why a show about a teenager's romantic life clicked so much

 Do you guys watch Never Have I Ever? You must. 

It's about a teenager named Devi Vishwakumar's high school experience in Greater Los Angeles. Not just any experience but one from an adorable, funny, nerdy, intelligent, grieving, healing, and horny young woman from a culturally strict family unit. I mean... replace strict Indian parent with Mexican parent and it's... familiar. But having someone up there getting the hot boy and the cute nerdy boy on top of just dealing with friendship and death and therapy and life gave us a girl that is so much more multi-faceted than a lot of television has given us in the past. We'd either get the nerd or the popular one. We had to remove our glasses and get made over to fit in. BOO. We're so much more than that. We should be loved as we are.

This season Devi seemed to get a lot of what she wanted in the boy department but just as in life, when you get that relationship you thought would complete you guess what... it doesn't magically solve all your problems. You still gotta deal with you. And if you wanna see what it's like to be loved, you gotta love yourself. All of your mess and all of your wins and all of your beautiful luminous being. 

I know, I'd hate listening to me too if I hadn't also learned this lesson first hand. Not just about the boy, I got the boy, I love the boy. But about the job. The house. The kid. The other kid. None of all those checklists make a lick of difference if inside of you keeps resisting the truth. That the relationship you really need to come to terms with is how you think and love yourself. How you listen to your voice within and learn what you need and what you want. It's a hot topic this 'self-love' thing and I'm not going to debase love by stooping it to the level that the world thinks is self-love. It's not narcissism, it's not self-care and treat yo-self. It's so much more than that. Love is so much more than that. 

I think of it as well, perfect love casts out all fear and I think of it as being unafraid of what you are when you're stripped of everything. It's wonderful and all well and good to have all those wonderful things. But when you're alone in a cave with nobody and nothing but your thoughts who are you? When you're left to your own vices amongst strangers, who do you default to, and would you want to spend time with that person? Is your life one of character, faith, growth? Have you confronted the bears in the cave, have you looked at the scars, have you asked the hard questions of yourself?

Also, love is not greedy. It is the opposite of greedy. So if you're wondering what a life of genuine self-love and not narcissism looks like, it is evident in the people we pour into. It's evidenced in the generosity we live life in. It's loving others well. Or at least it looks like someone that is TRYING to love others even if she sucks at it sometimes. 

Summer Time 2022

 Friends! It's summer at the FFF and we are... loving it. (Also I wrote this post during a more optimistic moment and now I'm fighting the pessimism!) 

After two summers of being at home and not much else, we were proactive this year and decided to get the kids signed up for something to cut down on their being home too much. Wally's pre-school did the work for us and offered an additional month for June which we went for and he finished on the 22nd. He has thrived in preschool. What a difference of a kid. He used to play by himself and not engage with the kids and now he has friends and best friends and knows colors and letters. He'll be starting Kindergarten this fall and we'll have both kids in the same school! 

We scraped by and got Alice signed up for art day camp for 3 weeks in June! She's made a pretty good buddy and her mom is cool too so we've had lots of park time together. Fills me right up that she gets to have a friend with her and that she looks forward to it. I never know with Alice what she's gonna like or how she's gonna react but she surprises me sometimes.

In July the kids will be at VBS for a week and we'll be in Coastal California for a week. I had big lofty goals for Cancun this year but I couldn't figure out the timing so the flights were too much by the time I got it together and opted out.  Then we'll be home another week then... they start school August 15. Boom. Flash. That fast. Every single day this summer has flown by. Work. Camps. Schools. Fun. 

40 for 40 Number 3: On being a w4 and Federico’s daughter

After I learned that I was an Enneagram 3 I mostly ignored the fact that I was also a w4. The 4 types are the artistic creative types that thrive on being original and creative and moody. I used to say that “I’m not creative” but boy is that not true. I think I put some stock into creative having to mean artistic in that we can paint, draw, or sculpt or play an instrument. But being creative, or feeling that need to create… to exist in creative spaces and to put beauty into the world is vital.

As I’m writing this I am sitting in my “Room of Requirement”: the home office that functions as playroom, den, tea parlor, lady cave, guest room, home school, and sometimes office. I painted the room in a beautiful grassy green and I have a mauve couch, pink chair, and yellow sideboard. There is a disco ball and plants and framed art and drawings made by the kids and all kinds of colorful and happy things surrounding me. I wanted this space to be a reflection of me and the things I love and you would never guess the person that owned this room was ‘not creative’. 

I made mention of the troubled relationship I had with my mother but there is another figure that exists in my life that is half of me… my father… Federico Camacho. 

During the pandemic, my mother decided to go to the denial route and fell to conspiracy theories and all that. My father on the other hand decided to do the right thing and stay home, make masks, tended his garden, took up drawing, and befriended the neighborhood cat and bought it a jacket. While I grew increasingly frustrated with my mother and had to block her toxicity, my father was regularly texting me Bible verses and FaceTiming me to show off his latest garden adventures and I mine. Since I lived with my mother, that was the most influential person in my life and I realized that it was a squeaky wheel gettin the grease type situation. I kept focusing on the parts that were like hers but I rarely ever thought about how my father had made me who I am today. It was always so strange how my mother loathed all living creatures and my father would go out of his way to talk to my dogs. That part of me that is curious, creative, in tune with nature, that is my father’s contribution. I don’t know why it took a pandemic to slow me down enough to realize all I was missing out on and neglecting my relationship with my father but better now than never. 

Sometimes we feel out of place or that there’s a part of us that is not paid enough attention to. A part of us that is quieter than the other. That part of me took a whole new meaning during a time when I was unable to perform or achieve the way I normally would. I leaned into that quiet and that curiosity and found myself bewildered by it but it was right there all along, living and breathing in my father. 

It finally all made sense. 

I was Federico Camacho’s daughter too. 

40 for 40 Number 2: On Being an Enneagram 3

About… 3 years ago my former church (recently former, we dissolved and that’s a whole essay) got really into talking about the Enneagram personality test. Out of curiosity I took the test and learned to my chagrin that I was an Enneagram 3 (w4). The Achiever. “The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptable, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious”. When I read the description of my personality type I said “no, this can’t be me, this person sounds like an asshole.” So I took the test again and I got the same result. Dammit, I am the asshole.

Once I came to terms with the numbers being correct I started reading about what that personality types’ driving forces are. What makes them feel seen and appreciated. What their underlying motivations are. It was all true. I was driven by wanting to feel valuable and worthwhile, I did want to feel that I was the best and that I stood out. I was acutely aware of how I was projecting my image at work and in life. 

The 2nd day of my journal writing at age 12 had this written in it: “I have to try not to talk so much. Everyone thinks I’m a show-off. Have I got news for them. All I want is for everyone to like me and I want the teachers to think I’m smart & I know. I get really angry at my friends can’t they realize I need them? But I guess I need to change as much as they do.” Even then I knew what I wanted out of people. 

Why I wanted it is multi-layered. I realized in 2020, watching my daughter’s school experience completely taken from her and going to online schooling, that school had always been a safe space for me and a place where an adult paid attention to me and affirmed me positively. I don’t think I got any of that at home. At home I was selfish and lazy and whatever other accusations could be made of me in a home with a mother that most likely has ‘narcissistic personality disorder’. But I stood out in class and I liked it. 

I’ve learned that my personality type is very charming and a chameleon which explained why I thought I wanted to act or why I thought acting seemed easy to me. It wasn’t that I had the gift of acting like dear friends of mine do, it was that I was performing a part and that part was whatever I wanted or needed at the time. I enjoyed having large and varied groups of friends and didn’t like being tied down to one best friend or one group. My type is fickle and shallow when unhealthy, we move to the next cool thing fast. We excel in life because we want the appearance of perfection or having it all together. We want to be admired and liked by everyone. We are rarely satisfied with enough. We can never be satisfied, God I hope you’re satisfied….!

I gotta tell you, something about learning that I was not an insane person and that I fit into the characteristics of a certain type of personality that has certain tendencies and motivations was a freedom and understanding of myself I had not found in many searches. I own it to the level where I admit insane honest truths like “oh no, I’m fine to do this, I love attention” “hey you know how I think everything is a competition..” “I have to be the best at this pretty fast or I won’t care anymore” and other things. 

I check myself regularly on all these tendencies and by and large try to use them to the advantage of whatever group or work environment or organization I’m in. Naturally inclined to leadership and outspokenness I have to figure out when to put that into effect in a way that's selfless and more for the good of the team. I suffer from a deplorable excess of self-assuredness which many find baffling. Insecure about things? Millions? But by and large I walk around with confidence in who I am and what I am capable of. 

So yes, of course I am a producer. Of course I am the breadwinner. Of course I get chosen for committees and such. That’s how I’m wired. But let me tell you… none of that external fluff meant diddly squat compared to learning who I am in my identity with Christ and God and Holy Spirit. The work of mental health and healing has brought so much satisfaction to my life, more than any awards ever could. I know when the pulls to be that achiever are coming at me and when I need to listen and when I need to ignore them.

The other fun part of this equation and something that I really leaned into this pandemic has been the other side of my personality which is being a w4 (wing 4). Speaking of which… 

40 for 40: Number 1 - On Journaling

I started journaling when I was 12 years old, 2 months shy of my 13th birthday. The very first journal I bought was at the 99 Cent Store and the first entry was December 11, 1994. It had a green spine and a photo of a grey kitty cat on a branch with some pink flowers. My parents have been divorced as long as I remember and it was a dad weekend and he gave us some money to buy whatever we wanted at the store and being the stationary nerd I am I, of course, bought a blank book! I took it home and immediately started writing in it: “This is my journal. I keep it to write down my most private thoughts about everyone including myself. I want to express my feelings in many ways but everyone thinks I’m weird as it is.”

Annoyingly this will be told from the point of view of a person who’s spent time in therapy, counseling, and has learned a lot about herself and grown as a person so I’ll have very obvious notes about 12 year old me. Then again, do we want to ask a 12 year old what she thinks is going on? Doubtful it’ll reveal much. 

Now that I’ve been through the life I’ve been through and walked through the fire of childhood trauma and emerged through the grace of God and diligent work, it is still very hard for me to think about this 12 year old girl. From the time she was about 7 or 8 until who knows when she was sexually abused by her step-father. My family has 5 children and my mother, who I’ve realized later was also abused was trying her best to keep that man, was told she could not do any better or that he would hurt her if she left. I’m not sure exactly, only that I was left alone to figure out what was happening and why and I really don’t know what that poor little girl felt. We didn’t talk about feelings, we couldn’t afford that. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with 5 children and carving out space anywhere was near impossible. It’s clear that she needed an outlet for everything inside of her and by some miracle learned to love reading and then probably read about writing in diaries, keeping a journal. The idea came to fruition that December 1994.

I am not by any means a disciplined person or one that sticks to things. I am very fickle and very flaky but keeping a diary, writing in a journal as I refer to it to the day, made so much sense to me that it was practically breathing. It required very little money, only to buy a new one when I was near the end of the current one. And while I couldn’t talk to anyone in my family about what was going on in my life, I could pour my little traumatized heart into those books. 

Of course, nothing was written about the abuse itself. I think acknowledging it on paper would be too much. It would make it real. I reference the abuser as ‘someone I have a hatred for’ but not much else. I wrote about crushes, school, how things were boring, my family, fights with my mother, weekends with my father. There’s not much depth to gleam from those early years of journal writing only that it was a practice that carried me and has carried me to this day. Bishop Michael Curry refers to these actions as “rituals of faith”, things you do that carry you when you can’t carry yourself. I didn’t have any tools at my disposal and therapy was many decades away but I had my writing. I had this consistent practice that ebbed and flowed but was always a part of me, the place where I wrote in faith that someday it would make sense or even dare I dream, that someday it would all be better. 

Having a consistent writing space did have some side benefits like being able to crush AP history essays therefore making college a possibility. A poor Latina girl on welfare and food stamps from a family of 5 kids and a single mom dreamed of getting out and doing better and somehow that faith became a reality and I got out. I definitely thank the constant practice of writing as a way out. “I wrote my way out,” as Lin sings.

I still journal. Almost every day lately since you know… soul crushing pandemic and lots more time. When my 2nd child was born I didn’t write as much and barely had time to myself and that led to some bad PPD. A combination of things but not being able to have this very special practice was detrimental to my mental health. I never want to go back to that dark place again and so I write a lot or a little but I write out my thoughts and feelings as I had intended to when I started those 27 years ago. 

Journaling is what has lead to this rather ridiculous task I’ve given myself. But I wouldn’t be me without giving myself such a task. Speaking of which…

40 for 40: 40 Essays on Turning 40

 I will be 40 in less than a month and for some reason have the insane idea to write 40 essays on turning 40. 

Some will be long. Some will be short. Some will be funny and ridiculous. Some will be hard to read. 

Over the course of the year I'll drop them here.

So here they come. 40 for 40. 

Happy New Year 2022 & Lessons Learned in 2021

 I have been sending the same gif to anyone who sends me a "Happy New Year" Text:

Do I feel particularly happy or celebratory? No. So many factors play into this Lieutenant Dan on New Year's vibe... take a pick! COVID, kids, expectations, exhaustion from a long work year, COVID, but we know the real reason New Year's Eve became a national day of mourning:

We lost the last Golden Girl, our Rose Nylund, America's Grandma just a few weeks shy of her official 100th birthday. I gotta tell you, her death I knew, would hit me when it happened but the way it hit me was a little unexpected. I know she's a literal stranger to me but her face is in my house in multiple places and she's felt like a part of my life for decades. What a lady. What a life! I spent the last day of 2021 just watching Betty White clips, reading Betty White tweets & tributes, and watching Golden Girls episodes. I got it together enough to setup a little New Year's Eve dinner table and she was present there too. 

We celebrated at 9pm for the kids at New Year's Eve New York time. I don't think they understand New Year's other than they can make noise and throw confetti which after last year's mess we opted out. 

Matt and I watched Golden Girls episodes and watched the countdown on my Nintendo video game. We were dressed up from the top up because I'll be danged if I receive a new year without some sparkle. 

What a year these exhausted parents and partners had. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad at all. It was pretty good, an improvement over the year before for sure. We decided to focus internally on survival however we could manage it and in tiny increments we held it together. Weekly disciplines, daily practices (Matt read the Bible in a year!), breaks and breaking of rules and expectations kept us afloat. 

I made no resolutions but instead let the year reveal to me what it was gonna be and as we whittled away here and there and chucked what we didn't need and tweaked what we did like and in the end, here's my musings/learnings from 2021:

• Makeup remover is not the same as face wash. Remove the makeup, then wash your face.
• Wash and moisturize your face.
• A quick shower is possible. 
• Changing into cozy clothes is worth the effort. Take a few minutes to take the jeans off and put on sweat pants. 
• I am not responsible for that.
• Put on your oxygen mask before you help others.
• Learn to distinguish which is a hill and which is a mountain.
• Some years, we just bide our time.
• The opposite of love is selfishness.
• Freedom is in your mind. In your imagination. Freedom comes from within.
• Be gentle with yourself whenever possible.
• The shovel is the only one that gets you 8 hits on the rock in ACNH.
• Honor and keep rituals of faith. They carry you when you can't carry yourself.
• Do good because it is good to do.
• At the end of days, whose life are you living and it better be the one you fought for.
• Rest does not mean nothing.
• Live knowing you left it all in the ring.
• Love casts out fear and I want to live unafraid.

Hello 2022. 

We're gonna warm up before we run. 

And we're gonna keep a steady pace.