15 February 2025
5:46a
Lighter sleeper these days, especially in the early morning.
Thought I could sleep with both kids on either side in a king size bed. Ten year olds still twist and roll and stretch so much in their sleep! I was mistaken; I was pushing them off me so often through the night. Luckily was able to get back to sleep many times, just not after 5.
Thinking on pressure as a leader in an organization. I have a reluctance to lean on authority as a source of pressure and power—knowing that some will come from that without me intending to apply it at all.
I also feel my own pressure to be great and do well sometimes with too much intensity and depth, sometimes without a perfectly clear direction! Just a sinking feeling in the depth of my stomach that I'm not living up to "my potential." I feel like shit when I know I could have done better and does exascerbating that help me identify better what I could do differently next time? Perhaps it does because an accountability partner ensures I don't hide from it or avoid it, when someone else is there I have to put my professional face on and look the thing enough in the eye to have some semi-coherent angle on learning from it.
The expectation that I don't need to apply pressure at all stems from the same misplaced extention on trust that I can sometimes make. When I say to someone, "I know you know what you're doing wrong, I don't need to emphasize it, I trust you to already be realizing how that could have been better," I'm underestimating my own skill in giving them clarity on what specifically they could have done better, what areas I believe they're capable of doing more. Honestly, I'm trusting THEM to know what they're doing wrong at least as well as I do AND NOT trusting myself to think clearly enough about their abilities and growth to be able to say, "You can do more and we need you to."
❤️🔥 ❤️🔥 ❤️🔥
Best weekend at the end of January with Bonnie and Elena: R+J, an incredible wassail, the beauty of riding around with them and talking about anything and everything, the joy of a hot tub in the snow, the absolute delight of conspiring on a sweet gift, the magic in Dia Beacon, the loveliness of cozy meals and coffees and furry blankets and hilarity and just beauty and love all around. Hard things too, and thinking them through with others, giving new light to dark corners and reshaping them in your mind, and reshaping yourself and how you understand that messy thing that is your own tricksy self-image with more gentleness and love.
6:30 now and going to read the last third of The Three-Body Problem. Other greatness in media for me lately: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Shrinking, always Heartstopper (the latest and last of them coming a page a day on Alice's Patreon), We are Lady Parts, newsletters by Aminatou Sow, Laura Olin, Connie Schultz, and Catherine Newman. Oh, and all of the Hobbits and all of the LotRs with the kids over the winter holidays! Nora saying at the end of the third Hobbit movie, "How do they even MAKE movies this good?!"