we can handle it
We’ve had lice on some of our people in our home this past month. I’m not naming names. It’s gross but it could be worse. (Did you just itch your scalp?) Why am I sharing this news? Because the first time it happens one might feel like an unclean ne’er-do-well failing at parenting, cleaning, and maybe life in general. I know I did. But parents, rest assured, this is not the case. Have you heard, lice like clean hair! And there is nothing to be ashamed of. Lice, Lice baby.
Am I losing my marbles? Maybe a bit because it is a big fat nuisance. But we played a really fun game sitting around the dinner table called, “I’d Rather Have Lice.” I’d rather have lice than an STD. I’d rather have lice than Covid. You get the gist. Shockingly, my husband didn’t find it as entertaining as I did.
A simple mantra and a new favorite of mine is, I can handle it. Thanks to my sweet Kristabella for reminding me recently via teacher and author, Michael Singer. It’s a variation of yes and…another mantra I remind myself of often. It will be annoying, and I can handle it. It may suck and I can handle it. Try it, you can handle it.
Before the lice chronicles, I had the good fortune of seeing Suleika Jaouad again at this year’s fundraiser for Hospice. She spoke about the advice she received from her doctor when she learned that she will be undergoing treatment for cancer indefinitely. He told her to live each day like it was her last which she came to regard, respectfully, she says, as terrible advice. Instead, she has come to look at each day as her first. Waking up with curiosity, openness, awe, and appreciation is a beautiful and most likely less chaotic way to go about living a meaningful, fulfilling life. She reminded us to play, rest, create simply for fun, and that life is a terminal diagnosis. For all of us. But most importantly, she reminded us to tell the people we love that we love them.
Know, I love you, reader, I do. Every time I hit publish on a post, I send it off to the universe with a prayer and hopes that it lands where it needs to. I hope you know how loved you are. And thank you for loving me even when there are bugs laying eggs in my head.
*If you don’t know Suleika yet, check out the Isolation Journals on social media, her beautiful book, Between Two Kingdoms, and her and her husband Jon Batiste’s documentary, American Symphony on Netflix. You will be so happy you did. *