It must be very difficult to be the child of a blogger. It was a grand experiment, this parenting blogging thing, and we navigated it by making a lot of mistakes, trying to figure out as we went along how much of ourselves to share and where the line was between us and our babies. 

In SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK, I wrote a lot about the struggles of parenting. I didn't write enough about the joy. Now the parent of an amazing fourteen-year-old girl, I've waited too long to revisit what it feels like to be a mother.

I've often told my daughter that she can't possibly love me more than I love her. I still believe that to be true. The love I feel for her goes beyond human love to being love. It is both intellectual and instinctual in that I wouldn't have to actually think about throwing myself in front of a bus for her. I wouldn't be able to make the choice not to. I love her too much. 

But it's intellectual, too, because I love her not only because she's my child, but for her intelligence, her humor, and her resilience. She's bravely survived both my husband and I losing jobs and all the financial uncertainty and sacrifice that came of that. She bore my cancer without complaint and wrote a heartbreaking poem about the experience that showed me not only her writing talent but the depth of her maturity at such a young age. She has understood the world better as a very young child than many adults do, and that understanding gives her empathy for others -- and for me -- that I don't deserve and shouldn't be able to expect from a teenager who's still growing up and going through so many changes.

I love her because she's funny. I love her because she's kind. When she was a tween, she bought a younger friend a stuffy with her own money because she said, "I know what it feels like to fall in love with something." That's not a perfect quote, but it's essentially what she said. That empathy, that kindness, that wisdom, takes my breath away. 

She's brave. She rides the horse we lease better than I do and with more confidence. She charges into most situations fearlessly even as I twitter and wring my hands in the background (hopefully hidden from her but probably not). 

Many parents think their kids just know that they love them. I think that. But it's good to say it, too. Say all the ways. These are not even all the ways I love my daughter, but I only had a few minutes this morning before my first meeting, and I realized on my drive in that it's too easy to just say you'll do it later when you have more time. Days and months and years pass, as they have for me, and I don't want to let one more minute pass without writing this down and publishing it. I'm sorry I didn't have time to make it better writing, but that's actually not what matters about this post. I love you, Lily. More than you will ever know. 

In 2009, I left my corporate job for a job in the blogosphere. At the time, it was my dream job. We had a good run.

In that time,  I watched many of my contemporaries make a living from their words and then fall from the industry as the way media works changed. Now, my TIME magazine is 100 pages shorter per issue and the headlines are more dominated by the royal wedding than they are a school shooting or Hawaii being ruined by a volcano. I remember the day Osama bin Laden died. I found out on a Sunday night, around midnight. We needed to cover it. 

So it goes. Media has died. I half-heartedly spoon sand over it and click on the next cat video. 

In 2017, I re-entered corporate America. Two weeks ago, I landed back in the building I've always felt most comfortable in. The art hanging on the walls is familiar. My heels make the right noise walking across the tiles of the floor. Even the sound of the noise-canceling swoosh makes coming back seem normal and good. And the view from the 16th floor of an all-glass building made sunglasses inside seem not ridiculous.

I'm back at the company where I first took heat for blogging, back when blogging was a thing.

My co-workers at my last job, the first re-entry, would sigh and roll their eyes whenever I referenced the eight years I spent in media. "Oh," they'd say. "Are you talking about THAT again?"

That. 

When blogging was a thing.

I met Janelle Hanchett in person backstage at BlogHer's Voices of the Year show, where she was preparing to read "We Don't Start Out With Needles in Our Arms."

She was also wearing a baby at the time. We spent about five minutes debating whether or not said baby should be worn onto the stage (I was a fan of the idea in theory but, having worn a baby myself in the past, not a fan of the reality of having a baby anywhere near a microphone in a room of 3,000 people). 

Janelle's story is a shocker, both for its rock-bottom and for its normal. I volunteered to be on the launch team for her memoir, I'M JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE, because after putting out a book about mental illness myself, I get how scary that is. Not only are you sort of laying yourself bare as a writer, you're exposing to the Instagram world what mental illness really feels like. Janelle's story is one of addiction and recovery, but I recognized in her writing a lot of the same rage I've felt at times in my life and the same mental pain that is so severe it feels physical. 

What I've always admired about Janelle's writing: Her beautiful sentences. While I feel confident she could turn the mundane details of life into art, she's got some pretty compelling material to work with, and the result is truly important writing. A few of my favorite quotes:

I signed my daughter out, chatted with the receptionist, held my girl's hand to the car to make sure she was safe, and all these actions felt like tiny miracles. I gave the death glare to the woman when I saw her in the parking lot, because I was sober, not Jesus.

But then I would think of the inhumanity of my former life, of the morning I woke up and realized I could not exist among humankind, of the day I couldn't use the restroom properly, of the day I woke up alone in a hospital bed, and the day I spoke in the cracked dialects of the wholly insane, and I'd think, I am only human, and that is precisely the miracle.

And then, most disturbing of all, I got sober and realized I was still an asshole. I got sober and realized I still hurt people. I even resolved my childhood issues, and I'm still fucking bored.

My story wasn't untrue. It was simply unsustainable.

When I finished reading the book, I thought about all the ways everyone tries to self-medicate when we're still bored. I'm reading THE SHALLOWS right now, which is about how the Internet is affecting our brain circuitry and making it harder to focus. As pissed as I am at Louis CK right now, his ditty on how we can't stand to be alone with ourselves for even five minutes still deeply resonates. We joke about needing chocolate or a glass of wine or a Xanax, but not about another Oxy or some heroin, because dude, that is a serious problem. But isn't the real problem that we're bored? Janelle is no different from you or me: I've met her. She was making jokes and swigging water and wearing a baby. When I was unemployed, I avoided talking about it too much with people because I'd see the fear in their eyes that what happened to me might happen to them. I remember Stacy Morrison writing in her book about how her friends acted as if divorce was catching. What's truly terrifying about others' misfortunes is how easily they could happen to us.

What's amazing is that whatever misfortune befalls us, we can be resilient. It might take a try or twelve. It might take Good News Jack to overcome our three a.m. bad ideas. It might take getting over our egos or our childhoods or learning to sit with the shitty as well as the sublime. I've given all this a lot of thought in the past year with the lay-off and the cancer. Sitting with shitty is really hard. Learning to be more resilient is really hard.

Janelle has given us a gift with her honesty. We can't understand true resilience without seeing the bottom and hearing the mental monologue. This book is that. 

In 2010, I wrote a post about anorexia and Dr. Phil. Shortly after that, I wrote a response on BlogHer which seems to have been lost in the abyss. Shortly before I was laid off from SheKnows Media (which acquired BlogHer and is now being acquired by Penske Media, I transferred some of my posts to Medium on a lark. One of them was 5 Things You Should Know About Your Girlfriend With an Eating Disorder.

I've said it before: It's amazing, but I have received between 3-5 emails a week since I originally wrote the article sometime between 2010 and 2016 (yes, I admit, I don't have the will to research my posts on BlogHer -- it's painful). Originally I tried to write back individually to people, and at one point I had a six-month ongoing conversation with a mom, but after a while it became too overwhelming to keep up with all of the stories. And, after all, I wrote a book about this whole thing. So I started sending back this reply to the people who write me:

I get so many emails like this I put everything I know about eating disorders and recovery in a novel called THE OBVIOUS GAME. You could read it together and use it as a conversation starter. Either way it should help you understand. Good luck - there is a lot about romantic relationships and how they are affected in the book. 

RJBA

One time prior to today someone had an adverse reaction to this response, saying I was trying to sell them a book. I pointed out that THEY wrote ME, and that was the end of it. So imagine my surprise when today, I got this:

"send me an email and I will answer your questions"

"Fuck you and buy my book"

Thanks for nothing

There is a very long list of responses I wanted to send to that email. The post is years old. I haven't even worked at SheKnows Media since August 2016. My book came out in 2013. I stopped writing publicly about eating disorders around 2015/2016. Also? These are the last two paragraphs of the post referenced:

I’m sure some boyfriend somewhere right now is wondering how he can help his girlfriend as she once again refuses to eat. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you or someone you love is suffering from an eating disorder, you can email me and I will try to point you in the right direction. My personal email is ritajarens@gmail.com.

My debut young adult novel is The Obvious Game, published by InkSpell Publishing. The Obvious Game is based on my experience with anorexia. If you are a librarian and are having trouble finding my book, please write me at ritajarens@gmail.com to purchase the book at the 40% author discount price.

Beloved was pretty shocked at the whole thing. I wasn't, but I admit I was angry. I've had a long week. I just had my year-anniversary mammogram of my diagnosis this morning. (It was clean! Thank you, Jesus!) I wrote that post to help people a whole lot of years ago and this kid is treating me like a telemarketer at Grandma's dinner hour.

This is what was going through my head: WHO ARE YOU TO TALK TO ME LIKE THIS WHEN YOU EMAILED ME? ARE WE CONFUSED ABOUT WHO IS DOING THE CONTACTING?

But I sat with it. I went to the gym. I ran a few miles. I reflected on my clean mammogram and all the imaginary problems I had worried about that are not at this moment coming to fruition. I reflected on my recent eight-pound weight loss (anyone who loses weight due to cancer is apparently not a stress eater like me) that I pulled off without undue restrictions or falling back into old bad eating disordered habits.

And I thought: This kid is in pain. He thought he would write me and maybe I'd become some sort of personal mentor to him, and I let him down with my canned response.

And yeah, kid, I get it. I did.

Here's the thing: I want to be a helper. I really do. I want to help you get through this. But I also am a cancer survivor and a lay-off survivor and a mom and a daughter and a sister and a wife and a co-worker and a friend. I have a house to manage and a career. I walk my cat in a freakin' harness every morning. I take fish oil and am working on a new novel.

So when I tell you I put everything I know about eating disorders in a novel and maybe you should read it, I'm not pitching you to buy my book. Go request it from your library or download it off of one of the million pirated sites I see every day on my Google alerts. What I'm saying is that I put three years of thought into what you're asking and I WROTE A BOOK ABOUT IT.

I get that you're frustrated.

I get that you need help.

We all do. And lashing out at each other is not the way to get it.

So no, I'm not going to use your name. I'm not going to shame you.

But dude, let up. I feel your pain because despite overcoming one kind of pain, there is always another. Be kind to each other - you never know who escaped a repeat cancer diagnosis today: THIS WOMAN.

I caught a few minutes of The Voice tonight. I haven't watched it since Christina Grimmie was killed. That was a bit of a perspective-setter about fame.

In this episode, Kelly Clarkson was having a moment. I assume from context clues that Alicia Keys has been nabbing all the hot young things to the extent it started to give Kelly a complex. She didn't even want to turn around for a fabulous voice because she said, "There's no way I will win," or something to that effect.

Oh, Kelly, I feel you.

This is not a love song.

Here's the thing: Any time you try something new, put yourself out there, no matter how high you've risen in your field or in your art, isn't there always an Alicia Keys? Isn't there always someone who intimidates you because they are amazing in their own skin, in their own art, and that confidence somehow feels threatening, as though there were a finite amount of wins in the universe?

Because there are not: A finite amount of wins.

Kelly Clarkson is a thousand million times more successful than I am, a thousand million times richer, more talented. In that moment, though, I wanted to grab her ears and look into her eyes and tell her to levelset, my friend, because you are all that and more and you need to have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up.

You. Are. All. That.

I know, right? Getting through a career is hard. It is so hard. You get knocked down, laid off, hired again, budget cut, high expectations, no expectations, no team, huge team, quarterly dividends, what did you say, again?

And then you start again.

Over and over and over. A fifty-year career is no longer a fifty-year career, it's ten careers, five years each. Constantly remaking yourself, retelling your story, resetting the chess piece on the board after life clears the coffee table.

And the only way out is through.

The only person who can pull you up and out is you.

Gone are the day of being told. Now are the days of telling, deciding, weighing, and doing.

It's a lot, my friends.

I've been talking to a young person trying to find his first job. It's awful, brutal, so hard. I get it. I remember. I got my first job coming off the recession that ended in the mid-nineties. Then I was working in an Internet start-up in 2000 when that bubble burst. And it's cute, because when I say the bubble burst to young people, they think I mean 2008. No, friend, that was the year after I sold my first house at a loss and went tens of thousands into debt. That year, I had a four-year-old and life got REALLY REAL because there was a little person in daycare that meant things to my career and my earning potential and my need to be available at home. I made some career-limiting choices to be present for the four-year-old, for the recession.

I don't regret those decisions, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen.

Up. And Down. And Up. It's okay, parents, to make decisions in your career for your kids and then later wish you hadn't needed to. That's human. And that's parenting. Learning to adult means weighing everyone's needs before you make a decision. And sometimes, it's not fun.

Young person, I said. I remember how hard it was to get a job at twenty-two. It's not that much easier at forty-four. The only way out is through.

And the only one who can save you is you.

Don't you give up, Kelly Clarkson.

It appears to be true that we shrink as we age.

In height, I mean. And maybe our hands.

I always thought when I was a child and observed my friends' mothers (not mine, so much, because mine didn't wear a lot of makeup), that I hoped I would never become one of those people who looked completely different without makeup.

I fear I have become that woman, mostly because when I don't wear makeup, suddenly my features seem ... small.

And I wonder ... is it just our outlook that is outsized when we're in our twenties? Does the realization that broken bones and cancer and organ shutdowns are real things cramp our ability to stand up straight?

Was I really different in my twenties, was I actually taller? Did pregnancy really make my foot bones spread so much I lost height? What's happened to my pelvic floor? Holy shit, am I actually shrinking?

I know my own parents are an inch or so shorter than they were when they were my age. My maternal grandmother had osteoporosis and a bit of a hump that literally robbed her of many inches. And as I grow older and face job insecurities again, it occurs to me that I'm no longer the precocious young one in the room as I spent so much of my internet-bubble youth being.

I've noticed the older women get, the bigger their diamonds. I always in the past attributed it to means, but now I wonder if the diamonds just look bigger on hands that shrink with age.

I look at other women's hands, because I'm at the age where I'm kind of past the diamond fuck-it point. It happens. I'm there.

At this point, I look at a lot of things and wonder ... why?

And as I accompany my dear female friends on this journey of life, I do see some of us starting to shrink. Hands getting smaller, diamonds looking bigger, hugs maybe a little more important as each year goes by. I'm not an old woman by any stretch, but maybe now I'm a woman who takes notice. Where I used to notice engagements and babies, I now track hospital visits and graduations.

I see my friends much more closely than I did. I feel their presence in the room.

I don't want anyone to feel small as they get older.

My birthday is next week. The little angel's is in a few months. She's not little anymore -- she'll be 14. So will this blog.

Everything I start to write I just select and delete. I'm not really sure what I want to say. It's a new year ... 2018. This year (next week), I will turn 44. My daughter in April will turn 14. My marriage in June will turn 17. 

God, the passage of time is relentless, isn't it?

We've started talking about when Lily ... I always had this grand plan of doing a great outing of her identity when she turned thirteen, but I'm almost a year too late ... the little angel's name is Lily Jane Arens ... will soon be driving and have an even greater level of independence ... of even when she will graduate and leave the house ... not because we want that to happen or because we're looking forward to it, but because it is actually going to happen, and if we don't prepare for it, it will catch us by surprise. 

I thought I would do this great outing, but it turns out that the world moved on while I wasn't looking, and she doesn't need my help at all. I got her Twitter and her URL reserved when she was born, and now it's possible that tech is outdated for her generation. 

Ha!

My daughter doesn't need me to shepherd her into the digital world. I thought she would, but she doesn't. Funny, considering my career trajectory. Nothing can prepare us for what comes next.

I'm all over but I haven't been here in a while and I think I might in fact be the only person who still reads this blog. If that's the case, ha, Rita, can you even believe you're writing this on the Chromebook you asked for at Christmas after getting jealous of Lily's light little device? Or that I'm still working on Parker Cleaves but no longer feel even the slightest trace of guilt that it's taking so long? That I no longer expect anyone will notice if I publish another book, nor do I feel too bad about that?

Who is this evolved individual who doesn't torture herself over lack of writerly accomplishment? Oh, me, the one who worked and worked for just such things and realized the world can still move on, no matter how much you hate that.

I come back to this space because it's still mine, as long as Typepad maintains its death grip. The app already stopped working about six months ago, so who knows what will become of Surrender, Dorothy when Typepad goes belly up. I used to save everything down once a month, but at this point, I'm a cowgirl. I'm all, "hey, I can create new words if the old ones go away." That is crazy. Who am I to not worry about losing past work? Who am I to believe my big fat brain can conjure up new ones if the old ones get flushed?

There is comfort and joy as a creative to trust you will make new words that will be just as good as the old ones. I spent half my life worrying I would lose what I had written. It has only been in the past few years I've learned to trust that there are more where all the old ones came from. My stories will just get better because they'll be informed by everything that came before, and more and more is coming before.

I started my career when I was half as old as I will be next week. 

I've been thinking about that girl I was then.

I've been thinking about fear, and career paths, and money, and making it work. I've been thinking about being hit by a bus or really bad cancer tomorrow. I've been thinking about what it will feel like when my daughter leaves home. 

I've been looking in the mirror and asking, what's next?

And I've realized, if I ever stop asking what's next --- shoot me now.

Dear friends, family, and college buddies I haven't laid eyes on in twenty years:

Boy, was 2017 amazing! Hilda joined the Peace Corps after realizing she couldn't afford community college. She's currently digging latrines in Sierra Leone, which she says is beautiful as long as you don't look at the human feces or feral dogs. We have high hopes she'll wear herself out after a year and come back to join the nursing program at a nonprofit institution of higher learning.

We recently learned there are tax cuts! This is great! We're looking forward to using our return to buy a new SUV that should be able to navigate the crumbling roadways we use to commute two hours each way to a soul-killing office job that will soon be replaced by robots.

In other news, Nancy made it through a round of breast cancer thanks to us learning that you can get an interest-free payment plan if you call the 800 number and tell them you have no money. You, too, could pay $35.18 a month for the next twenty years to each of ten different healthcare providers. #blessed

Little Jerod has been pursuing four different sports at the age of nine. The doctors say his concussions should heal up well and he's excited to play competitive league soccer year-round as long as his games continue to start before 11 pm on school nights. He may even see ten minutes of playing time in 2018. Woot!

Nancy and Alexander are looking forward to celebrating 23 years of marriage in December, when they realized they'll be making the same household income that they did in 1998 despite a 43% increase in healthcare costs. Nancy is excited her antidepressants will soon be covered under the maintenance medicine list on her high-deductible health plan.

What else? The family took an exciting trip this year to Duluth, where they took a tobaggan ride down the steepest hill in the middle of a winter storm. You haven't lived until you've crossed a busy intersection on black ice, amirite?

Nancy is still putting in twenty hours of unpaid work each week at the PTA after a round of budget cuts reduced the teaching staff by 18%. Alexander forwent dental care in order to pay for Hilda's totalled Corolla after they took out the stop sign on Highway 50. Thank God nobody was seriously injured, because man, we haven't hit the out-of-pocket max yet even in December. Even after cancer. But who's counting?

Hope you and yours are having a fantastic holiday season and avoid the Q4 layoffs at your employer. Happy New Year!

"Maybe, when you're in it, you just get through it, and it seems so much scarier to everyone else," she said.

"Maybe," I replied.

My friend Ann put it best: When someone tells you that you have cancer, it's like you're plunged into the deep end of the pool. Nobody can see you, nobody can help you. There's water in your eyes and your ears and your nose, and there's nothing in your world but the water; you can't see or think about anything but the water.

And then ... you hit the surface. Everyone around you is floating on a raft. They hand you a beer. The sun is shining, and the world is beautiful.

And you think ... did that seriously just happen, that part where I almost drowned?

This time last year I was unemployed, desperately hunting for my next thing. I realized I'd have to make a career pivot and reinvent myself away from the dying star that is paid journalism. All but abondoning social media after a decade of living with both ankles constantly submerged in that rushing river. Wondering who I am if none of what I worked so hard to achieve in the past means anything to the hiring managers I met with in the yawning maw of job sites into which for six months I poured four different versions of my resume? And why do I have more Twitter followers now when I never go over there? What does any of that mean? I don't know half of those people and there are more people following me on Twitter than there were in my hometown in 1992. And I know damn well none of those Twitter people listen to anything I say. It's all just Black Mirror until you start believing in it.

Then, suddenly, I surfaced. There were health benefits and a 401(k).

And then, less than 90 days later, breast cancer.

Ha!

As I end 2017, I'm in a way better place than I was in 2016. It's not because I'm stronger -- I think I was just as strong before as I am now and will probably hover at approximately this strength level until age or accident calls my endgame. It's more that I've started to accept the bad times a little easier.

It's tempting when all the things mount up to ask, why? I suprised myself by not doing a lot of this in 2017. I'm trying to ask, instead, why not me? Why shouldn't I read 50 books a year and let Drunk History replace everything I learned in high school? The next good thing is coming. And so is the next bad thing. Sometimes they'll take turns. Sometimes they'll pile on.

But they will never stop coming, because this is life, and strangely, life is not personal.

So if at the end of 2016 I was praying for resilience, at the end of 2017, I'm praying for a little luck. I've spent 2017 working on me, trying to teach myself some new skills so I can be ready if luck wants to find me in 2018. I've actively prepared for a good thing to happen to me. Hi, good thing. Just standing here, looking cute.

I WILL A GOOD THING TO HAPPEN TO ME IN 2018. I've prepared. I'm ready.

Come on, dammit.