Over the last few weeks, while scrolling through my timelines, it’s felt like I’ve been witness to the world imploding as the year neared its end. Admittedly, 2016 was a crazy year, and most couldn’t wait for it to see its way out. From the deaths of numerous icons, to the most insane presidential election I know I’ve ever seen, to worldwide terror making headlines multiple times a day, I can understand how one would think the end is nigh. Though for me the hardest thing to swallow while observing the sheer panic, derision, and division is distinguishing the utter lack of faith we have left in humanity. The negativity is rampant. It has me begging, are we truly beyond hope? Is this really it? Is hatred and alienation our new societal mantra?

The answer is no. Unbelievably, humanity is still alive and well. It just doesn’t have the click-bait scene-stealing power it once did. If you look hard enough, you’ll find it because I know it’s there.

To me, humanity has always been about this purely unconditional love and support we have for those around us. It’s blind and deaf and it embraces all that’s good in this world. It’s one of those concepts taught to us at a young age and presumably seen in those Sally Struthers commercials for kids who need money for food, but it never quite clicks. We send Sally our money, and perhaps feel a congratulatory sense of self-worth for such altruistic actions, but we are still so far removed from the act of physically handing those kids their food, that a disconnect remains. Humanity is something you think you know what it is, but you don’t really until it’s been bestowed upon you or you have bestowed it upon someone yourself.

I was 16. It was the summer before my junior year. Indiana Teen Institute (ITI) was a summer camp wherein educational administrators throughout Indiana would select four students each to represent their school by attending what is essentially a week-long leadership workshop. I was selected to represent Fairfield Jr-Sr High School along with another classmate and two students that would-be sophomores that fall. The four of us, two guys and two girls, made our way to the campus at which the camp was held. The other girl in our group got mono and had to go home, so it was just the three of us and our school’s guidance counselor for the remainder of the week.

We were put with another group for various icebreakers and activities. We had two amazing leaders that I completely adored. The goal, as I mentioned before, was that of teambuilding which meant every pursuit with which we were tasked, in some way, shape, or form, worked to construct trust and to mold leaders.

It was around midweek. Our team had become close rather quickly. We listened to one another and supported each other. We meshed well. That said, there were struggles. Sometimes we didn’t agree on how to address a new task. Sometimes there were too many leaders and not enough followers. We rotated headship and compromised when there were dissenting opinions. We were by no means a well-oiled machine, but we’d certainly greased the gears enough for forward motion.

So there we were, in the quad on a grassy lawn about to begin a new exercise. This one was supposed to be tough. Our team stood behind a line of string considered point A. Across the way there was another line of string considered point B.  I’m sure this game has a name or various iterations, but essentially this is what we were told as we were each handed a piece of 2×4 wood that would be our “stone” for the duration of the task:

“For this challenge, you need your problem-solving and collaboration skills. You are a team on an expedition deep in the jungle, when suddenly there is a big forest fire. Trying to escape the fire, you have reached a wide river that you must cross with the whole team in order to survive. In the river there are very aggressive crocodiles. Get too close and you’re finished. But fortunately you have discovered a set of magic stones laying on the bank. This is the only support you can use in order to cross from one side to the other. The magic stones float on the water as long as there is constant body contact. As soon as body contact is lost, when a stone is in the water, it sinks and disappears. If someone puts a hand in the water, the crocodiles will immediately bite it off – the same with feet.”

Basically, if you laid a piece of wood down and let go, it was lost. If you fell off your piece of wood, you were lost. The goal was to get the entire team across the river in-tact. Obviously, an assembly line had to be made. There would be a leader, which was me, and I would be the first to set my “stone” in the water. I had to bend over while still behind the line, and gently place the “stone” on the grass. I had to step onto it while keeping my fingers in contact with the wood or else the wood would be taken from us and we’d have less “stones” for our trek across the river. The “stones” weren’t very wide which meant the difficulty of balancing oneself was yet another hiccup being added to the challenge. And one could hardly balance himself on a “stone”, let alone two people on one if we had less to go around.

“If someone falls in the water, the person is eaten and the challenge is over.” Which meant that if anyone touched the grass in any way, they were toast, and we had to begin from the beginning all over again no matter how far across the river we were.

Of course, there was an allotted amount of time in which we could triumph or not, which also affected the difficulty level of the challenge. It was a camp after all, and there were other seminars and activities to attend.

We had a rocky start. Inevitably someone would forget to keep their fingers on a “stone” and we’d lose it. Bending, leaning and standing on skinny little two by fours also created an epic balancing act I’m not so sure our group of teens and school counselors could manage. Not everyone is athletic or even remotely coordinated. However, what we lacked in stability and application, our group more than made up for in determination.  Every step forward was ultimately many steps back as we returned to the starting line repeatedly. Eventually we became frustrated and dejected. Even the fiercest determination can fall short when faced with what is seemingly no end in sight.

Other groups in the quad had long ago packed things away, many, if not all, unsuccessful in their endeavor to cross an imaginary crocodile infested river. They headed off to the next event while we were the only ones left in the yard. What should have been a 15-minute exercise was quickly approaching 60 minutes plus, but as despondent as we’d become, we still refused to give up. We were going to get to that finish line no matter what.

At this point, we were quite stressed and on edge. People were getting snippy. Some were drained from the energy it took to concentrate so hard and some simply were exhausted from the physicality of it all. Maybe we should have packed it up as well…

Finally, we agreed to one more go and surprisingly it clicked. Out of nowhere we had become that well-oiled machine. We were anticipating each other’s needs. We were offering words of encouragement. We were taking care of each other while steadily moving ahead. Little by little, “stone” by “stone”, we were making it across the river. It required every ounce of stamina, every calculated move, and every bit of concentration we could muster and design. We were sweating. We were tired, but we were going to see it through.

We were one “stone” away from getting me to point B which would then allow the rest of the team to easily follow suit, conquering what had become the impossible. I balanced one foot on the “stone” behind me while the person next to me had my hand. I bent over to grab my “stone” so I could advance it to its last location. I set it on the ground, fingers still in place, and went to take that second to last game winning step when the person behind me moved. It was the slightest bump, but with my one foot in the air while bending to keep my hand on the “stone”, I wobbled and my neighbor’s grip slipped. The next thing I knew, I had fallen to the ground and I was out of the game.

I can’t convey to you the unreserved devastation I experienced in that moment. My heart felt like it was being ripped from my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I was drowning, figuratively, and per the rules of the game, quite literally as well.   As we neared the finish, as leader, it had fallen to me to get us across that line, as though the world was solely on my shoulders, and in those moments, it had been.

I was destroyed. I was also so absorbed in what could have been, what I should have done and what a failure I was feeling, that I never noticed the entire team stepping off their “stones” to drown right along with me.

They stood above me, surrounding me, and laying their hands on my shoulders which forced me to look up, unclear what was happening. By the time it registered, they were physically lifting me and walking me back to the starting line. Without words, we began again. We worked together and crossed the finish line without one mistake.

That’s humanity.

My uncle once told me that every generation thinks they have it worse and would prefer to live in someone else’s era. He also said the only reason the grass looks greener is because we don’t know what it took to make it green. We might feel like we’re in the bell jar, but humanity is not dead. There is hope, and we’re it. Use this new year to demonstrate it.

It was January 1^st and I had just come downstairs dressed for lounging around with the hubs in my sweats and my socks for the day. I spotted him readying the fireplace for a nice cozy date at home. I sighed. What a nice way to spend the beginning of 2016.

Now, I may have been coordinated in certain sports back in the day, but when it comes to things like sliding, roller skating, spinning, dancing, etc. – I suck. I have no coordination and my lack of balance is absurd. So this next moment was me being brave yet unfortunately being me.

I smiled when I saw Clifford stacking the kindling onto the grate and like a 5 year old at a birthday party, I needed his attention – now. I actually said, “Hey Clifford! Look at me!!!” (seriously, I said that)

Whether inspired by a recent ep of The Goldbergs or Tom Cruise himself, I was going to attempt something I’d always wanted to do. As soon as the words escaped my mouth, I hummed the intro to Old Time Rock and Roll and attempted to slide across our hardwood floor.

I barely moved.

I shrugged it off. Clifford wasn’t looking anyway. I’m sure my socks just got stuck on something I didn’t see there. So I said again, “Hey! Watch me!!!”  I know I now sounded like a spoiled and demanding 5 year old at a birthday party.  I also know he heard me, and that he knew what I was trying to do. It was simple, though. Once I wanted his attention, he deliberately refused to look at me (it’s our dynamic – it’s what we do). So when he wouldn’t look again, I pleaded a third time, “Hey Clifford, I’m trying to show you something! Just watch me for a second!” He was smirking as he ignored me and continued placing the wood inside the fireplace.

I let out an exasperated grunt with my hands now firmly on my hips. Next level was stomping feet and throwing official tantrum. Dramatic, I know, but it drives me nuts when we do this dance. And perhaps going from an excited request to a childish whiney plea wasn’t exactly doing me any favors in the dramatic (or maturity) department, but I just wanted to show him my Tom Cruise. I’d waited years to attempt this; it deserved an audience.

Finally he turned to me and stated more than asked, “What.”

I had his attention and again, like that kid finally given his cake, I smiled brightly and said, “Ok. So watch this.”

I hummed the intro and tried to slide. I got a little further when my socks caught and I stopped abruptly, almost slamming head first into the fireplace wall.

He laughed at me. “That was terrible.”

“Let me try again! I think maybe the floors aren’t slick enough. I think I need a running start.”

Backed up. Running start. Intro. Slide. Stopped… What the hell?

Clifford was laughing pretty hard at this point. “That’s not how you do it. This is how you do it.” And suddenly my husband, a husband who is not apt to subjecting himself to public ridicule and humiliation nor physically goofy demands such as sliding across living room floors, took a few steps back , hummed THE INTRO, and skillfully skimmed across the hardwoods just like Tom Cruise. If you’ve ever seen my husband, you would think it was an impossible physical feat by the sheer size of him, let alone if you’ve actually met him and know Tom Cruising is one of the last things his personality would ever allow him to do – on principle.

One step further – he didn’t just show me, he offered a constructive criticism and direction on my technique. Who was this man suddenly the expert on Tom Cruising in my living room? Not my husband, I can tell you that.

“You are sliding across the grain. You need to slide with the grain. Like this…” and he demonstrated yet again his graceful skate along our hardwoods.

I changed positions, moving behind the couch and away from the fireplace so I had more room and could slide “with the grain” as Clifford put it.

Running start. Intro. Slide. It worked!!! I started jumping and cheering as I proudly puffed out my chest looking at my husband who was smiling back at me.

“Again!”

I ran back to my starting place and realized Clifford, on the other side of the couch, had done the same. We were about to Risky Business in TANDEM!!! This was unreal. I practically had tears in my eyes.

1. We began our running start together.
2. We hummed the intro together.
3. We slid across the floor together.
4. AND l fell flat on my ass – by myself. It was bound to happen.

Have fun and be risky this year, folks. Be Tom Cruise.

So to close out the last 365 days, I thought I’d go out with a Total-Take-Back. After all, you never want to move into a new year with regrets.

Roughly two weeks ago, Clifford discovered something about me. Something he has shared with pretty much everyone in earshot. Now, he never cares what I blog about and hates it when I blog about him, but he actually wanted me to post this one and share it with the world because he finds it hilarious. So this one is for my bearded hubs, hoping he’ll shave that monstrosity off his face in the next few months.

I had just started the dishwasher. I was attempting to clean the kitchen which seems like an endless task these days. Clifford walked in and asked me what the noise was. I didn’t hear anything, but then I’m half deaf. He looked at the dishwasher. I said, “Oh, well I started the dishwasher. Maybe that’s what you heard.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “You don’t hear that? That ‘thud, thud, thud, thud’?”

“I hear the dishwasher. I suppose it’s ‘thudding’. So?”

“SO, it’s not supposed to ‘thud’. Something’s wrong.”

Clifford reached for the dishwasher lock and slow motion kicked into gear. What was likely mere seconds felt like hours. First my head cocked in confusion, then my eyes widened in shock and fear as clarity dawned… I barely moved fast enough. I quickly stretched to slap his hand away as I screamed, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING???!!!”

Clifford paused with his hand next to the latch. Now it was he cocking his head in confusion at me. “I’m about to open the dishwasher and fix what’s making the noise. Why?”

I couldn’t speak. I didn’t have the words. I couldn’t articulate why he couldn’t open the dishwasher door. Everyone knows why you don’t open a running dishwasher. What was wrong with him? Though my mouth couldn’t move, my eyes spoke volumes.

Clifford tilted his head a little more and began to smile. He had this look in his eye, a look I hate because it means he thinks he has one on me. “Libby, what do you think will happen when I open the dishwasher?”

What was he even asking me? It was obvious. I stood up straighter and now I was looking at him like he was crazy.

“Seriously … what do you think is going to happen when I open the door?” His smile got bigger and he flicked the latch for access.

I gasped. I am not being dramatic here, I physically gasped while shaking my head and covering my mouth. Was he a total idiot?

There was a stare off between us that lasted minutes. He smirked and I stood petrified that he was really going to go through with it. He was going to open the dishwasher door mid-cycle. I didn’t know what to do.

Then he spoke with that stupid knowing look stuck on his face, “You think the dishwasher is filled to the top with water and it’s all going to come rushing out, flooding the kitchen, when I open the door, don’t you?”

Well, duh.

My face must have given away my exact thought because he started laughing and opened the door. I was able to manage a desperate pleading, “CLIFFORD!” as I tensed and anxiously braced myself for the water to consume my kitchen floor. I closed my eyes, prepared to feel the dirty dishwater gushing around me.

I felt nothing. I heard Clifford’s loud guffaw. I opened one eye. There was no water flooding my floor. No dirty dishwater gushing around my feet, splashing my face and tainting my clothes. What the …? I didn’t get it.

So yeah, maybe I did think the dishwasher fills to the top with water and yes, maybe I’ve thought that for the last 30 odd years. Clifford never made me watch that episode of Modern Marvels, ok? I guess now I can move forward into 2016 knowing the dishwasher may be opened mid-cycle and it won’t be like The Great Mississippi flood of 1927 all over again.

Happy New Year, people, wherever you are…

This year I am pretty resolute about my resolutions – I made none. I have made resolutions of some kind every year since I can remember and as they don’t typically stick, I decided to try something different by simply ringing in 2015 as it was.

Clifford and I found ourselves playing a hand of two-player Euchre while watching the old ball drop. Again, I’m trying to think a little differently this time around. Perhaps not being as celebratory while 2014 came to a close will be far more fruitful than a silly list of declarations that get lost in the shuffle of day to day life a few weeks into the New Year. We shall see. That said, I still want to wish everyone out there all the best in 2015! May it be the ultimate year yet!

Moving into the New Year, I’ve spent the last few weeks bombarded with year-end retrospectives, Best-of-2014 lists, and other various nostalgic throw-backs to days gone by. Though inundated by music and media ad nauseam, I found myself inspired.

Now I was never that musically savvy. I myself can’t carry a tune. I never attended many concerts or bought that many cassettes or CDs. Movies were much more my thing. That said, I was a child born in the 70s (1979 does count as being born in the 70s), raised in the 80s, and living her teen angst-ridden years in the 90s… I’d forgotten how formative music was for me at one time and how some of the greatest music ever produced had emerged from those decades.

In fact, I’d gotten away from music almost altogether over the last ten years or so. Sure, it might have been on in the background while I was driving or on in the classroom when I was teaching, but I haven’t really been listening to the music. I tuned out when I was tuned in. It was white noise.

In the last several weeks, though, I’ve been listening again. I’ve been listening to the radio shows do their little flashbacks to whenever and almost every time a tune has played from my past, I’ve been completely transported. I know they say smell is the strongest memory trigger, but these songs of my youth have me remembering moments that have been long since forgotten. Okay, maybe not that long. I am only 35.

I’ve been remembering silly snippets and meaningful moments that I haven’t thought about in years. These flashbacks are fabulous. Even the sad songs have me smiling because enough years have now passed that time has healed whatever hurt way back when. Again, I’ve been inspired.

I have been inspired to find 365 songs that remind me of people I’ve met, moments I’ve shared, thoughts I’ve had through the years. I want to find 365 songs that trigger some sort of recollection, vivid or vague, over the last 30 odd years of my life.  This is not a resolution but rather an exploration – a challenge, really. We will see where it goes.

Music played a larger role in my life than I’d remembered or probably even cared to admit. Now it’s time to go back and appreciate all of those tiny (and not so tiny) no-take-backs set to the unexpected soundtrack of classic rock, pop and grunge music (with a little bit of The Beatles and 50s doo-wop sprinkled into the mix).

What songs take you back? Where do they take you? 

To kick things off – a 90s classic …