0:04
Hello friends, this is Ashia Ray and it’s the Raising Luminaries podcast, episode 4. Our mission is to keep showing up.

0:14
And what I mean by that is… when we’ve got nothing in the tank, and there’s just… we’re entering a season of lack of creativity and kind of this feeling that we just want to hibernate (Which is totally legit. We should be able to do that.)

0:36
But if we’re creating something new and we want to get through it, one of the best ways that I’ve found to actually create something, as opposed to let it languish in a ditch on the side of the road, is to just make a couple – Okay, more than a couple, more than a couple, of not-great, kind of crappy, poorly planned out things.

1:03
And this is one of those things. You can feel free to skip it. But part of what we do in raising kind and courageous humans is model for kids, that it’s okay to show up when we’re not FULLY fully prepared. And preparing is important, but sometimes that need to show up, polished and perfect, and that need to wow everybody is what gets in our way and gets us to just kind of give up.

1:38
So this is this is episode four. It’s basically just empty calories and it’s the hard work in the embarrassing work of showing up and creating something crappy instead of just giving up and no longer engaging. So this is how we do it. It’s profoundly uncomfortable. As is most of the things that we do.

2:09
We’re entering a season of transitions. After a year and a half of being more or less isolated at home – homeschooling our kids the Covid vaccination is available for my kids age group. So they got their first shot last week, and now we’re in that waiting transition before we get a second shot.

2:36
And then after that, I think it’s something like five weeks before they’re actually considered fully vaccinated, which means we’ve got this eight week waiting period where there’s a glimmer of hope, and we can start to make some plans for the first time in a year and a half, which is very exciting. And then theoretically, before we hit the two year mark of COVID isolation, my kids can go back to school and we can kind of reengage with the outside world again, which I’m hesitantly excited about and it feels a lot like… that interesting transition time between… (for me, I have biological children…) getting pregnant.

3:28
And that waiting hopeful time where you know, past where you’re terrified that the pregnancy isn’t gonna last. That interesting transition time where you can actually make plans. Because for us, we navigated infertility for seven years with multiple losses and miscarriages. And your life is just on hold for those seven years. You can’t make plans. (and some people do. Some people are smarter and better at functioning than I am.)

4:06
But for me, I didn’t want to do things like buy new shoes in case I got pregnant and my feet grew. Or get a haircut. Because I wanted to be able to hold my hair in a ponytail and pull it back from my face so it didn’t irritate me when I was delivering a baby. I didn’t buy new clothes. I didn’t apply to new jobs, because I was too worried that I would get pregnant next month – and all my plans would change. So for those seven years, everything was on hold.

4:34
And it felt a lot, like a lot, like being isolated during COVID. COVID I actually I feel like was a little bit easier because we had this experience and the the pain of loss and infertility kind of armored us against two years of of isolation. Because I was like well, we’ve gotten through worse than this before.

5:02
So now that we have the vaccination for the kids and me and my partner are fully vaccinated, and we can get our boosters. This feels a lot like getting pregnant and then passing that milestone where we feel like the embryos? No, the fetuses are safe. And now you can actually make plans. Like we can start talking to the school about how to transition back. We can start to make plans for IEPs which are individualized education plans for learning disabilities.

5:38
My seven year old has a bucket list of exciting things that he’s looking forward to such as going to IKEA and eating mac and cheese. Apparently that’s really high up on the list. Going to the library and picking out his own books – super excited. Getting to you know see my little brother who’s about his age and maybe sleep over his grandmother’s house at some point. That would be so exciting.

6:06
So it feels oddly like spring in that way. There’s also a sun shining in my eyes. Maybe that’s why, even though it’s November and we are wrestling, you know, with seasonal affective disorders and, you know, maintaining our mental health, but it feels like there’s a little bit of hope.

6:27
Even if it’s just we’re able to actually set dates for when we could possibly do things as opposed to waiting for something outside of our control to happen before we can even make plans about what we’re going to be doing two weeks from now.

6:42
So I guess that’s part of showing up is just making tenuous plans or making that list of plans you will make one day. Which is all to say, for those of you who are unable to be vaccinated due to health reasons. If your kids are too young, it’s just not available where you are – holding space for you. And I hope that it gets better.

7:16
And yeah, it’s hard to say just holding space without having control over what actually happens. Huh?

7:23
But this is us showing, up babbling for a bit and just having some faith that we will have the opportunity to get better in the future, even if we’re not that great at things right now.