Singalong! Someone Tell the Boys by Samia

Do you have a boy you would like to tell he is not as important as he thinks? Here you go!


SOMEONE TELL THE BOYS
by Samia

Oh but kids you know what really wrecked it
Was his grand and histrionic exit
And I sat on that bed so perplexed
Strung out and fuming and vexed

Whisper louder what you want from me
Because I can't fucking hear you
You keep crying the way Jesus do
Maybe this isn't about you
Maybe this isn't about you

Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore
Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore

I have anecdotes to offer
They won't do much for this gentleman
'Cause his every thought's a sacrament
And his every word's been said

And I find this awfully boring
But I wouldn't ever say
Because God made boys all-knowing
And I wish God made me gay
And I wish God made me gay

Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore
Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore
Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore
Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore

Couldn't hear what he said
Probably something prolific just like my ex-boyfriend
And he's got my ring in his bed
He turned me sideways and said
I don't wanna have sex
And I couldn't get a word in
I should've paid him
I'm just a vessel still
I guess I need to be filled

Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore
Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore
Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore
Someone tell the boys they're not important anymore

Someone tell the boys they're not important

Giphy


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Learning! Roundup: Cat Love is Real, Menu Order Matters, Suicide Interventions, and More!

New research shows that cat love is REAL and cats can be securely attached to their owners. That and more science in this week's Learning! Roundup
Photo by Jonas Vincent.

Cat Love is Real

I mean, I knew this all along, but it's nice to have science to back it up: cats aren't just aloof, heartless beings. They form attachments to their owners, and that attachment can even be secure or insecure. Now, of course, I am a bit worried to figure out whether my kitty is securely attached or not!

Menu Order Matters

Do you make your menu choices based on your actual desires and free will, or are you manipulated based on the order things are presented to you? According to a new study, the order makes a big difference. Researchers swapped the position of the regular Coke and Coke Zero on 511 self-serve kiosks at McDonald's and saw sales of Coke Zero rise and regular Coke fall.

New Suicide Intervention Points

For the first time, researchers have done an in-depth, large-scale analysis of patterns of behaviour for people before they commit suicide. The result is a much better understanding of common things that happen in the lives of people who feel they have no other choice but to kill themselves, including getting evicted and dropping their pets off at shelters. This means that health professionals have more opportunities to intervene and, hopefully, save lives.

Placebo Anxiety Reduction

I love love love the placebo effect! It's so wild and mysterious how a person can take a pill that has no active ingredients and still heal! Even wilder is the fact that they could know it's a placebo and STILL get the effect! A new study shows this very impact by giving college students placebos to help with their test-related anxiety. Spoiler alert: it worked.

Extraverted Introverts

Sometimes it feels like we are living in the age of the introvert: fear of missing out on social media has been replaced with joy of missing out and all the self-care strategies we discuss are really very introvert-specific (stay in, do a face mask, ignore your phone). While introverts are celebrating finally being accepted for their desire to avoid people, science says the opposite: that introverts are happier when they act like extraverts. This study asked introverts to force themselves to act like extraverts for a whole week and it found that their sense of well-being went way up!

Suffering and Compassion

If you've suffered a lot in your life, you are more likely to have strong levels of compassion for other people's suffering as well as to believe that you can do something to help it out. People who haven't suffered much were able to match the levels of compassion and belief in their ability to help when they were primed for empathy.


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Awesome Award: Greta Thunberg

It's been a while since I gave out an Awesome Award, and who better to jump back on that bandwagon for than GRETA THUNBERG????
Photo by stephane_p on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
Name: Greta Thunberg

Award Title: For Ongoing Demonstrations of Integrity and Valour, Speaking Truth to Power Without Stopping

Ms. Thunberg is wildly smart and passionate. She is clearly very privileged and is using it to do things like ride a sailboat across the world instead to address world leaders. Her words are scathing. She doesn't soften her message to make other people feel comfortable. She has given us the slogan, "How dare you", and it's perfect.

She also changed her Twitter bio to clap back at Trump mocking her. She is a gem and a half and we should ALL be propelled into action.

"The fact that you are staring at a panel of young people testifying before you today pleading for a liveable earth should not fill you with pride; it should fill you with shame."

Giphy

It is ABSOLUTELY worth noting that she is not the only young climate warrior right now. There are many more who are getting less news coverage and have been working their butts off for years. It's likely not a coincidence that many of these less-famous climate activists are Indigenous and people of colour. My promise is to read up on them and share their stories, too.


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This Week in Church: Knowing the Right Words and Naming Your Fears

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

I think that church can teach things that are beneficial to everyone, whether or not we believe in church-related things.

This week in church we talked about knowing the words versus feeling them.

Sometimes, you know exactly what you're supposed to say in a given situation. You can pass for fitting in, for being okay, for being on the right side. But you don't actually feel it. Then you have a choice: will you say the right words, or will you speak authentically?

This week in church we talked about naming our fear and doubt.

If for no other reason than the fact that problems seem a lot bigger and a lot more unwieldy when they are unnamed. It's sort of like how it feels like your to do list is unmanageable while it swirls around in your brain. If you write it down, it often turns out to be a lot more doable than it seemed.

What scares you? What do you doubt? If you name it, you can face it.


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Inspiration! Roundup: Glitched Still Life, Crappy Rewards, Unwoven Art, and More!

A roundup of inspirational things, including bowling, some art, late blooming, and giving yourself crappy rewards!
This Week's "I want to go to there": I kinda want to join a bowling league!
Photo by Daniel Avarez Sanchez Diaz.

Glitched Still Life

Olan Ventura takes classic-style still lifes and gives them little glitches. It's captivating!


Crappy Rewards

Do you try to get yourself to do things by giving yourself little rewards along the way? Maybe you tell yourself you only get to have your favourite snack if you've exercised every day for a week or that you'll only watch your favourite show if you have already cleaned your house. Well, here's a new idea to motivate yourself: make that reward crappier. If the reward is something you really want then it takes very little to talk yourself into having it without doing the work first. A truly meaningless reward, however, like a checkmark on a calendar or a gold star, is not going to motivate cheating. It also helps keep your motivation intrinsic.

Let's try it! What do you want to do? I want to get back into my yoga habit.

Unwoven

While Olan Ventura is in one corner creating streams of colour on still-life portraits, Aiko Tezuka is in the other, creating a similar effect with fabric. She unweaves textiles and creates new designs. Stunning!


Late Blooming

I love this Harvard Business Review article about "late bloomers", people who have made significant changes and achieved feats later in life.

"Remember that age typically brings wisdom, resilience, humility, self-knowledge, and creativity. This is one reason the average age of founders of high-growth start-ups is 45. Citing the work of developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, Karlgaard writes, the 'ages 40 to 64 constitute a unique period where one’s creativity and experience combine with a universal human longing to make our lives matter.'”

It's not too late to go bloom, friends! (Or not, no pressure.)

Woven Photos

Photographer Heather Oelklaus has a captivating series where she takes old black and white photos and weaves them together into something new.



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What Life Lessons Have You Learned from Your Job?

Have you learned any life lessons from your work? How about that you can't change other people.
Photo by Josephan Diaz.

The first ten(ish) years of my working life were spent doing marketing for a theatre company. This job taught me that marketing isn't just about making people feel insecure so they will buy a $30 pre-shampoo hair treatment--you can market good things, too! It also taught me a lot about how people act.

Specifically, it taught me that I had to react to what people were ACTUALLY doing, not what I thought they SHOULD be doing.

For example, when I started my job, I thought that people should be able to read a three-sentence description of an event, look at a poster for five seconds to find the important information, or see that a Facebook event had both a start and end date that were different from each other, and thus not say, "Sorry, I'm busy that night" for a play that ran three weeks.

These seemed like reasonable expectations for humanity, right?

Perhaps, but that didn't matter because people didn't actually DO them.

I could have spent ten years getting annoyed that people weren't doing these (and many other) incredibly simple tasks. Instead, I realized that I needed to adapt to what they were doing. (I was, after all, the one whose livelihood depended on them following through with the impulse to buy theatre tickets.)

It was a lot more work. I had to go through every single bit of marketing presence and rearrange or rewrite it so that the messages I wanted people to receive were as obvious and easy as possible.

Anytime I caught myself saying, "People should be able to figure this out," I would have to stop myself and consider whether they would. Because it never really mattered what people should do or could do, only what they would do.

I only recently figured out that this can apply to the rest of life.

Friends, family, significant others--they all could, and maybe even should, do certain things. You could, or should, do things in return.

Maybe you could really like this person because they have all the traits you thought you would be into.

Maybe they could have foreseen that their action would hurt your feelings.

Maybe you could easily have made a note to remember their birthday.

Maybe they could start pitching in around the house.

Maybe you could be interested in their basketball team.

Maybe they could just text or call or email you back already.

But they aren't. And you aren't.

If it's your own life, you have some control over the situation. You can be honest with yourself about what is getting in your way and see if you can remove some barriers to make it easier for yourself to do whatever the things is, assuming you actually want to do it. (Maybe the barrier is that you don't really want to do it. Then what?)

If it's someone else, however, there isn't much you can do about it. If you have the kind of relationship to help them work through their own barriers, that's an option. Otherwise, you just have to start reacting to what they are doing. Not what they could be doing or should be doing--what they are actually doing.

It's a lot harder than it sounds, but far less frustrating.


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Singalong! Cruel Summer by Bananarama

This music video is a wild ride: girls singing about how hot it is while wearing full-length overalls, climbing steps in time to music, and then jumping into some random trucker's semi, throwing bananas at a police car and then (spoiler alert!) having a rooftop dance party with the VERY policemen they threw bananas at! Just typical summer shenanigans, right?

This is for those of you who are happy summer is over. I am not one of you, but I respect your right to exist!


CRUEL SUMMER
by Bananarama

Hot summer streets and the pavements are burning, I sit around
Trying to smile, but the air is so heavy and dry

Strange voices are saying (What did they say?)
Things I can't understand
It's too close for comfort, this heat has got right out of hand

It's a cruel (Cruel), cruel summer
Leaving me here on my own
It's a cruel (It's a cruel), cruel summer
Now you're gone

The city is crowded, my friends are away and I'm on my own
It's too hot to handle so I got to get up and go

It's a cruel (Cruel), cruel summer
Leaving me here on my own
It's a cruel (It's a cruel), cruel summer
Now you're gone

You're not the only one

It's a cruel (Cruel), cruel summer
(Leaving me) Leaving me here on my own
It's a cruel (It's a cruel), cruel summer
Now you're gone

It's a cruel, cruel summer
Leaving me here on my own
It's a cruel, cruel summer
Now you're gone

You're not the only one

It's a cruel (Cruel), cruel summer
(Leaving me) Leaving me here on my own
It's a cruel (It's a cruel), cruel summer
Now you're gone

You're not the only one

It's a cruel (Cruel), cruel summer
(Leaving me) Leaving me here on my own
It's a cruel (It's a cruel), cruel summer

Sing along with Bananarama's Cruel Summer lyrics
Giphy


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Learning! Roundup: Napping for Life, Dateless Wonders, Consequences of Policing, and More!

Did you know that napping is good for your heart's health? Learn that and more in this roundup of new scientific research!
Photo by Cristian Newman.

Napping for Life

I am not a nap-taker. I rarely am able to fall asleep during the day, and even if I am that tired, I feel so unwell after a nap that it doesn't seem worth it. It's too bad, because every once in a while a new study comes out touting the benefits of napping. This time, it's been shown that napping 1-2 times a week could help reduce your risk of a heart attack!

The Dateless Wonders Are Alright

If this study had been done twenty years ago, I could have been a participant: new research looked at teenagers who can't (or don't) get a date to see if they were more socially awkward or depressed than their peers. Turns out, they're not! Teens who don't date had equal or better social skills and mental health to those who are getting out there. That's nice.

Consequences of Policing

A new study shows that even smaller-scale interactions with the justice system can have negative effects on people's mental and physical health. This includes people who are convicted of crimes, regardless of whether they serve jail time, and even people who are arrested, even if they are not convicted.

Fit Bodies and Brains

A large study has shown that young adults who are physically fit have healthier brains, too. The brains of adults who are more physically active have more white matter (which improves nerve connections in the brain) and improved cognitive performance.

Political Correctness

This will come as no surprise to anyone who has watched current events unfold over the past four years, but a new study has shown that speakers who are politically incorrect are seen as more authentic by their audience, especially when the overall message conformed to their views. This means that (for example) liberals thought a person was being more authentic for calling someone "white trash" and conservatives were inclined to see authenticity when the speaker called someone "illegal." More evidence that we all just like people who agree with us. SIGH.




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This Week in Church: Betrayal and Playing Small Roles in Big Stories

Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.

I think that church can teach things that are beneficial to everyone, whether or not we believe in church-related things.

This week in church we talked about betrayal.

When people think about betrayal in the story of the crucifixion, they mostly talk about Judas turning Jesus in. But there was also Peter: the one who claimed he would lay down his life to save Jesus and then denied he even knew him when the opportunity came--a quieter betrayal, but a powerful one nonetheless. Peter denied Jesus three times, and then the next morning, when a newly arisen Jesus came to him, he was given the opportunity to cover each of those denials with a statement of love. (Jesus asked him three times, "Do you love me?")

This reminds me that we are all betrayers, in one way or another. Some betrayals may carry a lot more weight than others, but it's something we all do. And while we can't undo the betrayal, we may be able to show that's not all we are. We might be able to match that betrayal with acts of love.

(We also read Luci Shaw's lovely poem "Judas, Peter" and you can too.)

This week in church we talked about big and small parts.

Sometimes we are key players in an event or story, and sometimes we have a tiny, supporting role. Our ability to play great parts without pride and little parts without shame depends on how devoted we are to the greater story we are taking part in. If it's about the story, then we are happy to give ourselves to it, no matter the size or stature of the role. If it's about our own glory, then that role begins to really matter.

This reminds me of two things: one is my earlier post about being exceptional. The other is an instructor I once had in an arts leadership course who said, "It's amazing what can get done when you don't care who gets the credit."


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Inspiration! Roundup: Elizabeth Gilbert's Writing Advice, Hate Copy, Tiny Ecosystems, and More!

A roundup of inspirational things, including Elizabeth Gilbert's writing advice and Amelia Earhart's get-her-done attitude.
This Week's "I want to go to there": I just want that "throw yourself in with all your heart" feeling. ❤
Photo by Britney Burnett.

How to Write

I super love Elizabeth Gilbert's ten writing tips. Especially the first one: pick someone you love and imagine you are telling the story to them. Can't wait to try this one!

Hate Copy

I may have shared the work of Maria Qamar in the past - her Instagram art is bomb - but even if I have, she deserves a second look. At the age of 29, she has become the youngest artist ever programmed at Richard Traittinger Gallery.


Tiny Ecosystems

A Youtuber created a mini-ecosystem by putting some seawater, sand, and plants in a jar and sealing it off. The coolest things happened. Now I want to do it!

You Are Magic

Lori Nelson's art gets my imagination into high gear. Let's look at it for a while.


The Whole Galaxy

One photo, the whole Milky Way. Captivating.

Do It

"The most effective way to do it is to do it."
-Amelia Earhart


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Do You Need to Be Exceptional?

Photo by Peter Morawski on Trend hype / CC BY-NC-ND

Growing up, I always felt like I needed to be exceptional. I had to prove that I deserved to exist by winning an Academy Award or being on a 20 under 20 list - and then 25 under 25, then 30 under 30, and well, I never have made it onto one of those lists but I've kind of aged out of that kind of thing--I guess that dream is dead.

(Of course, I had a wonderful blend of insecurities that made me desperately want this kind of accolade but also led me to believe that I should excel through 'natural talent' and/or that I was so useless that putting myself out there would be an embarrassment, so I never actually put enough work into anything to give me these outcomes.)

My mom would often try to reassure me, telling me that most people are ordinary and that's a good thing, but I just hated the idea of blending in. If I was indistinguishable from the crowd then what was I?

Since learning to value myself as a human being I have had a decreased (although not completely eradicated) need to stand out.

If you identify, then I recommend you hop over and read this School of Life article "Overcoming the Need to Be Exceptional"?

They describe this intense need to be exceptional not as ambition or drive or something else to be lauded. They describe it as a problem:

"It seems odd to look at achievement through this lens, not as the thing the newspapers tell us it is, but – very often – as a species of mental illness. Those who put up the skyscrapers, write the bestselling books, perform on stage, or make partner may, in fact, be the unwell ones. Whereas the characters who – without agony – can bear an ordinary life, the so-called contented ‘mediocrities’, may in fact be the emotional superstars, the aristocrats of the spirit, the captains of the heart."

This reminds me of when I was on the SAD Mag podcast talking about my (very much non-bestselling) book. The host asked me if I thought that successful people could also be happy and I said probably not when it comes to the super-successful. The ones that are driven to never stop and achieve more and more greatness are probably compensating for a deep hole in their hearts.

She lamented that getting healthy then means becoming less impressive.

I guess that's true, but it's a matter of scale. There is a degree of greatness, I believe, that can come from a very healthy contribution to the world. A whole person who says, "I can make the world better in this way," and then offers up their best can be great. They just are unlikely to put in the life-killing, soul-smothering hours that it takes to be at the top of the pile because their goal isn't the top. Their goal is to make a contribution to a cause.

But there is an entirely different kind of greatness that has nothing to do with any of that. The kind that comes when you don't have a deep sense that you are not enough and give yourself to your immediate community: family, friends, and a simple job.

"There may be immense skill, joy and nobility involved in what we are up to: in bringing up a child to be reasonably independent and balanced; in maintaining a good-enough relationship with a partner over many years despite areas of extreme difficulty; in keeping a home in reasonable order; in getting a lot of early nights; in doing a not very exciting or well-paid job responsibly and cheerfully; in listening properly to other people and, in general, in not succumbing to madness or rage at the paradox and compromises involved in being alive."

My grandpa was a man who lived just this way. His life was all about small things: family, friends, and his work as a math and science teacher. He volunteered for causes he cared about. When he was younger he worked weekends to make sure his family had enough. He was involved in his church. He took his grandkids on driving lessons.

When he passed away and people gathered to reminisce and celebrate his life, I realized just how great he had been--without magazine covers.

"As we may discover once we are beyond others’ expectations, life’s true luxuries might comprise nothing more or less than simplicity, quiet, friendship based on vulnerability, creativity without an audience, love without too much hope or despair, hot baths and dried fruits, walnuts and dark chocolate."

Right now my heart is whole enough to know that I will get more out of this kind of life than one where I chase accolades but not quite whole enough to let go of an inner fear of becoming forgotten or irrelevant. I am getting there. How about you?


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Dating Friends and Friending Dates

What if we treated our friends more like dates and our dates more like friends?
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez

You may have noticed that I'm kind of obsessed with friendship lately - well here's another interesting idea connected with friendship that I have recently come across: to treat our friends more like people we are dating and the people we are dating more like friends.

What this means is that our friends deserve the loving attention, special quality time, and prioritization that we can give our dates, and that our dates deserve the allowance of space, understanding, and reduced pressure that we give our friends.

I like this idea!


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Singalong! Foolish by Ashanti

When this song came out I assumed it was just a cute song about a woman who's in love. WELL! It's about a woman in love alright, but it sure ain't cute and there is nothing healthy about it.

Dear Ashanti: your days might be cold for a little while, but then they will warm up with the joy you feel at NOT being taken advantage of! Put on a scarf and brave the cold! You can do it!


FOOLISH
by Ashanti

See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurting while I'm with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you
See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurting while I'm with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you

Baby I don't know why you're treating me so bad
You said you love me, no one above me
And I was all you had
And though my heart is beating for you
I can't stop crying
I don't know how
I allow you to treat me this way and still I stay

See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurting while I'm with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you
See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurting while I'm with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you

Baby I don't know why you wanna do me wrong
See when I'm home, I'm all alone
And you are always gone
And boy, you know I really love you
I can't deny
I can't see how you could bring me to so many tears
After all these years

See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurting while I'm with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you
See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurting while I'm with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you

I trusted you, I trusted you
So sad, so sad what love will make you do
All the things that we accept
Be the things that we regret
To all of my ladies (ladies)
Feel me c'mon sing with me

See, when I get the strength to leave
You always tell me that you need me
And I'm weak 'cause I believe you
And I'm mad because I love you
So I stop and think that maybe
You can learn to appreciate me
Then it all remains the same
That you ain't never gonna change
(never gonna change, never gonna change)

See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurting while I'm with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you
See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurting while I'm with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you

Baby why you hurt me leave me and desert me
Boy I gave you all my heart
And all you did was tear it up
Looking out my window
Knowing that I should go
Even when I pack my bags
This something always hold me back

Sing along to Foolish by Ashanti lyrics
Giphy



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Learning! Roundup: Work It Out (for your sex life), Chatbots Can Save, Gratitude in Love, and More!

A roundup of the latest research in psychology and science, including the fact that exercise can benefit your sex life!
Photo by Rishikesh Yogpeeth.

Work It Out (for sex!)

Want to improve your sex life? Get your cardio on! Research shows that more intense exercise is good for your sex life. This may be related to having healthier blood flow as a result of working out, which increases arousal and lubrication in women.

Chatbots Can Save

Chatbots are generally annoying creations that pop up on your phone when you don't want them to, but a new study shows that automated text messaging can help people self-regulate their diabetes with greater success.

Gratitude in Love

Gratitude is being shown to be more and more valuable in life, and now we know that it really makes a difference in relationship satisfaction. Or at least, a lack of gratitude within a relationship seems to be indicative of avoidant attachment.

Make New Friends

How long does it take to make a friend? According to a new study, it takes 40-60 hours of time spent together for an acquaintance to turn into a casual friendship and about 200 hours to make a best friend.

Nudges to Give

Trying to convince someone to give to a charity? Give them a moral nudge! A new study shows that giving gentle reminders that someone think about the moral implications of giving motivates them to increase their giving by 50%.

Sharing Your Goals

When setting a goal, do you tell anyone? Research shows it's best to tell someone who you feel is higher status than you. As long as you value the opinion of the person you've shared your goal with, you are more likely to make sure it happens!


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A PSA to Parents, From Your Friends Who Don't Have Kids

Hey parents, your friends who don't have kids still like your kids!
Photo by Sai De Silva.

I recently had a conversation with me about a friend of mine who is also a single, non-child-having person about how much we love our friends' kids.

We aren't biased or anything, but our friends clearly have the cutest, smartest, most promising kids in the whole dang world. We love the opportunities we have to be a part of their lives, spoil them like aunties, and join in our friends' family activities.

Of course, we also love when we get some alone time with our friends and can have adult conversations, but we know that won't be every time and we are VERY okay with that!

Why am I sharing these not-so-hot takes about the fact that we aren't jerks to our friends' kids? Because we also discussed how it sometimes feels like our friends think that we resent the fact that their kids' existence has had an impact on their lives. We don't!

FRIENDS WITH KIDS: PLEASE STOP APOLOGIZING FOR YOUR KIDS' EXISTENCE!

Your friends get it!

We get that our conversation will be interrupted a billion times by your children. We get that all things revolve around bedtime. We get that exposure to germs is now a very big deal. We get that your apartment will be a mess of kids' stuff for a long, long time. We get that it will take 20 minutes to walk somewhere that would normally take us 5.

We get it! We are cool with it! We LIKE it, even!

Basically, you can feel free to stop projecting whatever fears you have about being annoying or not enough or whatever it is onto us and just let us continue to be your friend in this new phase of life. We are here for it.


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