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Creativity Handbook

Creativity Handbook: JLP’s Journal for a Creative Life. Find your Creative Personality Type, Daily Inspiration, Storytelling, Filmmaking and More

peptalk for myself

Things feel so pitiful at times that it feels funny. I just want someone to laugh with me about how ridiculously hard the week is. I couldn't find where Justin put our Not For Tourists (NFT) guide to NYC with the map to the library this morning. So I Googled it, and none came up anywhere near by. That's funny, I thought. I could have sworn the Brooklyn Central Library was just two blocks away. So I look at the closest one on the map and it's more than a dozen blocks away and the snow was coming down hard. My stroller wheels aren't the inflatable tire kind (a must-have here, I'm learning) and were much harder to push through the snow. I know, I thought. We'll take the bus! So I pulled up the bus maps and schedules, and a kind woman at our stop helped us on. I had no idea how to work my card in the machine, and she was the one who found Amelia a seat in the crowd as the bus pulled away. I'm not sure it actually stopped to let us on, felt more like temporarily slowing down. I panicked about remembering the right stop and got off a few blocks too early. Then, we finally ended up riding the bus home with our lunch leftovers and shopping bags. Tonight I get on to search again after the handyman tells me the main library is just down the street. And wouldn't you know? There it is, three blocks from my house. No bus ride required.

So it's a focus on the positive kind of afternoon. Our detour taught us Bus 67. If we hadn't gone we might have never discovered the Patisserie across the street from the Park Slope branch and I wouldn't have seen the girl in the lovely plum down coat, who told me she got it at a store a couple blocks away and that they are on sale there now. Then I wouldn't have taken her advice and gone to look myself, and I wouldn't have known they had one left in my size (sadly in boring black). I'm ready for arctic conditions. I'm ready for a full-on tackle. It goes down to nearly my ankles. This means it probably won't snow again after today.

Amelia says the stairs in the apartment building make our new house feel like a castle. That's better than a dungeon, I think. She likes that she can watch airplanes flying through her window at night. She's a little rock star.

I don't know what we'll do tomorrow. It's supposed to be cold. Maybe we'll explore the shops I just found a block north of us. This week is a hard introduction to life here. I never knew human beings had the capacity for such strength until I became a mom. Now I just watch other moms with awe and try not to resent that my partner will never know the half of it.

It's going to be great, I tell myself. It will be lovely in this apartment when your furnishings arrive, I say. You will love it here. And I try to sound convincing.

UncategorizedJen Lee