I am right now, writing this to you from a hotel room outside of Roanoke in my bra and pants. my hands are covered in pepermint oil and I accidentally touched my eyes. All orifices are minty fresh and my eyes are watering. This is Priscillas fault. My eyes were watering this morniing. That too was Priscilla’s fault.

I am currently in my predicament because my dear child had an accident of the #2 variety when she fell asleep. The second we got to the hotel she woke up and admitted it. I cleaned her up the best I could, but her pajamas were beyond help. I donated my t-shirt to the cause and she is currently crawling into bed in her mom’s t-shirt while we covered the residual poo smell with the peppermint oil I found floating in the bottom of my purse. The making my eyes minty fresh is totally on me.

This was the easier mess to clean up today. The other one I kind of had to let lie. You see, my three year old inherited her big feelings from me, and today we did something that always makes all my big feelings show up in full force. We left The Lake. Through some foresight, financial luck and a ridiculous amount of generosity my grandparents bought a couple of lake cabins on a completely private lake in the Adirondacks. I grew up going to that lake every winter and summer, and in typical Grandpa fashion, he put them in a trust so that we could continue to enjoy this generous gift even after he was gone.

There is only one problem: leaving always makes me cry. Apparently it make Priscilla cry too.

I love the lake. I know I am so lucky to spend over an entire week there every summer. I am even luckier that so much of my family coordinates so we can all hang out together. I am lucky that we all like each other at the end of that week. It feels silly to be sad that I have to leave it all, but there I am crying with my youngest as she fights through the tears to tell her Gram she loves her, and goodbye. It feels selfish to grieve no more time in the “wooden house” when people are grieving actual real problems in the world.

Early in the week my kids and nieces were sitting in the motor boat waiting for their turrn to go tubing when they all began seeing “A hard knock life” from the musical Annie. The incongruency of it all was just too much. My husband began making up a parody.

“So unfair I just might flip! Only got one Icecream trip! No one cares about your fits, when you’re a Lake Trust kid. It’s a hard knock life.”

We were having the very first of first world problems. While I think we need to keep it all in perspective, but I have also had to learn to give myself permission to feel whatever it is I am feeling. And right now I am deeply sad that my time at the lake is over. And I am proud that my three year old could name her feelings so well, and I am so so so glad that I was blessed with the week I had. (I am also glad that I got an awesome tan and can still wakeboard.)

The world (and Twitter) has tried to tell me that there is only so much caring to be done. If I am sad that we have to leave the lake, I can’t lament for my brothers and sisters dying around the world. If I express frustration that my three year old pooped I can’t also be frustrated that the public education system is so freaking unfair. If I am thrilled that my kid started kneeboarding before kindergarten I cannot be thrilled that South Carolina voted to take down the confederate flag. Now, do I have different levels and expressions of all of those feels, of course. BUT they can all co-exist just fine, if I let them.

If I let them.

In fact, the more I allow my feelings to just be, when I dedicate myself to feeling them, the wholer and stronger I can feel the giref and anger, the joy and elation that may just lead to action that will change the world. Even just a tiny bit. Just becaue my feelings only come in extra-large doesn’t mean that they crowd out any other feelings that may be more important. There is no such thing as a scarcity of emotions. Feeling all your feelings only leaves more room for other feelings, for other people’s feelings. There is enough room for all the feels. I promise. In fact, there is a need for them.

This week’s love bomb theme is APPRECIATION. I am enoucarging you to feel the feels AND say the says.

The Short: Leave a comment here, I will email you the persons contact, say something nice.

The Long: So WHAT is a LOVE BOMB and how will I COORDINATE it? A love bomb is when we all come together to lavish a deserving someone with Tweets, Facebook likes, Blog comments, emails, and general social media shout outs. Imagine waking up to the amount of Birthday notifications only they are nice things about you for seemingly no reason. It would make you feel pretty good, huh? Yeah!

And if you want to email me people to be bombed I would love that! I have  four more slots to fill.