retirement. I'm just saying, if something is accessible, I'm going to do it.

In February, Nicole, my beloved Nicole came to hang out with our kids so Nick and I could go to a fancy dinner at Lincoln College, Oxford, where we took the above photo. Attending the event was both a pleasure and an honor.

I wanted to take a whole lot of photos, but people just ate their multiple course dinner with wine pairings like this was all normal. I didn't want to be a gauche tourist.

And then Maude came to visit. Although actually, she arrived at our house a day before we did because Virgin Atlantic switched our flights to a day earlier but didn't tell us. 

Surprise! You're leaving yesterday!

I was going to include a photo of our faces, so happy to be together. But I think the photo that depicts our friendship more accurately is this one of Maude doing plow pose and me laughing and taking a photo while Wanda takes the opportunity to sniff her butt.

In the spring, the kids and I went to Puerto Rico, which was warm and tropical and so, so beautiful. And I got to reconnect with my high school friend Maria, who I hadn't seen in over 20 years.

And then summer, my favorite season! Summer was filled with truly extraordinary experiences.

Nick joined me for the 30-year reunion of my Peace Corps omnibus. I got to see people I hadn't seen since I left Ecuador. The weekend of reconnection and reminiscence filled my entire heart.

I went to Portugal for the first time, visiting dear old friends who live there. And then Kathy joined me and we headed heading north to Vigo, Spain, to walk 101 kilometers of the Camino de Santiago.

We walked for five days, and some of it was very hard, and I have many thoughts, and our Camino experience merits at least a whole post of its own.

But from that week, strongest in my memory and heart is how much we laughed. Except for using the bathroom, we spent 24/7 together. We had a lot of time and kilometers to talk. And oh my gosh, did we laugh.

Maybe not everyone would find a glass-walled in-bedroom bathroom in a beautiful historic hotel hilarious. But we sure did.

Did I used to laugh more in my day-to-day? I don't know.

Now I realize that belly laughs are treasures. When you have someone with whom you laugh that hard repeatedly, I firmly believe you never let them go.

I don't intend to, anyway.

In August Nick and I headed up to get the kids from camp in Maine, and took the opportunity of being so relatively close to Montreal to visit for a few days.

Oh my gosh, Montreal. What a beautiful city. India was sick, and my family was not in the mood to tourist a whole lot, but we really enjoyed strolling around the city, and we had great food.

We went to a John Fluevog store. What absolute pleasure.

On my birthday, I took a Pilates class taught by Annie, one of my lovely Bali friends.

And added to this was the joy of seeing my high school friend Monique, and getting to meet her lovely daughter.

Also! I learned that all of the Great Lakes connect to each other, and flow to the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence River.

I spent time on Lake Superior every childhood summer, and this blew my mind. Although I recently told this to some friends and they were like, yes, we learned this in school.

Was I taught that? Maybe I was busy seeing if I could hold my breath for a whole minute rather than paying attention. 

That was how I spent much of 7th grade history with a teacher I disliked. Never disruptive. Just quietly timing how long I could hold my breath, over and over.

But was American geography 5th grade? My geography is terrible. I only learned that Virginia borders Tennessee when we got Wanda, and Nick saw the town she was from and said, "That's almost Tennessee."

I actually said, "Virginia borders Tennessee?" This is the kind of thing that makes Nick tut in disappointment. 

Kind of like how I know nothing about our government and so I always ask Nick and he is all, "Didn't you major in Poli Sci at UNC?"

And then I have to remind him that yes, but only because I was a French major and my dad insisted that I add another "more useful" major, so I crammed a whole bunch of Poli Sci classes into my senior year but really didn't care and don't remember anything.

So just tell me again about Congress and the Supreme Court already for Pete's sake.

Anyway.

I learned so much US geography when Maude and I drove cross-country to move from DC to San Diego. We used paper maps, it was so long ago.

I seriously kept being like, wait, this state is next to this state? What's next?

We drove through West Virginia to Kentucky, and as such, I know they're next to each other and I've still never been to Tennessee. Although apparently some of it is right up against Virginia.

Anyway, now I've kind of derailed this with how little I know about where things are in the world.

My main point, I think, is that for me, just about every joy comes down to the people I'm spending time with.

I've left people out. And here is why.

At some point I just started listing names of friends and then I was like, oh my gosh, is this super neurodivergent that I'm about to make you a list of every single friend I spent time with last year? 

And next I'll tell you my top ten favorite birds!

I definitely don't want to be tedious.

So if you're reading this and I saw you and your name is not here, it's not because I don't love you. It's because it started to feel weird.

All this to say:

You know I love travel. Oh my gosh I do. And because of how I grew up, I often feel better out of the country than in. I leave and wish I could stay wherever it is I am.

(Except dinner is too late for me in Spain. But otherwise, absolutely.)

But for me, the most important thing in life is the people you love and who love you.

And lucky, lucky me, in 2024 I got to spend time with so many of them.

Here's hoping for a wonderful 2025 for all of us. 

I said this to myself in January last year, and I'm saying it again: Exercise, bathe. Eat a fucking vegetable. Feel lucky to be alive.

Hope for health, hope for peace, hope for love and joy. For each and every one of you.

Christmas 2024

I don't know who needs to hear this: Holidays can be so hard. 

Maybe yours are easy and fun and there are no dark moments. And if so, I'm genuinely glad for you. 

But I think, what are holidays like Christmas but traditions? Which means they're imbued with all of the emotion and memories of the Christmases that came before.

Nick bought a box of Quality Street, because his grandmother always bought them for Christmas. They're not, we have discovered, all that great.

But I understand the nostalgia that makes you buy chocolates from your childhood. Particularly those associated with a beloved grandmother.

We buy these things and we dip the madeleine in the tisane.

Memories seep from our veins.

The reason I'm writing this is that I've talked to a couple friends who are struggling, too. So I figure if there are three of us, there are more of us.

I'm here to tell you that it is OK to be sad. It's OK to be elated and devastated depending on the moment. 

It's OK to be disappointed, or wistful, or grieving, or whatever it is you may be feeling.

All of your feelings are valid, always. If you don't allow yourself to feel them, they stick around in your cells anyway.

Feel them and free them and free yourself.

We've been in this prolonged very sparkly! Jingle bells! Ho ho ho! Candy canes! Snowflakes! Jolly! season.

Which I think can pressure people into feeling like they need to be all in the Christmas spirit. (I say Christmas because it's my holiday.) 

Whatever Christmas spirit means.

But my gosh, the pressure of the holidays. Gifts to buy, food to make, school performances to attend, last minute this and that and everything else. 

A school Secret Santa gift to buy oh my gosh for tomorrow MAMA! (I have always hated Secret Santa, and the pressure to participate at work and buy random little things for someone you don't really know, things that will ultimately wind up in that giant plastic floating island in the Pacific or wherever it is. The one that's visible from outer space.) 

Anyway.

It's so dark, at least in my hemisphere. So dark so early. 

And there's so much build up.

And now Christmas is here!

Holidays are a genuinely lovely time to gather. Holidays bring families and friends together. Sometimes it's forced, and sometimes that's hard. And sometimes you wish for more togetherness and you don't have it. And that's hard, too.

But then being together can make an absence so notable.

Being together makes it obvious who used to sit in that chair. Who isn't here with us. Whether they're no longer alive or just no longer in our lives.

That is painful.

Until last year, I'd spent exactly one Christmas away from home. 

Home was my parents' house, whichever country that might be. And I always went home for Christmas.

Home was my family. Christmas was the same ornaments we'd been putting on the tree since my childhood. In fact, they'd been putting some of them on their trees since before I was even born.

After my dad died, and family became Betty, Jordan, Nick, and me, Christmas transferred to our house. Even that first year, when we didn't really have a functional ground floor.

We could've done Christmas at my mom's house, where she had a whole working, clean kitchen and no construction dust. But we had it here, on the second floor.

Nick bought a fake tree, and now that tree is as old as Jordan. I assume it'll be our tree till we move out of this house.

My mom was all about Christmas. She made the home, whichever house, beautiful. Her gifts were always exquisitely wrapped.

In fact, I'd often give her my presents to wrap, because she loved doing it, and she make things so pretty.

So last year I said there was no way we were having Christmas at home. We had to go somewhere.

I think, honestly, my family was kind of afraid of the depth of my grief. Anything could make me cry. And I might never stop.

So last year we went to England. It was such a big deal for so many reasons.

It was, of course, still Christmas in the UK, but it wasn't our Christmas. We didn't put up a tree. We didn't wrap presents.

The trip was everyone's gift. And it was magical.

India and I wound up hugging and crying in the middle of Hyde Park on Christmas Day. You can walk, run, fly far away, but grief sticks with you.

I wanted to travel again this year, and the kids said they really wanted Christmas at home.

Of course, I'm so glad they have a strong sense of home, and home is safe and comfortable for them.

We put up the tree—same tree—but this year only lights. Nick and Jordan didn't want the extra work, and I couldn't handle the memories saturated into nearly each and every one of our ornaments.

They put Nick's train around the tree, because we didn't need to worry about Betty tripping or Wanda chewing it. Mostly it freaks her out.

My friend Meg, her mom, and I made Betty's sticky buns. None of us had ever made them before.

I'd never made yeast bread. I was very daunted.

For me, never having made them pulled up the guilt and regret that I never once helped my mom with this annual task. I never asked her if I could learn how to carry on this tradition.

I knew she wouldn't live forever—none of us will—but still, in my mind, she was never not going to be here.

Until suddenly she wasn't.

I'm not saying this Christmas holds no joy. The kids had fun disgorging stockings, which were mainly packed with treats, and opening gifts.

India got me the most amazing pair of pinky-purple Lisa sneakers. 

I made Nick my annual photo calendar. The one I used to make for my mom, who would ooh and ahh over every single photo.

The sticky buns are great, but they're not perfect. Nick and Jordan wanted to know, precisely, what we did that was different.

My mom's recipe is sketchy. She doesn't list all the ingredients up front that wind up being mentioned later. Some are not mentioned at all.

I know this is because she likely wrote it as her mom, my Grandma Lillian, described it. Most of my grandmother's recipes said things like, "Put in oven and bake until done."

And then my mom had made this recipe annually for decades. My whole life and longer. That's a lot of decades.

She tweaked it a little—there's a rewrite that happened somewhere in the aughts, I believe—but still, there was guesswork.

For three people who'd never made them, they turned out really well.

Nick thought I was crying because of how the buns turned out. He wondered if they'd been overly critical.

When really, I was just thinking of how different Christmas is now.

Christmas Day used to be my dad annoying us by making us listen to a record of Dylan Thomas reading A Child's Chrismas in Whales, which is a great story, but we just wanted to play with our new toys. And then when the home video recorder became available in the 80s, he began annoying us by videotaping our every moment.

And then he wasn't around anymore.

My mom just quietly made everything perfect and beautiful, at, as I now know as a mom, a high personal cost.

The magic that everyone thinks of as Christmas?

That's a hell of a lot of invisible Mom work.

And she perpetuated that magic. And now it's on me. And I just don't have any sparkle right now. Maybe I will in future years.

But I deeply felt the absence of sparkle. I missed her excitement at what the kids were unwrapping. Her giggle over her gifts. The kids joining her, piling on and spilling over in the red chair to look at photos.

It's not that we haven't laughed, or enjoyed ourselves. We have.

We have joy ahead this afternoon, with a couple friends coming for Christmas dinner. Small, casual, but still people who don't live with us, which will force us to clean up and use nice plates and actual napkins and sit in the dining room, which honestly, I think is good for us.

Sometimes I admonish myself for being sad when I have so much privilege. When there are so many people who are cold and hungry. So many who literally have only the clothes on their backs.

I've done this a lot in life.

But then I tell myself exactly what I tell my friends, and what I truly believe: your feelings are valid. Your pain is valid.

Other people's situations do not diminish the validity of your feelings.

You can be happy-sad or sad-happy or sad-sad and know that there's a community that feels that same way. You might feel super alone, even surrounded by people, which for me is an extra-hard kind of alone.

But you're not actually alone. We're all made of stardust and we're all connected.

I'm no longer that bitter, bitter Mary in the preschool Christmas pageant in Bangladesh. Upset that I had to wear my PJs and the afghan Grandma Lillian crocheted. Angry that I didn't have a cool costume, like an angel.

I'm no longer her, and yet, I still am and will always be. So many contradictory things can be true at the same time.

I contain multitudes, and so do you.

So, my friends, I am sending you love on this emotion-saturated holiday. 

Big love and big hugs, and hope for love and kindness and peace for all. 

The architects of our own something: a gingerbread bus journey

Last Christmas (I gave you my heart)...

Ha. No. Although I do have a deep and abiding love of Wham!

Last year, Target had some Marks & Spencer items for sale before Christmas.

Ooh! A gingerbread London bus. Look how charming!

The kids and I were all excited. We were going to the UK for Christmas, and ooh, we were going to make an adorable gingerbread bus!

I was excited: something the kids and I could do together. A cute little family project.  

And of course it was going to look just like the picture. We had everything we needed!

The kit had the pieces, and then lumps of colored fondant that you had to roll out and make fit. But, like, you also had to cut the holes out of them for the windows and such.

Do you know how hard it is to roll out fondant and cut it into gingerbread-bus sized pieces?

In case you don't know, I will tell you: very.

It breaks. It's hard to know how much to put on one side and have enough left over for another.

We just cut it into pieces and figured we could smoosh them all smoothly together.

Which. Well. You see.

And then! Then we had to use icing to stick it all together!

It did not stick together.

Nick got involved. He's excellent at carpentry and fixing things. I had high hopes.

He used icing. And more icing. It didn't work.

So then he used glue. It may have been wood glue.

At first I was horrified. But then I realized that each and every piece of gingerbread and icing had been so manhandled, there was no way we were going to eat it.

We just wanted something to show for our many hours of effort.

He set it carefully, and we left it on the counter to dry overnight.

We're just not Christmas bus people.