December 17, 2021

I’ve never actually seen an episode of Sex and the City, but I like to imagine that it’s about four independent, single women who live in New York City, go on dates, tell each other sassy stories over brunch, and cry themselves to sleep 3-4 nights per week. Let me know if I’m off track, and maybe I’ll log onto HBO and watch season 1.

Speaking of sassy, independent, single ladies – I had my first date this week. Well, my first date in about a year and a half. I got drinks after work with this guy named Tony. Tall, former marine, tattoos, good looking  –  just in case you were wondering if I have a type… Anyway, I showered after work, put on my nicest outfit with the dangly earrings that I think are so classy, made my hair as shiny as can be, and sprayed on some of my Country Chic perfume.  I put a red bow on a bottle of Ale8 to offer him as a souvenir from a date with a Kentucky girl, and told myself that he was meeting the absolute best version of me – physically, emotionally, mentally, financially and intellectually the best me. I had a perfectly fine date with this guy and he thought the Ale8 I brought was delightful and sweet.  The next day he texted me to politely tell me he wasn’t interested and something about just getting out of a 4-year relationship, emotional trauma, baggage, blah, blah, blah. I get it. The truth is, I was relieved to not have to do the rejecting, because I wasn’t really feeling him either. But when I got the text riddled with words like “friendship”, “sweet’, “smart” and all the other words of affirmation we throw at people we have no intention of ever seeing again when we don’t want to hurt their feelings, I felt that little sting. That sting that is so small and insignificant, it’s like a paper cut. It is short lived, barely even a blip on the radar, but noticeable nonetheless. 

I told him that friendship was of course fine, thanked him for the drink and offered him the information that it was my first date after a break up too – just trying to be empathetic. Then he started asking me how he was on the date – how he presented himself, whether I liked him – as if he was wanting some coaching for a future date with a lady who is not me. Some future lady who is desirable and worth impressing – unlike myself, the practice date. I realize that’s my own interpretation and creative spin on his intentions, but what can I say? I had a paper cut!  Asking me for advice or feedback felt like he was rubbing a little salt in my small wound, yet I gave him some answers and hyped him up and lied a little bit about how much I liked him and how charming he was.  He just seemed like he needed it. It seems like maybe this is a pattern of mine.  I’ll be sitting in the middle of some hurt or rejection that I feel, big or small, and I’ll be focused on making sure someone else feels ok – even when that someone is the one who made me hurt. 

It’s been a pattern in my relationships – I’ll get upset about something and mention it to my person, then see them get upset and defensive over my declaration.  Next thing I know, I’m apologizing to them, soothing their pain – when the entire conversation started with me being hurt about something. My own pain never gets resolved or even addressed because I forget to think about me, or operate based on fear that the fallout from the conversation will cause me to lose that person. In this case, my pain was so small and fleeting, but I ignored it and made sure this guy I’ve spent less than 2 hours with was feeling ok and confident for his next shot at love.  I really want to be more mindful of this going forward, because I think it really hinders my ability to communicate effectively. But also, I feel like hyping up my new “friend” was a good example of leading with kindness and empathy – two things I value very much. What I’m saying is that this whole dating while simultaneously guarding your heart and mitigating collateral damage to other humans and making value-based decisions on who you associate with and how you treat them – well it’s fucking tough.

In the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t matter. It’s kind of a bleak fact that dating in your 30’s is sort of like death from a thousand paper cuts. Each one is small and easy to recover from, but you just grow to expect the same tedious pain over and over. Every encounter ends with 1) He is not interested in you and tells you so, 2) You are not interested in him and you tell him so, 3) He is not interested in you and he ghosts you or 4)  you go on a second date. Rinse and repeat, and most iterations end in something that is a little bit painful. The only thing that makes it easier is hope that someday you’ll find a person who offers you the effortless kind of love that you know exists. I’ve never experienced that, but I think it’s probably worth a few paper cuts.

December 5, 2021

I’ve had a hard month. One of those months where life kicks you in the pants and reminds you that you are not entitled to anything – health, happiness, love – all of those things that define your life can change or disappear in a second. You stand there, breathless from the blow, looking around at the resources you have, trying to figure out the best path forward and fighting the urge to run backward toward the life you had yesterday. I recognize I experienced this all in true white-upper-middle-class lady fashion, and maybe my problems aren’t as big as others I have seen. But from the perspective of my cushy, warm life – the last month has been difficult for me. This morning, I felt really overwhelmed by a shocking thought that I had in the shower – I am grateful for this season of difficult.

Grateful feels like a strange word to use right now. It was a word that I focused on intently during some of my previous posts because I didn’t want despair to dominate my headspace. I did my best to be grateful, and expressed thanksgiving in droplets – like sweat dripping during an intense workout, painfully earned and coerced by a sequence of methodical movements. But right now, the grateful feeling I have is pulsing though me, as natural as blood in my veins. It’s filling me up and I’m sitting on my bed resting in absolute peace. I don’t know how long this feeling will last – I know that my tough moments of despair or worry or fear will return, maybe later today or tomorrow or the next day. But right now I am grateful.

I am grateful that the last month has allowed me to reconnect with dear friends. So many of my friends, near and far have rallied around me. My friend Katie is my Ghostbuster who I can call at any hour of the night, and she helps me chase away bad thoughts. My friend Shawna distracts me with stories about her horse and shitty boyfriends of her past. My friend Maggie sends me sweet texts and flowers, and tells me I’m a badass all the time. My sister just keeps telling me everything is going to be ok. My coworkers rallied around me when Maudie was sick, and kept me busy when I needed more to do and took things off of my plate when I was overwhelmed. My friend Kristin is my rock, and speaks difficult truth to me when I need to hear it.

I am grateful for my pseudo-family here in DC that has taken care of me. My friends Luke and Claire have welcomed me into their home and shared their whole family with me. Claire listens to me talk and vent while we run together, and Luke usually hands me an Ale8 and a baby when we return from our loop. They let me join in on family movie night and play with their sweet kids and I feel like I’m at home with my own family. They made me breakfast this morning. We were in a pandemic-friendship with virtually no contact, and all I had to do was reach out one time – and they turned into this tag team of super human support. I cannot thank them enough for this and I look forward to returning the special care and love to them in the future.

I’m grateful that I have things to look forward to. I have family coming to visit next weekend and a 5k race, and holiday parties with my wonderful coworkers this week. I get to go home for the holidays and love on my family, and see little kids experience the magic of Christmas. I have a healthy puppy again, and I have many good years of hikes and walks and licks to look forward to. I have a job that is so thrilling, challenging, exhilarating for me that I can’t wait to get to my office tomorrow to run the code I wrote on Friday. I have an entire life of possibilities stretching out in front of me and that’s pretty damn cool.

Most of all, I am grateful for this opportunity for resurgence. I am not as strong as I want to be – I have wasted a lot of tears and anguish in this season. I feel like I’ve been so slow to take steps toward moving forward, but I am confident that I will learn and grow from this, and I’ll march into the future a little stronger and wiser. I may not feel like “myself” all the time right away, but I’ll keep being me and constantly reminding myself that “me” is a great thing to be.

November 16, 2021

I ugly cried in my new car today. And I did last night too. In fact, I’ve gotten my tears all over my leather seats in my fancy new vehicle a few times already, and blew my nose into a jacket that I had in the backseat more than once too. Gross, I know. I’ll wash it. Today was different though. I was sitting at work, doing a good job getting ready for a big meeting I have on Friday. I had a couple of calls with my mentees, made small talk with the girls from the strategy team, and listened to my favorite podcast while I made powerpoint slides. I did this all while feeling like an empty shell of myself. I smiled on the zoom calls, chatted excitedly over email with my career coach about some awards we are both going to receive on Thursday during a ceremony. I marked things off my to-do list and handled my business. Then I took my empty shell body downstairs to the cafe to get my usual BLT, and I sat outside in the cold and let a few tears fall, safe from the eyes of others. Once I finished my sandwich and washed my face, without thought, logic or explanation, I walked to my car. I never do this – I never go home to walk Maudie at lunchtime, but my empty shell body took me to the car and that’s what I set out to do.

When I, the empty shell, walked into the house, I didn’t hear the pitter patter of Maudie’s little feet run toward the door, or her loud bark that gets her fussed at so frequently. Even when I yelled her name…silence. I made my way into the room where she stays during the day while I’m at work, thinking I might have left her baby gate open on accident and she was hiding under the bed upstairs. When I rounded the corner of the stairs, I saw her. She was limp like a ragdoll, with her eyes closed, in an awkward position on the stairs. My stomach sank and I thought for sure she was dead. I ran to her and quickly realized that she was still breathing, but no amount of shaking or shouting would wake her.

I grabbed her with one arm and my work phone and wallet with the other, and without any outward sign of fear, panic, or dramatics, I tossed my limp, little best friend into the passenger seat of my car. I fired off a few text messages to cancel an afternoon meeting and to explain my situation to my boss, and then drove her to the emergency vet. Once I got there, I handed her over to the errrr…nurse? Vet tech? What ever those nice people in scrubs are called who weigh animals and clip toenails before the vet arrives. I answered a few questions. Has she gotten into anything unusual recently? Errr, she ate some chapstick last night, but she’s done that 2.2 million times. Has she been eating and drinking? Umm, I think so but my head has been so far up my own ass, I’m not sure. Yes. Yes I definitely fed her twice yesterday. Has she been out in a new environment – hiking or swimming? No, I wanted to take her for a hike on Sunday but again – head up ass. This went on for a few minutes, then I was asked to wait in my car for an update (covid rule).

When I got into my car and turned on my heat and my fancy heated seats, I sat in the parking lot and realized that the 30-ish minutes of terror I had just experienced made me feel…better? Maybe better isn’t the word. Alive? Just for a minute, I marveled at how I had bumped up against a true emergency in my world on a day (in a long series of days) when I was feeling like an empty, hopeless, hollow shell of my real self and I snapped back into the Rebecca I know who handles her shit and takes care of the people, work, and Maudie dogs around her. And I gave myself a little credit for that. It was short-lived relief because I quickly remembered that my puppy was very sick, and now my only job was to sit and wait- a big, rotten cherry on top of the rejection and heartache I’ve been carrying around for a while now. I released a wave of emotion for some unknown period of time, blew my nose on that poor jacket one more time, and then forced myself to exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Big deep breaths, over and over until the tears stopped.

I’m in this place now – this place where all I can do is sit and wait. With Maudie, all I could do was sit in my car and wait to hear what the vet had to say. And that phone call came with some information – Maudie has an infection that made her brain swell up a little, she needs antibiotics and a stay in the hospital – and a directive to go and wait some more. So now I’m home, in my pajamas at 5pm in a big, empty house, with a disgusting vodka drink on the table in front of my laptop – waiting. Waiting on answers that I can’t find myself. Waiting on healing to occur. Waiting on either grief or relief. And the waiting applies to more than just my Maudie situation. The things that have caused me so much heartbreak over the last few weeks are completely out of my control. Agonizing over them and trying to find solutions is no more productive than crying in the car while the veterinarian ran tests on Maudie. I fought the good fight when there was one to be had – when there were things I could do to try to direct change, but now, all I can do is wait for answers or relief, or at least wait for healing.

Waiting is hard for someone like me. I’m a problem-solver. I’m a fixer. I don’t give up. I don’t think I’ve ever given up in my entire life. I finish the run even when my legs are screaming in pain. I struggled through my PhD long after I realized I wasn’t smart enough to be there. I finished the Whole30 diet because I had promised myself I would, long after others gave up. I don’t quit, and I always succeed. But life is messy, and it’s not always about succeeding or failing, and some things can’t be “worked out”. I can’t work out Maudie’s health. There’s no painful work I can put in or ritual to perform that will guarantee that I will still have my little best friend when I wake up tomorrow. There’s no work I can do to make my heartache and rejection go away. I can’t make a to-do list to make the healing happen faster and I can’t strategize ways to change my circumstances. They just are. So here I am. Waiting.

Thank you to all of my facebook friends and co-workers for kind words today. That puppy means more to me than I can ever express. I should have taken her hiking on Sunday.

November 14, 2021

One of my favorite questions to ask when I’m on dates with 30-something year old men is “so, what brings you to the clearance rack?” The question usually raises eyebrows, until I explain my silly notion that people dating in their 30’s or 40’s are all on the clearance rack. I like to imagine myself as a shirt or a pair of pants, surrounded by other articles of clothing that are all on this clearance rack in a store for various reasons. Some of us have been returned out of season. Some of us are uncommon sizes. Some of us are slightly damaged (or more than slightly). Some of us are ugly. Some of us had bad luck with our placement in the store and no one noticed us. But as all the other hip, cool articles of clothing get purchased and go home with their happy new owners, we sit on the clearance rack and hope that someone with a tight budget picks us up.

I know, I know. The analogy is pretty bleak, maybe even dark. And it isn’t perfect. Sometimes I think the clearance rack concept is wrong altogether, and I should instead be talking about a thrift store. But the main point is that for whatever reason, we all missed that boat that so many of our friends sailed away on in their 20’s – the ones who found the single person on earth who fills their heart with joy well before they were legally allowed to rent a car, and planned their white weddings, and lived happily ever after. Or maybe some of us didn’t miss that boat at all, and have since been “returned” with that super forgiving return policy that life offers, and simply skipped the “happily ever after” part. Some of us have had bad luck with relationships that start off well and end in tears. Some of us are bad at dating, or insecure about our looks and what we bring to a relationship. Some of us have some things to figure out about ourselves before we can commit to someone else. And some of us are jerks, who are on the clearance racks because we are just not nice people. The reasons vary, and when you find yourself shopping on the clearance rack, it’s pretty important to be mindful of that.

So here I am. I’ve been “returned” again. Someone picked me out at the store, tried me on, and took me home – and then later decided that I wasn’t a good fit and took me back to the store for a refund. I make light of things, but this is one of the hardest seasons of life I have ever experienced because I didn’t want to be returned. I was happy. I was in love – I am in love. I felt proud to be with this person, and wanted it to go on forever. This is the first break-up I’ve experienced where I’m having a hard time seeing the positive possibilities for the future. All I can see is a future that is being taken away from me. So as I sit here in this pile of fresh returns, dealing with this intense pain that comes to me in really big waves that are very close together, I have to take the time to figure out the reasons I am here. I have to figure out why I’m about to be placed back on that clearance rack with a new, red, mark-down sticker.

I guess I could dwell on the things I wish I could change. I wish I would have been low “maintenance” – less needy, less excited to spend all of my time with my person. I wish I had spent more time with friends in the last year. I wish I had not said the mean things I said at the end when I was so selfish in my pain. I wish I had not begged and begged and begged for a different outcome. I wish I had some happiness lever I could have pulled that would have made him as happy with me as I was with him. I wish I had posted on social media a little less, so that I wouldn’t be plagued almost daily with reminders of happy times that are now tainted in the Facebook memories that Zuckerberg thinks are so neat-o and helpful.

That list of what-if’s and I-wish-I-had’s could go on and on. But I guess there are some things I am glad I did. I’m glad I was vulnerable and opened myself up to love (and this eventual pain and torment) after my last painful experience with love. I am glad I was generous and kind in my relationship, and gave as much as I could. I look back at the type of partner I was this time, and I’m proud of it. I think I was the type of partner that I would like to have. I put in effort when I was exhausted from work and everything else. I planned surprises and showered my partner and his family with the kind of sweet love that I’ve been looking for. I am proud of that. I tried to make him feel appreciated and special because he was appreciated and special. As embarrassed as I am for begging at the end, I am still happy I demonstrated to him how much the relationship means to me and that I advocated for what I wanted. As messy and fucked-up as I feel right now, I know that growth has occurred over the course of these failed relationships, and that maybe I’m close to being the type of partner that I want to be. I’m proud of the partner he was too, because he was better, sweeter, kinder to me than any other man has been. I’m grateful for that. If he weren’t the most wonderful, smart, funny, engaging and challenging person I’ve ever known, maybe this would be easier.

It’s hard for me to put into words the agony I have been going through. I don’t really need to, because I think you’ve all been there before. I would give anything to make my circumstances different. I feel like I’m going back to the clearance rack kicking and screaming, daunted with the reality that eventually after some healing I’m going to have to sift through all these other damaged, heartbroken people to try to separate the lonely, unlucky ones from the ones who are mean and incapable of love. I’m dreading it. But this is what we do. We get hurt and then rise from the ashes and then go through hurt over and over again in hopes of finding someone who will let us be our authentic selves and love us for it anyway. If you’ve found that, I’m glad for you, and maybe you can send me a text or something to remind me that it really is worth all of this time at the clearance rack.

November 13, 2021

I put my Christmas tree up last weekend. Something about covid has compelled me to put it up early over the last couple of years. It’s only about 4 feet tall, and takes less than ten minutes to decorate with my puny collection of ornaments with two main themes: 1) Kentucky and 2) Harry Potter. I have my little Maudie ornament that my mom bought me and the Swiss Cake Roll ornament that Santa left in my stocking at my sister’s house last year, and a Mario ornament I bought at Target. And that’s about it. I hung Maudie’s stocking by the tv with little care, and plugged in my Spiced Apple Toddy wallflower plug-in from Bath and Body Works and TA-DA, it’s Christmas.

Now, the masses will tell me that I’m not giving Thanksgiving the due diligence it deserves, and that I’m running full speed toward the most commercially-driven holiday of the entire year. Honestly, if it were socially acceptable to celebrate Toyota-thon in any meaningful way, I’d be doing that. Since it’s not, I’ll go ahead and do Christmas. On Thanksgiving, I’ll wake up early in Kentucky and drive to Cowboys gas station to pick up two Ale-8s and two Courier Journals. Then I’ll delight my sister for hours with my wonderful sense of humor while she cooks Thanksgiving lunch and I look through the Black Friday ads. We’ll game plan our shopping trip – prioritizing our Angel children that we shop for every year. We’ll eat and eat and eat, then sleep it off until we wake up at early-o-clock to hit the road in my sister’s sleigh (ok, it’s a Yukon with heated seats). We’ll shop and marvel about how far we can make $200 go for each of our angels, get in our annual Black Friday argument, make up, and then head home. Holidays in America, baby.

I remember watching my aunts go through the Black Friday song and dance when I was a kid. Some subset of the family – usually Dad, Sam and I would make the drive to Bath County for Thanksgiving at Mamaw Jo’s (my dad’s mom) house. We would arrive early to see Mamaw and a couple of my aunts in the kitchen, and then slowly watch the masses arrive. My dad is one of ten siblings, so once you factor in all the wives, husbands, and kids (and kid’s spouses and kids), the crowd grows exponentially. People were always fussing over seats – you’d be warm and cozy in the chair near the wood stove, but make the mistake of moseying back to the kitchen for more mashed potatoes, and someone would jump in your spot. All of my uncles would be antagonizing the kids in the living room – one year, they called my cousin Hunter “Milton” instead of his real name for the entire day, just to watch him get spun up and frustrated. And at some point in the day, one of my aunts would come in with a stack of newspapers and pass them around, and there they would sit at the kitchen table with their ink pens, making their attack plans. As for me, you could usually find me in the corner drinking an Ale-8 (or 7). Thanksgiving is so quiet now – we only have two kids to antagonize (and let’s face it, it’s usually them antagonizing me instead of the other way around). But I like that my sister and I are keeping the tradition alive and gather around the table to cut out and mark the deals we want to go after.

I would give anything to go back and relive a Thanksgiving at my Mamaw Jo’s house. I can still smell it – the smell of the old house, the smell of the turkey, the smell of the wood stove. The holidays always make me think about my Mamaw. She’s been gone since 2008 – she died in early December. I remember going to her house to see my Papaw before her visitation and I looked in the freezer and saw that she already had her turkey for Christmas dinner. It’s such an odd detail to remember, but it just seems to be the perfect symbol for the woman she was – always thinking about other people, trying to make sure we are all taken care of. She was already getting ready for Christmas with her family, because it was so important to her – it was so important for us all to have a nice meal and be together, and she worked herself to death every year to make it happen. I’ve cooked Friends-giving dinner before for about 10 people, and I was so exhausted when the last guest left my apartment. I felt like I was shopping, cleaning, and cooking for days leading up to the event. I think about all she had to do to get ready for the Crouch masses, and even with the help she got from my aunts, I still don’t know how she did it. And every year she did this for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I know that most moms do this – they go above and beyond for their families, especially during the holidays. I saw it in my own wonderful mom, and I see it now in my sister. In fact, my sister has a lot of my Mamaw Jo’s most wonderful traits. She’s always working her tail off to make things special for her kids – planning birthday parties, trying to make Christmas magical – just thinking about all the work she puts into moving the damn elf on the shelf every night for three weeks makes me want to take a long winter’s nap. She’s such a good mom – probably similar to the type of mom Mamaw Jo would have been if she had been born in this generation. I know things were different for her. Money was less abundant, there were more mouths to feed, times were harder. My dad once told me a story about a little wagon he and some of his brothers got to share for Christmas. But I can imagine that giving them that wagon really meant something to my Mamaw and Papaw and sometimes wonder if they had to move mountains to make things like that happen.

I wish I knew more about her and her life. I wish I had been old enough (or maybe just thoughtful enough) when she was alive to really sit down with her and hear her stories. I wish I knew more about her personality – beyond the loving, sacrificing mom and grandmother personality that I saw. Was she funny? Did she worry as much as I do? Did she like to read? Did she have a bucket list? Are these silly questions? Was she such a truly selfless and outwardly focused lady that these thoughts never entered her mind? Maybe so. I have so much respect for the version of her that I got to see. I often wonder if I’m like her at all. I know my life is a complete 180 from the one she lived. She got married young and started raising her family, and spent her life in rural Kentucky. But am I like her at all? I really strive to be. I try to give to the people around me and work hard for my loved ones. I don’t know that my efforts hold a candle to her (or my sister, or my mom and dad). I’m not a religious person, so I don’t really believe that she’s somewhere looking down on me while I walk this life. But I still catch myself wondering how she would feel if she were looking down. I wonder if she would be proud of me, or maybe even confused or disappointed in the relatively selfish lifestyle I’ve found myself in. I’ll never know the answer to this.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to loading up my car with clothes and a dog to head to Kentucky for the holidays in a couple of weeks. Let’s not forget, it’s my month of gratefulness. I’m grateful that I have too many wonderful holiday memories to fit into these paragraphs – including the equally impactful but unmentioned people on my mom’s side of the family. I’m grateful for the memories I have. I’m grateful for the memories that we will make this year. I’m grateful that I have the means and time off to go home for the holidays. I’m grateful for my puppy who keeps me from being lonely in this season in the meantime, and that we get to spend our first holiday season in our home. I’m grateful for the example that Mamaw Jo, my mom and sister set for me – the example of selflessness, and how strength looks different for different people. I’m grateful for me and for the fact that I try to live up to that example, no matter how many times I screw it up and fall short. I’m grateful. And even though my tree is up already, and the Christmas music is playing in my car, I’m not losing sight of Thanksgiving – after all, I have a lot to be thankful for.

An appreciation post for women in the office

November 10, 2021

“I’m trying to write code, but Rebecca won’t stop talking about her feelings.” This is what a guy at work said (as a joke) a couple of years ago when I was talking about this or that with my team. I was probably talking about what it’s like to date in the city, or detailing an awful tinder date I had over the weekend, or maybe just boo-hoo-ing over something or other. You never know with me. I tend to be an open book in all aspects of life, and have no problem answering the question “How are you?” honestly and openly – and with plenty of detail. Ya know, in a work-appropiate-ish kind of way, at least. I find myself chatting away, dishing out gossip from my personal life, telling spunky, self-deprecating stories about car accidents I almost caused in my morning commute, or detailing my new recipe for pork tenderloin I’m trying over the weekend – only to look up and realize that the men around me are in agony and would like nothing more than for me to zip it and write some code. I get it, guys. Sorry.

I haven’t had another woman on my team at work since 2018. This is not exactly surprising – I work in a very dude-heavy field. Lady data scientists are not unicorns anymore, thanks to the power of STEM initiatives, but we are still less than prevalent. I was at a work event the other day and noticed that by the end of the event, there were two women left in the room and about 30 men. As I was walking out for the evening, my friend made a joke that I couldn’t leave and abandon the other lady – but it was like 9 pm and this old lady needed to be in bed by 10, so I left her to fend for herself.

Now don’t get me wrong. The men I work with and for (see my previous post about Frank, Chris and Steve) are brilliant, funny, supportive, awesome people. I wouldn’t change the composition of my team for anything. In fact, my work-husband who recently switched companies was and is one of my closest friends in DC. He makes me spicy pickles. But over the last few weeks, I have renewed my focus on making lady friends at work. When I was on a different contract a few years ago, I had three other ladies on my team. We used to take morning walks to buy Diet Sunkist at the snack shop on the first floor, and took breaks in the afternoon to walk up and down the stairs. We had happy hours after work, and hung out, went on hikes and took fitness classes together on weekends. We really had an awesome support system in place and built an amazing rapport where we all felt comfortable sharing our authentic selves. It was amazing to work with these smart, successful women and build judgement-free friendships. I want to build relationships like that again.

It’s been a bit of a process, but I’ve slowly been collecting friends in the office by inserting myself awkwardly into conversations with ladies who work on different teams. I usually meet them organically when I’m squatting at a computer I’m not supposed to be on, or in a cross-team meeting. Then I invite them to coffee/lunch at the cafe in our building. Then I make my friend move and invite them to dinner or drinks after work. My campaign has been a huge success and I’ve had dinner with three different office ladies over the last couple of weeks! One of them is a mother of two, one of them is a marathon-runner who broke off an engagement earlier this year, and another is a single lady who doesn’t like her roommate and loves to travel. I have so enjoyed getting to know these people – they are so brilliant and accomplished, with interesting backgrounds. They are also very open and willing to divulge personal details of their lives. They talk about dating, marriage, children, dogs, dreams of owning homes, and their families with abandon. Most importantly, they listen and respond when I do the same.

I don’t want it to sound as if I’m criticizing men for being less open or less willing to listen. I don’t think that’s the case at all. I just think the lines are drawn a bit more firmly for what men are willing to discuss with women at work and how much of themselves they are willing to share. And I think most non-crazy women also have the same boundaries with men at the office (as I said, I’m a bit nutty, so this doesn’t apply to me). So while I am constantly in awe of the gentlemen who write awesome code with me, and make fun of me, and make me laugh until my cheeks hurt – I am super excited to be forging some lady connections at work. It also helps that none of these women are data scientists – we are less likely to talk about gini coefficients over dinner and lemon drops.

In the spirit of my gratefulness theme this month, I feel incredibly grateful that I work with such amazing people, men and women alike. I feel grateful that I am being brave and branching out to make new connections. I’m grateful that my attempts have been well-received and for the fun nights out I’ve had as a result. I’m also grateful for the reminder that I am a fun, likable person – someone choosing to spend time with you when they aren’t getting paid to do so is a huge boost to self-esteem. I’m grateful for my office ladies of the past and present and their kind hearts and open ears, and hopeful that I can provide the same to them.

November 9, 2021

My coworkers think my Kentucky-isms are hilarious. I can’t remember the exact context of the conversation, but my coworker, Paul once overheard me chatting with our boss (Frank from the previous post). When fellow Kentucky native, Frank left the room, Paul said “I’m sorry I don’t speak banjo – what were you two talking about?” and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. There was another incident with Paul where I was talking about my renter’s insurance with some of our clients (probably as part of my fire story) and in true Kentucky spirit, I was pronouncing it like IN-surance. I said the word about three times before Paul interrupted and said “She’s saying insurance. That’s the word she keeps saying.” I also have a reputation for talking about pork chops more than average Deloitte employees, and it’s not uncommon for me to end a long day at the office with a polite “Hey, you wanna go get drunk at the Cracker Barrel?” I love leaning into the “I speak banjo” stereotypes around here because these assholes from Philadelphia and New Jersey think it is hilarious.

I love Kentucky so much. I love the fact that my family is there. I love the way people talk there. I love Ale8’s and miss the days when I could buy one at the gas station instead of mortgaging my first born child every time I pay for shipping costs to DC. I love Lexington. I love thinking about that ooey gooey feeling I got inside when I lived in Lexington and all of the Christmas lights would go up downtown and the traffic would get bad due to a combination of basketball games and holiday shopping. I love the UK Arboretum and miss being able to run the two-mile lap around the park. I love the grimy Mexican restaurants in the towns surrounding my hometown. I love Hometown Pizza and the chronic cheese sticks they have there. I love thinking about the time my friend Shawna taught me how to ride a horse, and all the times we ran with our friend Katie for run club at our favorite brewery. I love thinking about going to Thursday Night Live and drinking Bourbon Barrel Ale and eating at Local Taco with my friend Rachel. I love that all the grocery stores in Kentucky are cheap, and they always have a healthy stock of Little Debbie cakes. I love Red River Gorge and Miguel’s Pizza. I love Bowling Green and walking on WKU’s campus and reliving my most awkward years, and thinking about the night I met my best friend, Kristin there during a game of capture the flag 13 years ago.

There are a lot of things I love about Virginia too. I love my house and my puppy. I love being so close to the mountains in Shenandoah Valley. I love seeing plays at Ford’s Theatre. I love going to Chinatown for hockey games, and loved being here when the Caps won the cup. I loved living in the DC area when the Nats won the world series in 2019, and I went to the big parade. I love my job – like seriously, I LOVE it. I love the people I work with, and the fact that the diversity of this area has connected me with people from all over the world – Bulgaria, China, India, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Australia, Ireland, Russia. For the first time in my life, I have friends that all have drastically different backgrounds and upbringings – I love that. I love the satisfaction I get when I successfully navigate DC traffic. I love that I’m so close to New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and Boston – I hope to start taking some post Covid weekend trips soon. I love the fact that I met Joshua here. I love the life I’ve made here.

Sometimes it’s really hard to know that Kentucky is so far away. When life is busy and good, I don’t think about it much. But when things don’t go my way here, or I get my heart broken by life, I start thinking about how far away I really am. There have been a few days over the last few weeks when I would have killed to give my dad a hug or go for a ride to the grocery store with my mom. But one of the great things about being in this part of the country is that almost every person you meet is in the exact same boat. We are all separated from our roots and far away from our families and closest friends. And some people are separated from their main support by much more than a 9-hour drive. I’ve been on a campaign recently to connect with friends more here, and to branch out to make new friends from work – and my story is not unique among them.

It seems like we are all working hard and killing it in our careers, while trying desperately not to focus on loneliness or missing the people we love. We deal with guilt and shame for not being accessible to the people who used to see us every single day – guilt for not calling enough or visiting enough, or only calling during the tough times (I am especially guilty of this). You feel like this strong, independent badass one day, driving your new 4Runner off the lot with Webbie blaring on the radio, and the next day you can’t stand how selfishly you live. You wonder if the challenging, exciting, rewarding career you have chosen is worth all the time and moments you are missing elsewhere.

I mentioned last week that I’ve been trying to really focus on gratefulness. I think that sentiment extends here. I am challenging myself to feel grateful for my time here in Virginia. I want to be grateful for the friends I have here and all the friends I am bound to meet in the future. I want to be grateful for my time with Josh and getting to meet his family here. I want to make happy memories in this big house of mine, and take this new car on adventures with my little Maudie girl. I can live gratefully and appreciate my life here in Virginia and also make more meaningful connections with my family and friends in Kentucky – connections that are not maintained by guilt or sadness. I can keep in touch and visit them joyfully and build more memories that are worth thinking about and missing. I need to keep in mind that I may not always be here in this spot. Who knows what city my future will find me in? There may come a day when I’m looking back on my time in Virginia the same way I do with my Kentucky years, and I want to have happy memories of my time here. Not tearful, lonely, sad memories. I’m really going to put my heart into this effort. Let me know if you’re in a similar spot, and maybe we can strategize or just share stories. I’d love to hear from you.

November 6, 2021

I fell asleep with my window open last night and woke in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke. My clever brain told me that the smell was the familiar scent of cigar smoke, probably coming from my neighbor’s balcony or someone smoking on their front stoop. My triggered heart told my clever brain to shut the hell up, and I swiftly ran down the stairs in my underwear to convince myself that my house was not on fire. Once I assessed the nothing-ness in my home, I crawled back into bed and had vivid dreams about rounding the corner of the stairway to my kitchen to find the stove engulfed in flames.

I experienced a small fire in my apartment in 2020. I was moving to a new apartment down the hall, and had a plastic container neatly packed to the brim with all of my nicest cookware sitting on my stove. As I was carrying some boxes down the hall to my new crib, I must have hit one of the stovetop knobs with my elbow. I went down the hall, unloaded the boxes, and returned to the old apartment for another load, only to see smoke filling the hallway. My stomach dropped and I ran into my apartment to see my stove in flames. I ran inside to rescue Maudie and searched for her for a few moments before I remembered that I had boarded her safely at PetSmart for the weekend. Then I ran through the tiny hallway that was the kitchen of my studio apartment, and melted plastic from my neatly-packed-and-now-destroyed-by-flames plastic container splashed onto my leg and my arm as I exited. As the fire alarm went off and I heard fire trucks arrive outside of my now-evacuated 18-story apartment building, I sat in the lobby nearly hyperventilating, wondering if my mistake had injured anyone…or worse.

I took my first ambulance ride that day, got treated for some minor second degree burns, and hitched a ride with the fire marshal back to my apartment, which he assured me was “not in that bad of shape”. When I followed him into apartment 224, it dawned on me that only a very small percentage of my belongings were damaged by my tiny fire – but nearly everything I owned was drenched in water by the sprinkler system. The next two days were a marathon of sorting through my wet belongings to determine what could be salvaged and what should be thrown away. I was very lucky that my parents were already on their way to Arlington to help me move that weekend, and they arrived early in the evening to find their pitiful baby girl in a covid-19 mask with soot all over her face, sticky from sweat and dirt from the clean-up effort, and too stressed and overwhelmed to cry (I did later, a lot). When they arrived, I realized I hadn’t taken a sip of water, looked in the mirror or gone to the bathroom in about 8 hours – as if the only thing that mattered in life that day was the cleanup process/punishment I deserved for a careless mistake.

Looking back, I know this was a good experience. It was good that I didn’t get hurt more than I did, it was good that no one else in my building was injured, and it was good that Maudie was not home at the time. It was good that I had renter’s insurance to cover all of the damage, not only to my own belongings, but to the building (including flood damage to my neighbor’s apartment and the OrangeTheory on the first floor). It was good that my family was there to help me. It was good that I had a place to stay that night (and every night after).

This is one of those life experiences that I would like to forget, but I’ll still be a good sport and laugh about it with friends. My boyfriend’s favorite nicknames for me, “Smokey” and “Sweet Lil Half Smoke” are inspired by this incident (which I got to recount to him with pink cheeks during our first date). When I met his parents for the first time, he made sure to bring it up so I could tell them my embarrassing tale as well. It’s all in good fun, and I’m blessed that it is a story that can be told with a light heart and met with laughter, when it easily could have been a tragedy. I am very lucky.

Despite the laughable circumstances, I’m still a little traumatized by the whole experience. When I moved into my house and cooked my first meal here, the sensitive smoke detector in my new kitchen went off over and over again – this thing was triggered by steam from asparagus, for Pete’s sake. Each time the beeping started, I nearly jumped out of my skin and felt seized with panic. Before the evening was over, I had ordered a new, less false-positive prone smoke detector because my little heart couldn’t take all the false alarms. I rarely leave the house without feeling the nagging sensation of having left something plugged in or turned on at home – Is my hair straightener on? Did I turn the oven off? Is that lamp in my office still switched on?

We have all experienced some form of trauma in our lives. I don’t pretend my trauma holds a candle to things that others have faced- I try to keep that in perspective. I just left a party for a five-year-old who finished his last chemotherapy treatment this week- his parents know something about trauma. Here I am, with my trauma amounting to little more than a funny story I can tell at parties paired with some paranoia and fear of flames- I definitely don’t want to come across as whiny or self-important, because I’ve lived a really privileged life. But even I can understand how some things that happen to us stay with us and impact us in ways we never expect. I’ve experienced some other types of trauma that didn’t involve fire, mostly involving mental abuse and infidelity in romantic relationships of my past. And just as I feel paranoia about fire safety, I also feel paranoia about safety in relationships of all kinds. I’ve had trauma responses to innocent circumstances and found myself projecting insecurities from past trauma onto people that I should and DO trust. I don’t need to go into detail here, but it’s something that I’m aware that I struggle with.

I don’t know why I’m writing this – I just had my panic moment last night, and my bad dream to follow, and had a moment of joy this afternoon when I found myself cooking my dinner on the stove. It’s such a small thing that was like breathing before my fire in 2020, but now I sometimes marvel at my own nerve when I stand in front of the flame. Just as trusting people in romantic relationships and opening myself up to love used to be as easy as breathing before my trust was compromised. Yet, I still stand in front of that flame and open myself up to love again and again. I think maybe this is just a tiny example of grit from my life, and I’m not exactly moving mountains or doing anything remarkable here – but it feels like a small drop in the strength-bucket to say that I got burned and still stand in front of the flame. I hope that you can look at the traumas that you carry around with you, recognize how they affect you in your present, but can also acknowledge all of those moments when you bravely stand in front of the flame anyway. That’s true grit, and I think you should give yourself a little credit for it.

November 5, 2021

I went to a swanky retirement party on Wednesday evening at the type of restaurant I will only visit when it’s on the company’s dime. The party was for two PPMDs (partner, principal, managing directors) at my firm who have been the dynamic duo leadership team for my group at Deloitte. I am not sure how long they have been with the firm, but I met them both just over 5 years ago when I interviewed with Deloitte. I remember getting confused by the Rosslyn parking that day, and showing up sweaty and nervous for my round of interviews for a data scientist position. My first interviewer was a very tall man named Chris, who asked me if I wanted a coke, and spent the majority of our 30 minute interview slot telling me how wonderful and impressive I am rather than asking me questions. I didn’t talk much at all during the interview, and we were interrupted in the middle by another tall, bald man named Frank. Frank busted in and said “I’m late for a meeting, but I heard you are from Kentucky- I am too. We’ll chat later, Kentucky Cousin.”

These two men, Chris and Frank are arguably the most important figures in my tiny corner of the Deloitte multiverse, and they are also two of the kindness, smartest, most insightful and persuasive people I have ever met. They are also very good friends – they have known each other for over 30 years, and owned a company together at one point before they came to Daddy Deloitte. The retirement party had so many people in tears on Wednesday as we came to terms with a future without their guidance and support. I personally teared up the most when someone was giving a speech about the talent pool Frank and Chris have grown over the years, and Frank scanned the crowd with his eyes and pointed directly at me. I also cried when Frank gave his own toast and paid a touching tribute to his wife and three children. Frank and Chris have a lot of ‘isms’, and catchphrases that were discussed in great detail at the party- but I think their impact at Deloitte can be captured best in the three word phrase that they have both uttered countless times each day:”I appreciate you.” These guys are dynamos in terms of success, business sense and creating impact for clients, and are two of the most talented people in this country – yet they are always shouting from the rooftops that they appreciate little nobody’s like me. I can set aside all of the business savvy, delivery excellence, and selling tips they have both imparted to me over the years, and safely say that their true impact on my life has been their unending support, appreciation and confidence building (pudding proof of the latter point can be spotted in my previous blog about self esteem and gratefulness). I now feel compelled to jot down some of my favorite Frank and Chris moments so I can repay the favor and show my appreciation for them.

When I finished my week long orientation at Deloitte in January of 2017, I showed up at the Rosslyn office and got introduced to the weirdness that is working for a consulting firm. You see, it’s not like a normal job where you have your own desk assigned to you that you come and sit at every day. You are on client contracts – sometimes multiple contracts that can change at any time, and you sit where you are needed. You may sit at your client’s workspace, or you may work remotely from the Deloitte office or both. When you are at the Deloitte office, you sit where you can find a spot – the process is called hoteling. You can book a work space for a day, as if you are renting a hotel room. I remember riding the metro to Rosslyn and walking into the big 24-story building with my hot pink Kate Spade bag that my mom bought me for a graduation present- and I stared at all the buttons on the elevator panel wondering which floor I should choose. I went to ten and wandered around like a lost puppy. I stopped at an empty desk and checked my work phone – and sure enough, I had a text from Chris. “Come to 13 when you get here.” When I got to 13, he greeted me with an enthusiastic handshake, and took me to a table full of data scientists. “The cool, geniuses sit over here.” I credit this small act of kindness and attention to my swift development of a network and friend group at work.

Several weeks later, I was on my first contract with the Department of Defense and my client was a really brilliant data scientist named Tom (years later, Tom would take a job at Deloitte and become my boss instead of my client). Tom apparently told Frank “Rebecca is really great and capable, I just wish she would speak up more during meetings.” At an all-hands meeting, Frank sought me out in the group of ~100 practitioners, and got in my face (in a friendly, non-threatening way) and said “Listen lady, you don’t need to be afraid to open your mouth. Every time you do, brilliance comes out. Get out there and show them what you’re made of.” I remember being kind of distraught by this, because I thought I was already letting people down at work. From that moment on, I could tell that Frank was on a mission to help me learn to communicate confidently with clients. He volun-told me to assist with delivery and development of a “conversational analytics” course curriculum. Our difficult task for this class was to explain complex data science concepts to leaders who haven’t had a math class since Freshman year of college. That course was a turning point for me. The success I had with it helped me uncover a talent that I didn’t know I had – I can explain complex topics in terms that anyone can understand. Over the years, this has become my brand at Deloitte. I am not the best programmer or data engineer, but I can talk to a client and help them understand what they are getting with their dollars. I don’t know that I would have discovered this without Frank’s investment and support.

I’ve been having some personal mental health struggles recently. A few weeks ago, I was scheduled to give a talk about selling to over 300 Deloitte practitioners – but I needed an emergency session with my therapist and the only time she could get me in was during the time of my talk. This talk was a big opportunity that Frank had given me, but I felt more than comfortable texting him to tell him the truth about my situation. Not only did he tell me to forget about the talk altogether and focus on myself, he also told me that he put a calendar reminder in his phone to pray for me on the day of my appointment. A couple of weeks later, he introduced me via text message to a lovely lady named Marlene who knows his wife through church. This sweet lady called me on a Wednesday during lunch, and I poured my heart out to her as if I had known her my whole life. The only explanation I have for this openness with a complete stranger (who wasn’t charging me by the hour) was that I knew that Frank trusted her, and I trust Frank. In fact, there’s no one in the DC area that I trust more than Frank. I told him I was thinking about shopping for a new car this week, and his eyes lit up and he said “Let me know if you want me to go with you!” Sometimes I think he’s a really close substitute for Ron Crouch when Ron Crouch is so far away – he has been tough on me when I needed it, but always makes me (and every other lucky person who has worked for him over the years) feel important, special and cared for -“I don’t know what you’re going through and I won’t ask, but I just want you to know you’re not alone.”

After writing this, I realize I’ve had many more interactions with Frank than with Chris over the years – but to me, they are kind of like peanut butter and jelly. It’s hard to think about one of them without thinking of the other. I am so sad to see these men go away from my everyday work life, but they have left behind a legacy of leaders who have been brought up in their image. My direct boss (his name is Steve) is a young version of Frank who has adopted almost all of his ‘isms’ and catchphrases, and his passion for growing talent and truly caring for people along the way. Frank and Chris – if you guys ever read this, just know that I appreciate you and you are the twin pillars of my success thus far, either directly or through other leaders you have cultivated. I hope I continue to lead based on your excellent example and that your ‘isms’ will be carried on and get big laughs at my own retirement party in 100 years.

November 1, 2021

When I met with my new therapist for the first time a few weeks ago, one of the first questions she asked me was “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your self-esteem?” My knee-jerk response to this was “Well…it depends on what room I’m in.” I went on to describe to her how I feel like I’m made out of titanium when I’m at work. I walk into that office and feel like I’m the smartest, most competent, put together person in the room. I rock pencil skirts and sleek blouses with high heels, and strut around like I’m the data science queen. Then I described that other times, when I’m outside of work, it’s not like that at all. I feel bad about my body sometimes…maybe a lot of the time. I sometimes feel insecure about my decisions, my attitude, the way I love, the size of my ass, my smile, my writing, how sensitive I am, how much I cry, my makeup application, how dirty my car is, my dog’s haircut…you name it, and I’ve felt insecure about it.

It’s not that I sit around feeling bad about myself all the time. I just notice that I am much more susceptible to creeping feelings of low self-esteem when I’m outside of the comfort zone of work. Maybe its because I get so much positive feedback at my job – I work with people who are constantly hyping me up and celebrating success. I know with perfect certainty when I walk into a meeting that I am prepared for it, and I am likely the expert in the room on the topic at hand. That doesn’t mean that nothing ever goes wrong, or that I never screw up – that’s far from reality. There’s just something about having a set of guiding principles that you learn in your training that help you prepare for workplace interactions, and then also help you deal with fallout when they don’t go so well. It also helps that there’s always someone more experienced than you around to help you figure out tricky situations. Everything is so straightforward and you are surrounded with these wise Yoda’s who guide your path, and that cultivates confidence. Everything is natural and right, and I feel happy to be me.

Then I leave work and go out into the real world for my free time, and I realize that all the other aspects of life are hard. I have a hard time managing the friendships I have, and making friends in your 30’s is really difficult. I struggle balancing my diet and exercise. I can’t find the right shade of makeup to suit me, and always feel like I’m too heavy handed with eye-shadow. I get on the scale too much. My dog misbehaves sometimes and I blame myself. I’m lazy about laundry. I love to write, but feel a knot in my stomach every time I post a blog for fear of sharing too much of myself, or offending someone with opinions. I doubt my decisions and overthink things. I don’t wash my sheets enough. I sometimes get defensive when people offer me advice or disagree with me. I’m a laughably bad driver. I watch too much reality tv. I cry too much and sometimes dwell on my pain and turn it into suffering. I love a little too hard and overwhelm people. I am sarcastic and make bad jokes. No one is more aware of my flaws than I am.

I am sure that you identified with at least some of the things I mentioned above. I don’t think any person is immune to the thoughts that grab ahold of us and make us see ourselves as unworthy or less valuable than others. I think most feelings we experience in life serve some positive purpose – feeling grief and sadness is useful for identifying what you value, and for really appreciating happier times, for example. Feelings of low self-esteem or inadequacy can be useful for helping you aim at the things you want to work on. This is easy when you are looking at problems that have clear solutions – I can wash my sheets more often, I can send my dog to school, I can cultivate a fitness routine, I can watch YouTube make-up tutorials, I can reach out to my friends more and branch out socially. Thinking about yourself critically can really help you make plans to improve. Not all the time, though. I can’t really do anything about the shape of my face or my smile, and I’m not going to absorb enough therapy overnight to change how sensitive or insecure I am in relationships, or address body image issues – and focusing on these things in the meantime only exacerbates the problems. Instead of having a negative emotion that leads to positive change, the whole thought cycle devolves into negative self-talk, which is destructive.

The other issue with being critical of myself is that I never seem to do the opposite. I don’t spend much time fixating on the things about me that are great. I can see them when I think about it. I know that I’m smart and hardworking. I know I’m thoughtful, sweet and generous. I know that I give Maudie a lot of love and a really nice life. I know that I’m a great girlfriend who loves openly and joyfully. I know I’m a good friend. I know that I have built a lovely life. I know I am a good cook when I put my mind to it, and always go above and beyond when I prepare a meal for someone I love. I know that I’m creative and try to make thoughtful gifts for people I love. I know that I’m a good aunt. I know that I look pretty in that maroon dress I bought last month. I know that I’ll still look pretty even if I gain 10 lbs this month or lose 5. I know I kick ass at my job and try my best to guide the people who look up to me. I know that I am good.

Logically, I know all of these things to be true. But when I wake up in the morning, they aren’t always at the top of my mind. I guess it’s like having a hangnail. Your whole body can be in tip top condition- well-rested, clean, healthy, hydrated – but instead of resting in gratefulness for that, all you can think about is the tiny hangnail on your index finger. It hurts. I wish it would heal faster. Why do I keep picking at it? Maybe I should put a bandaid on it. Or maybe it’s something that’s not even real like a painful, little hangnail – maybe it’s just the worry that tomorrow you may not be as healthy, or that decisions you are making today will lead to eventual disability. Dwelling on this hangnail or the possibility that tomorrow may bring chaos doesn’t make the hangnail heal any faster or prevent future pain – it simply distracts. All the while, your healthy body is practically crying out to you. Use me! Let’s go for a walk! Move me to do something kind for someone else! Carpe diem!

I guess we are always going to find things about ourselves that we don’t like and those things are definitely catalysts for low self-esteem. But I, for one, am tired of feeling these emotions that serve no positive purpose and distract me from seizing the day. I think for the next few weeks, I’ll try to reframe my thinking a little bit. I want to spend more time being grateful – not only for the things I have, but for who I am. I want to appreciate myself more. I need to appreciate me the way my coworkers appreciate me and show it every day. I need to stop waiting for that appreciation to come from external places. I want to work on the things I think are deficits in my being, but I want to keep in mind that the hangnails that need to heal won’t keep me from running or jumping or living. I can work on some things (therapy being a really good place to start) without pausing others. I can think about myself less and others more. I can love more and with more intent. I can rest in gratefulness, and also MOVE in gratefulness. I didn’t write this post in honor of the Thanksgiving month, but maybe it’s appropriate. I am grateful for me and I hope you are grateful for you. You are good.