Anyway, it was the worst. It was so hard and exhausting and painful, and the nurses only let me have popsicles or Jell-O or chicken broth during the labor. It took forever to get to the time to push. Anyone who has lived through a similar experience will vouch for me. You wait and wait and wait, and just when it seems like you’ll probably just stay pregnant forever, they announce that it’s time to push. Time. To. Push.
For me, the time to push came so much later than anticipated that the epidural had started to wear off. Yes, epidural. You didn’t think I went through two days of labor without drugs, did you? No. I am not that heroic. I utilized the anesthesiologist who, just so we’re clear, did look like Danny DeVito—as they should—and all the good drugs they wanted to offer to me, but by go-time the pain was creeping back in. The nurses asked me if I wanted another dose, but I had read all kinds of horror stories about women who couldn’t push because the meds were too strong, and I didn’t want anything to slow us down further. So, like a true and proper martyr, I bravely told them I would push Jackson out without drugs.
Almost immediately I knew I had made a grave, grave mistake.
The pain was bad enough just lying there, but when I actually tried to push for the first time, it felt like Satan had stuck a flaming pitchfork right up inside me and then given it a quarter turn to the right.
“JK,” I told everyone in the room. “I do in fact want those drugs just as fast as the IVs can carry them to my spinal column!”
The nurse pressed a button, the staff made some calls, they whispered amongst themselves, and then they looked at me with sad eyes. “We’re so sorry. Both of our anesthesiologists are in C-sections. There’s no one available to administer another dose.”
What? No more drugs? No more numbing? Just me and Satan’s pitchfork? My heart broke right along with my perineum.
I was in so much pain and I was so exhausted that I felt kind of delusional. I had no control over what was happening to me and had no way to escape it. It felt like no matter how many times I pushed, Jackson wouldn’t come out. His heart rate began to drop, and the doctor started talking about there being too much stress on him and how maybe we’d have to do a C-section. Oddly, in the midst of utter panic, I had the greatest moment of clarity of my life. I knew I had to get Jackson out safely and calmly, and in order to do that I had to find a way to rise above the pain. I went from crying and freaking out to silent and focused. I didn’t speak to Dave or my mom or the nurses or the doctors. I don’t think I made another sound or even looked in anyone’s direction. I was deeply inside my head, caught somewhere between fervent prayer and an internal motivational speech to my unborn child.
When Jackson Cage Hollis came screaming into the world an hour later, I don’t know which of us was more exhausted. I do know that all the pain I’d been riding above came rushing back in a tidal wave so intense I still can’t believe I managed to ignore it for so long. It’s one of the greatest reminders I have in my life that you can choose your attitude, your focus, and your intentions for any situation, no matter what it is. That choice is often the difference between joy and suffering.
You can drink the water and wake up early and have a plan and work on it every day, but if you don’t have the right attitude, you’re dead in the water. All right, fine, maybe “dead in the water” is a little dramatic, but I get pretty dramatic about mindset and attitude and reaching for positivity, because it matters so dang much.
When my children are acting insane and the house is trashed and I’m seriously contemplating running away with the circus or drinking an entire box of wine, forcing myself to have a positive attitude is what saves me.
When my book is due—like right now, this book was due yesterday and yet here I am, still writing it—and work is overwhelming and my travel schedule is bananas, choosing to find the positive in every bit of it is how I stay happy.
Happy, not just sane. Not just okay. Not just getting by. But happy. I am happy and appreciative and feeling blessed 90 percent of the time, and that’s not because my life is unfolding in a way that makes that easy. I am one of the happiest gals you know because I choose it every single day. I choose to practice gratitude; I choose to surround myself with things and people who support positivity. I regulate my thoughts because thoughts control feelings.
The words and phrases we use with ourselves become the soundtrack playing in the background of every moment of our lives, and there’s not a single thought—good or bad—that you don’t allow to be there. Are you actively monitoring that? Are you working to control the way you think about yourself and speak to yourself? Because you are not stupid, so stop telling yourself that you are. You are not ugly, so stop thinking it—even occasionally—when you look in the mirror. You are not a bitch, even if you’ve done bitchy things in the past. You are not ignorant or mean or unlovable or unworthy or falling short or any of the other stupid crap running through your mind.
You have to choose to be positive, to see possibility, and to see the blessings in your life each day. You choose your thoughts, and there isn’t one thing running through your mind that you don’t allow to be there. So every time you find yourself thinking something negative, remember DMX. Stop yourself, drop the hateful litany, shut ’em down, then replace them with good stuff. The hope is that whether you are in a season of ease or a season of hardship, you’ll recognize that you’re still in control of how you perceive it.
Because this is real life, not a fairy tale, and I don’t for one second think it’s going to be easy every day, no matter who you are or where you live. Real life is going to suck sometimes, and you’ll have whole seasons that rob you of the energy you need to pursue your goal. But you still have hopes and dreams and goals for yourself and your life, and they are possible. Sometimes you’re going to sprint at them headlong and sometimes you’re going to take the smallest inch forward, but you’ve got to keep yourself in the game. You cannot control the circumstances of your life; you can only control your reaction to them.
SKILL 6:
LEAD-HER-SHIP
In sixth grade I took a picture inside a teepee. It was Girl Scout Camp circa 1995, and I still have the photo in an album covered with peace-sign stickers and multiple artistic renderings of the Stüssy S. In the photo I’m dressed as a young Native American girl, as imagined by a young—and ignorant—white girl. Brown tie-dye and knockoff Timberlands aren’t a part of any tribal dress that I’m familiar with, but my twelve-year-old self felt beyond cool to sit beneath that mock teepee for a solo picture donated by the local Olan Mills.
Cultural appropriation aside, that particular Girl Scout experience sticks out in my mind for two reasons. One, because we made scrambled eggs by boiling them inside Ziploc bags. Since I have never been a camper, these sorts of wilderness skills still seem highly impressive. And, two, my best friend, Amanda, and I made up an entire dance routine to a Tim McGraw song and taught it to the whole squad. The song was “Indian Outlaw” (I mean, obviously), and it involved choreographed steps and moving into more than one formation. The dance was originally something we did during a break as a way to fight boredom, but it was—I’m hypothesizing here—so adorable to the assembled group of troop leaders (who were likely all a little bit in love with Tim and that creepy pencil handlebar mustache he was rocking back then) that we were asked to perform it at campfire.
Campfire, you guys!
Campfire is the Girl Scout equivalent of the big show. It’s where everything goes down. It’s where patches are given out and troops are recognized; it’s where we join hands in one big circle and sing, “Make new friends, but keep the old . . .” Anyone? Anyway, it’s a big dang deal, and Troop 723 was about to make our campfire debut!