A Frigid New England Morning

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

I take a deep breath on this frigid New England morning. The air feels cold and steely in my lungs, but at the same time incredibly refreshing compared to the recirculated, dry, warm air in the house just two feet behind me. I am barefoot on the small, colorful, and very wet welcome mat on my back deck. From inside, it looked a bit warmer out, but one inhale tells a different story.

The thermometer reads 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Even though the air is cold and frigid, there are several signs that spring is on the way. The most exciting sign for me is the red buds on the trees that border our yard. Despite the cold, the trees are aware of the subtle shifts in the atmosphere and are preparing to put forth an abundance of greenery in just a few short weeks. While I’m looking out, I can see frost on top of the barbecue cover, yet I hear birds singing and chirping in the air. That is not something I can say in February. Just the mere fact that the porch furniture was put out means there was a day warm enough not long ago that prompted us to ritualistically begin preparations for the warmer months.

In the evenings, while lying in bed, I am able to hear the peeper frogs through my closed bedroom window. In the late spring and summer, when we sleep with the windows open, we not only hear the peepers, but all types of crickets and woodsy life through the evening.

For months, the ground has been receiving precipitation in the form of freezing rain and snow. But the ground was solid, even during some of the unusually warm 50-degree days in the past few months. Despite the cold, the extra sun is warming the ground enough to keep a thaw, as evidenced by my weight digging ever so slightly into the dirt. This I notice while walking the dog after dinner or while cutting across the lawn to grab the mail.

As I stand on the deck looking out, I feel a flutter of excitement in my chest. Summer is on the way. The cover on the grill will be perpetually removed as we spend many evenings cooking outside instead of in the kitchen. The deck furniture will constantly be moved, full of crumbs and stained with ketchup due to the many hours we spend shifting chairs from the sun, pulling one closer to watch a movie together around a laptop, and eating almost every meal al fresco.

A look over the deck down to the yard below has my heart fluttering a bit more. We have a really large garden that is now empty down the hill in our sloped yard. Very soon, the asparagus tips will start shooting out from the ground on the right side of the garden, just outside the wooden borders but inside the fence where we planted them several years ago. The strawberries will soon follow. Every year, those crazy strawberries try to invade the neighboring soil in the garden after a few weeks above ground, but each year we gently pull back the little green runners that latch quite firmly into the dirt.

In the summertime, the garden is brimming with all types of crops—kale, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, beets, squash, eggplant, peppers, green beans, herbs like basil, parsley, oregano, mint… and more. Each year we try our hand at a few new seeds. One of the finest ways I feel connected to nature is preparing meals with ingredients that came from our garden.

There is a point every year where the yield is almost too much to keep up with—especially the kale, spinach, and lettuce. Almost daily, I take a trip down the hill to pick the greens. Carefully cutting the leaves back to the main stem keeps the plants producing all season, but it’s quite time-consuming. The bugs are wild at that time of year. At least half the time, I forget to slather on bug repellent and get completely mobbed by whatever is out there.

Often, the sun is so hot that by the time I finish cutting back the greens, the ones I started with begin to wilt. Avoiding that wilt requires several trips back into the air-conditioned house, where they will stay fresh until I have a chance to clean them. Getting back into the house is tricky business because my sandals, legs, and behind are muddy, and I need to trek up the hill in the scorching sun. The trip doesn’t stop at the hill—I still need to climb the steep deck steps. It really isn’t too far, but by the time I reach the back door, I’m often panting from the exertion.

A cool wave of air hits me when I open the door. Unlike the frigid air this morning—which felt like an unpleasant but natural shock—the air-conditioned air in the summer feels pleasant, yet completely unnatural. I have to take off my shoes so as not to drag mud into the house. I creep inside, trying not to touch anything or shake the greens too much, as this will create all kinds of dirt and mess.

After several trips to the garden to avoid wilting, it’s another several minutes—sometimes hours—of processing the greens. They need to be soaked through several rounds, then spun and bagged. There is always more than we can ever eat, so our neighbors, coworkers, and friends often become the unwilling—yet very thankful—recipients of our labor.

I take a step back from the railing overlooking the hill. The deck feels cold and frigid under my bare feet with every step I take. As long as I don’t move, my feet seem to warm the peeling wood beneath them. My next thought wanders to that peeling wood—we need to paint it again. It needs to be painted or touched up annually, despite the promises on every deck paint label that show freshly painted decks with five-year guarantees.

That’s another chore to add to the to-do list. As will be the weekly hassle of weeding, in addition to the more-than-weekly imposition of mowing the lawn, weed whacking, and cleaning up the mulch that looks awful after lawn clippings or dog digging. Not to mention the constant sweeping of the deck, walkway, and sidewalk in front of our home.

As I look around the yard, my heart starts to flutter in anguish this time, thinking about how much work summer is. Why am I looking forward to it? Winter seems nice and simple, as the upkeep of the home is only a fraction of what summer requires when you have a large lawn and garden. I rather enjoy coming home in the dark at four in the afternoon, changing into comfy clothes, and settling onto the sofa with a good book by the fire for the evening. It feels wrong at this time of year, at 6:45 pm, to not be fully dressed. While the sun might be shining, it’s way too cold to enjoy the outdoors.

At the moment, I’m cold, and I have nothing on except flimsy pajama pants and my daughter’s college sweatshirt. I make the crazy decision to walk down the steep stairs of the deck to take a look around the yard. There is the fire pit in the grass and the Adirondack chairs sitting under the deck, waiting for their time to come out for the summer. We have a swing under the deck with an orange cushion and two pillows that is great for summer reading, but also a prime spot to be bitten by mosquitoes.

I start to walk around the house up the hill and remember how steep it is. I am reminded of the flower bed on the side of the house that is a whole lot of work to keep up as well. My heart starts to pound now as I exert energy climbing the hill while my lungs take in the frigid air.

As I round the flower bed and step into my driveway, I see the crocuses that came up a few weeks ago in full bloom. They are the first of the flowers to emerge. Their little green shoots are often seen in late February. Just a quick look at them makes my heart slow down a little.

As I come up the walkway, I see more crocuses on the flower bed on the other side of the house. They too are in full bloom. And right next to them are daffodils that are about to burst forth. Their yellow petals are still closed, but any day now they will open into their full beauty.

I smile internally. I love the flowers in the summer. I love pruning them, cleaning up around them, and bringing many of them into the house. All summer, we have fresh flowers throughout the house. Every time I look at them, I am awed by their beauty. It is one of my favorite things about summer.

As is having the windows open at night. As are the fresh fruit pies I make, the salads we often eat, the fresh tomatoes… oh my.

All seasons are beautiful in their own way. When the days start to become shorter and the mornings in late August and early September grow chillier, I begin to dread the winter. I can’t conceive how it could be dark in the morning or in the evening. I can’t imagine not sitting out on the deck for meals or reading in the evenings by the light of tiki torches and the sound of crickets.

But as the days do begin to shorten, I thoroughly enjoy the colors of the trees, the browning of the flower beds and garden, and pulling out the sweaters and fuzzy boots. While there is a certain satisfaction and connection to nature from caring for the outside for several hours and then enjoying the view with a cool beverage, there is also a contentment in putting away the garden tools and lawn furniture for the winter and turning inward.

I walk back into my home through the front door and feel the unnatural warm blast of air hit me while I wipe the dirt from my feet on the doormat, closing out the frigid morning behind me.

I’m content.

Nature is beautiful, and I’m feeling completely grateful.

via Daily Prompt: Frigid

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On the Wonder of: What’s wrong with me?

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Have you ever sat at work at your desk, in front of your computer, and felt completely immobilized? Perhaps staring at the screen, not being excited about a single thing you should be working on? Conceivably, like me, you’ve procrastinated with just one more thing before you delve in—one last bathroom trip, one more cup of coffee, one last check of your personal phone sitting off to the side… for the 15th time… in the past 5 minutes.

Maybe you’ve been so unmotivated while sitting at your desk that you’ve taken to Google “motivation,” “new jobs,” “career changes,” “inspiration”… and alas, you become desperate because nothing is lighting a spark. So you Google “depression” or “what’s wrong with me?”

I used to be motivated when I was younger. I was the most motivated, happy person I knew—if I was honest with myself and took a break from being so focused to notice that others around me didn’t exactly have the same spark in their eyes about the silliness and mundane work we were doing. At some point, I started to feel my energy and motivation drain. It was depressing because that didn’t feel like me.

After Googling any and all possible search terms to unearth whatever could possibly be wrong with me, I slowly started to tap into a new reality. I began to wake up and realize what a cog in the wheel I’d been—just a small part of a big, giant system churning out widgets at a rapid pace, more rapid than anyone could want them. When people were sick of their widgets and had one too many, advertising was invented to convince people that they should want and need more than they are satisfied with, or they will not be happy or “successful.” So people kept working harder to churn out more widgets, only to buy more—only needing to work harder and longer to do so… only to be constantly chasing their own happiness and wondering what was wrong with them.

A quick Google search on my smartphone this afternoon revealed to me that butter was invented anywhere between 10,000 and a few hundred years ago. Just a small range, right? Nonetheless, sometime, somewhere, at some distant point in time, a human being not too different from you or me sat churning butter at home thinking, “I can’t wait to finish this churning—it’s so monotonous.” The cream likely came from a cow just yards away on the farm, not but a few hours before. It’s likely the butter-maker fantasized about a device that could do this for them, so they could spend more time enjoying life.

Perhaps the butter-maker didn’t overeat butter because he or she knew how much work went into it. Perhaps they didn’t overeat anything at all because they understood how much effort went into getting the food before them, period. If they didn’t hunt and gather it themselves, they knew the individual who had and likely exchanged their butter for it.

At some point in the past few hundred (or thousand) years, humanity’s inventions surpassed our common sense. We made machines to do just about everything we used to do, including butter churning. As a race, we literally left our homesteads and went to work in factories to make things that people needed. The machines churned widgets out so fast that we made what we needed fairly quickly. It should have stopped there—taking only what we needed.

But we kept on churning it all out.

It was monotonous—perhaps even as monotonous as churning butter manually. The only way to get out of this precarious situation and move on to bigger and better things was to churn out widgets with more speed and adeptness than your co-workers around you, so you could instead supervise the line from the catwalk above. It was probably around that point in history that we stopped working together as a human race and started to compete in ways that were harmful to us as a species.

The shiny new line supervisor watching from above might have realized that it could feel quite lonely at the top. Perhaps he looked down at the line and missed the camaraderie and teamwork. However, with that increase in pay and social status, he wasn’t about to say anything. He “made it,” after all. He should feel happy. But he doesn’t. What’s wrong with him?

Just a mere few hundred years later, we live in a world where we want for nothing, yet face ridiculous, cutthroat competition. So much so that our young children in elementary schools are on medications because the stress of having to “succeed” is too much to handle; and there is so much stimulation coming at them from every angle that they have difficulty focusing.

We are sitting at desks, churning out reports no one reads, crunching numbers that can be manipulated so many ways they’ve become useless, and feeling superior for going through more emails than the person next to us. We are pressured to keep up the sales numbers—sell, sell, sell—beat the competition, beat your neighbor, and keep improving upon all of this before your next performance review.

To what end?

At least back in the manual butter-churning days, we felt connected—to our food source, the earth that fed us, the animals that provided for us, our families and friends that we worked collaboratively with on a regular basis in exchange for life’s simplicities. There was a sense of purpose and belonging. One could see the fruit of their labor. Rarely did anyone take more than they needed.

There was no need for speed and churning out widgets at a rapid pace to meet an invisible, unnecessary sales quota that felt completely empty to you after the pat on the back in front of your team… when you went back to your desk to stare at your computer and wonder why you aren’t happy.

There is nothing wrong with you. There is something wrong with society.

We are so far removed from our food sources, our connection to nature, and simplicity that we have lost our connection and relevance to the earth—and to ourselves. We have little meaning and purpose. We feel bored and lonely. We receive all the wrong messages from society to do more, be more, and compete more. We are too tired at the end of the day to spend quality time with family or friends, to volunteer in our communities, to go to a town meeting, or to fight for anything we care about.

We need to take our lives back.

The butter-churning days may have been monotonous, but at least they had purpose. At least the butter-maker directly benefited from what they were doing. At least society was working together for a common purpose and felt part of something bigger than themselves.

What is the purpose of what we are churning out now?

Machines were invented so we could spend more time enjoying life. Why didn’t that happen?

Daily Prompt

via Daily Prompt: Churn

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On the Mysterious Secret of Slowing Down

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Last Sunday evening after dinner I was washing a pot. I was washing it very mindfully. I was noticing the feel of the warm, soapy water on my hands. I thought about how the pot was made and how I infused the homemade vegan chili in this large, heavy blue pot with love. Most importantly I was slowly and methodically removing the food that was stuck to the bottom of the pan. I thought back to a lesson I just cannot seem to always remember – “To go faster you must slow down”.

 

I led a fast-paced adult life until about 2 years ago. So fast that I hardly had time to think. Washing a pot with food stuck to the bottom has always reminded me of this paradox; thanks to a visit from my mother a few years before she passed away. When my children were young and I was first married, we had little money, but I kept a really good home. I felt very on top of things. But I was rushed back then too. I was so rushed that I never really had time to deal with pots that ended up with years’ worth of stains on them. In late 2001 my mother came to visit with her new husband Boris. I had only just met him, and I know he made my mother very happy. He was from Venezuela. My mom talked so much about how laid back he was and how he got her to slow down, grow out her hair, and stop fussing so much with makeup and keeping up the house. I made a big dinner when they came to visit, and afterward there were many pots and pans that needed cleaning. My mother and Boris came into the kitchen to help and stationed themselves at the sink; she on dish duty, he on drying duty. What seemed like only moments later, while I was putting the leftover food into containers, I noticed Boris drying off one of the pots. What caught my eye about a particular pot that usually had brown and black soot on the bottom was that it was so shiny and clean. Years’ worth of food and cooking buildup was gone! I asked my mother how she did that and so fast… she only smiled with a glint in her eye and said “Boris showed me how”. She never told me with words, but with her eyes she told me to slow down and go easy. The next time I had to clean a pot, and ever since, I’ve taken my time, used far less pressure than I ever would have, and they have always come clean. Working in a rush and with too much pressure used more time and never yielded the same results. I never understood how; it’s just the way it works.
I learned this 17 years ago, but I still don’t always remember or practice this principle. Two years ago I slowed down immensely, truly savoring the small, day-to-day moments, and oddly enough I found myself to be happier, more at peace, and with more time than I ever had. It’s not only time, but also about “less”. Doing less, trying less, having less… all equal less stress and more joy.
Last week I had the luxury of traveling with my husband and a group of amazing individuals from my yoga studio to a jungle sanctuary in Costa Rica. Getting to this sanctuary required two commercial flights, a puddle jumper plane, a 45-minute car ride, and then a 20-minute hike crossing a river four times. It was hot and humid; the type of humidity where you never dry off, even after a shower.
The only way on and off the sanctuary is a 20-minute-plus hike. On the last full day of the trip, my husband Daren and I ventured off the property to the sanctuary’s closest neighbor, Nena, in pursuit of pure organic extra virgin coconut oil. It was a short walk over a bridge that overlooks the ocean to Nena’s house. For the previous two days, Daren & I opted to take some excursions off the property with our group. Both days were a little hectic and obscenely hot at times. I felt ambivalent all morning about whether or not we should take the walk down the hill to get this coconut oil, mainly because it was hot. For some reason I said I’d like to go, but I wanted to walk slowly. So off we went to Nena’s house for coconut oil.


Daren and I really took our time. We stopped and looked at monkeys. We watched little birds. We passed our friend, the white cow. When we left the property and crossed the street, we stopped on the bridge. Actually, Daren stopped on the bridge and called out to me, “Babe, look at this view!”. Slightly annoyed, I stopped to look. I was initially feeling rushed, looked at my watch, and started calculating how much time it would take to get to Nena’s, buy this coconut oil, trek back, “relax” at the pool, and then dash off to the next yoga class. However, when I turned my head to the left and saw the scene, my heart rate actually slowed down a bit. I couldn’t believe I was about to just walk by and miss this scene! I took it in. While standing there, I couldn’t help but notice this insane, harried American thought pattern, and I pushed it completely away. When I stopped and didn’t worry about the time, I was able to remember that I was here in this beautiful place, at this beautiful moment, with my beautiful husband and a group of beautiful, well-lit individuals. I stopped my physical, then mental body from the rush of insanity and fleeting thoughts to appreciate the view and the view of my husband appreciating the view.


We stood there a while in silence. I took a few pictures and resisted the urge to snap more. More is not better. More pictures, more talk, more activity… more, more, more… No, no, no… I know this, but I live in a world that tells me the opposite, so it’s easy to forget.


It was I who broke the silence after a long while. I had the profound realization that because we walked slowly, we weren’t as hot as we were the rest of the trip. I intellectually knew that before we walked and even made that suggestion, but it was even more profound to experience that it worked. It dawned on me that every time I go anywhere where the weather is warm all the time, the locals move slowly. I heard other Americans and Canadians joking about how the natives live on “Costa Rican time”. I’ve heard the same joke in other places. All these Americans and Europeans thinking it’s so funny to crack jokes about how slow everyone moves, when really the joke is on us. What is wrong with us? We are the dummies sweating in the sun because we are rushing around like lunatics. It’s our culture that is uptight, wound up, and stressed. What are we in a rush to do anyway? At that moment on the bridge, I decided to put my watch in my pocket and let the day pass as it may. Strangely, there seemed to be just the right amount of time for everything once I stopped worrying at all about it.

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Daren with our friend the pretty white cow who was often on the path onto and off the sanctuary.

 

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The view I nearly just didn’t notice

When we move too quickly, we often miss things that are right in front of us. This applies to work, our lives with our families and friends, and even how we move toward our goals. It’s not just about what we need to see, but what actually enriches our daily experience.


In the midst of this jungle last week, we were surrounded by wildlife. It was beautiful, simple, exotic, intoxicating, and natural. This was a yoga group at a yogic sanctuary. Yogis might be more aware than most about the beauty of being conscious, but are no less human and subject to falling prey to being unconscious in a world that keeps dangling shiny temptations all around. One of my teachers deliberately did not go on one of the daily excursions on a day that every other single person in the group did. She said she did not want to feel rushed, and she sat watching monkeys for several hours that day instead. The message she took away is that the monkeys were there all along, providing the same level of awe and entertainment, but had one not taken the time to stop and observe, it would have been missed.


The evening we returned to Connecticut from Costa Rica, Daren and I found ourselves in line at a McDonald’s drive-through on the way home from the airport at 11:45 at night. By that point in the day, we had been up and en route home since 5:15am. We had only one real meal. We were tired, dirty, and stressed. Hurry up and wait. We almost missed a connecting flight because Passport Control was a hot mess when we got back into the U.S. We were waiting in a very long car line at 11:45pm for an absolutely nutritionally poor meal (well, Daren was waiting, I was looking forward to some soup at home). We were stressed. Daren was tapping at the wheel. I was mentally trying hard not to fall into the trap of ordering something greasy or feeling upset over the slow-moving line, all while trying to stay cheerful so my husband could stay positive too. In my mind, I was doing math again about the number of things I needed to do the next day to get ready for the week, wondering how I could fit them in. How much mail was there? Who is taking the dog to the vet Thursday? What should I pull out for dinner tomorrow? Should I go shopping? I needed to inventory the food situation at home first, right? With every thought, I felt my blood pressure rising. And every time I noticed my breath becoming rapid and shallow or my heart racing, I made the conscious decision to breathe deeply and live in the moment. That only lasts a few moments out here in the “real world” until the thoughts and heart start to race again. How could you explain this feeling to someone in the third world?


We may have been in the middle of the jungle, but the concrete jungle creates artificial stressors that make living life to the fullest nearly impossible. It’s impossible because living life to the fullest was taught to me as fitting in as much “fun”, work, and activity as possible. This means learning as much as you can, moving quickly, multitasking, making lots of money to do these amazing things (because they aren’t free), and providing these experiences to our children. Making money means more rushing and more stress. For most, it means long commutes and doing work you rarely feel connected to. Then rushing home to activities and often hurried, unhealthy meals—if you are lucky, with loved ones. Weekends are spent putting your living space back together, cleaning, doing laundry, shopping, shuffling people around, and squeezing in “quality” time. Somewhere in between, you are supposed to exercise, meditate, perform self-care, attend appointments, cook healthy meals, and sleep enough—just so you don’t get stressed or exhausted. You know… so you can be happy and experience life to the fullest. It sounds insane when you really look at it.


I’ve also noticed that when we take the time to do things more carefully instead of rushing through them, we tend to get better results and feel less stressed in the process.


Physics teaches us that time is relative. Slowing down seems to expand our experience of time. I can’t explain why; it just is. Another interesting paradox is that it allows us to appreciate more. Life becomes less expensive, less material, and far less stressful.


The overall message for me is that slowing down equals living life more fully. I keep forgetting, but the time between which I do is growing larger and larger. I hope that others who haven’t given it a whirl do. There’s nothing to lose but old, tired ideas of what it means to live our lives to the fullest.

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Sunrise one morning from the Tower at the Sanctuary
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Sunset one evening on the beach of Santa Theresa Costa Rica

 

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On the Tangled web we weave 

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Where to begin?

Daren and I have been in Africa for the past week. We started out in South Africa and are currently in Zimbabwe. The economic disparity between the first world and third world is almost inconceivable. The modern-day effects of corruption and apartheid are prevalent with just a glance out the window. How can such an atrocity exist in the year 2017?

It’s so complicated. We have been having conversations with one another, friends, and locals about this very topic for the past week. I think we were both surprised at how much the lower-paid locals know about the US political system and how thoughtfully they have considered ways to remedy situations created by governments and history. There isn’t an easy answer.

What has also surprised me is seeing firsthand what South Africa looks like today and reading older materials about apartheid. From a brief glance, the population of mixed race did not appear enraged or agitated with one another; it seemed to be something the government enforced. Many citizens were recorded to have said that even though apartheid laws were proposed, they didn’t think they would pass. Then when they did, they thought there was no way they could be enforced in a modern society—until people of non-white descent were suddenly removed from their homes. That was only 50–70 years ago, after WWII and all we learned as a human race. Something similar happened in Zimbabwe, though in that case whites were forced off the land.

Then, interestingly, I heard a different perspective from the “white” side. We have friends from the states who have been living here for the past nine months and have met many locals. They shared perspectives from people of Dutch descent that I had not considered. One idea presented was that when groups with very different ways of living are forced together, conflict can arise. For example, if one group values certain systems like schooling, taxation, and land management and another does not, it can create tension.

From that perspective, apartheid was seen by some as a way to separate groups by how they chose to live. Again, I don’t know all the facts of the Dutch settlers specifically, and we know displacement did occur in many places, but hearing this perspective made me pause. Over time, cultural differences remained, and instead of blending, separation was enforced. Since European settlers built much of the infrastructure, some believed they had the right to maintain those areas while others lived differently elsewhere.

Wow… on a much smaller scale within my own home, having a blended family, I understand how difficult it can be to merge different backgrounds into one living situation. And in my family, we are very similar in many ways—yet it is still challenging. How can entire communities, countries, and cultures with hundreds of years of history be expected to suddenly align?

I know apartheid wasn’t the answer, just as creating separate rules or divisions within my own family wasn’t the answer either.

The truth is, there is no easy answer. Some might point to education, but education doesn’t necessarily make someone right about how life should be lived. What is wrong with living simply, connected to the land? Is the ultimate goal to keep building and advancing, or is there value in simply being present and living fully in the moment?

Does striving to improve the future make someone more important than someone who is content with the present? And if someone believes that, does it give them the authority to decide for others?

We also can’t forget the people who were enslaved, displaced, or killed. These realities are not just part of history—they still exist in different forms. For those who were freed, how do they catch up in a system that requires education and resources they may not have access to? It becomes a cycle that is incredibly difficult to break.

Their cultures may not have required these systems originally, yet they are now expected to function within them. In some ways, that can feel like a continuation of the same struggle, just in a different form.

Affirmative action is one possible approach, but it comes with its own complexities and challenges.

These are difficult questions—ones we don’t often consider in our daily lives. It’s easier to focus on our own routines and responsibilities, which is important too. We need to take care of our own lives to have any chance at contributing positively to the world around us.

One of the most unsettling thoughts I had this week was hearing how much trust people had in their government when apartheid was introduced. Many didn’t believe something unjust could happen in a modern society. It made me reflect on how fragile systems can be if we stop questioning them.

I wouldn’t want to be in a position of making decisions for millions of people. The complexity is enormous.

It can feel overwhelming, but maybe the question isn’t how to solve everything—it’s how we show up individually.

Perhaps it starts with something simple:

  • Be kind to others.
  • Don’t take more than you need.
  • Treat people equally.
  • Think critically.
  • Stay informed and participate as a citizen.
  • Make decisions in your own life that contribute to something larger than yourself.
  • Take care of your health so you can show up fully.
  • Make time to rest and enjoy life.
  • And find one or two things you genuinely care about and focus your energy there.
  • Even small, thoughtful actions can create change over time.

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The reputation of Stepmothers

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

 

I post a lot of happy photos and experiences on social media. I have a pretty good life. One thing I almost never write or post about is Daren & my biggest struggle. The largest hurdle we haven’t gotten over and continue to learn about and navigate is having a blended family.

I’ve written countless journal entries over the years. We’ve written hundreds of heartfelt emails to one another, our kids and our extended family trying to explain where we are coming from. I don’t really know anyone in real life with a current blended family to turn to for advice or to vent. There are little to no resources.

Over the years in complete frustration I’ve turned to the Internet. It’s been helpful in learning how we are not alone, but as with many things in life the “tips” (if you can call them that) are much easier said than done. In the past week I’ve been a bit selfish and have only been looking up information about stepmothers. In the past I ran across information and angry forums where biological moms and step-moms posted and complained about one another. It was all a bit too much for me, yet I kept reading the same kind of stories and threads over and over. This week I tried to stick with peer-reviewed information only. There is little to none. The closest thing I can find that has a lot of information are Psychology periodicals. The New York Times and Huffington Post had some articles too, but on average 1–2 a year, and they are more informational for the public to be aware of the struggles that blended families experience rather than a help to the blended family itself.

What shocks me is how “textbook” we are. We fell hook, line & sinker into exactly what normally happens.

Stepmothers generally have such a bad reputation. It’s often long into adulthood, usually after grandchildren/step-grandchildren are born, that the relationship between a stepmother and her stepchildren starts to flourish. Until then it’s often contentious, and it doesn’t have to be. These are 3 things in order that a family could do to speed up that process.

The parents should work together to establish the boundaries, rules and consequences in their home (father and stepmother).
Both biological parents should work together to maintain as many commonalities as possible between both homes and back one another up, or at least check in when the children complain about one home or the other.
The biological mother should give her children permission to accept the stepmother in their lives.

This is the bare minimum to ensure success. Taking it further might look like all three (or four if mom is remarried) parents working together, especially if either stepparent has children living in their home. Mature adults realize this is in the best interest of all kids involved. Without the above three factors in place, the situation is practically a perfect setup for failure. However, we are so quick to blame the stepmother when anything goes wrong. Why? The world believes the fairy tale evil stepmother fantasy. She is the easy target because she is the outsider and no one feels any loyalty to her.

This is a very lonely feeling. As a stepmother you wonder what is wrong with you. You lose part of yourself. You question every word you say. I felt really alone for so long. It’s comforting to now know that many stepmothers experience similar feelings—being blamed, misunderstood, and caught in situations they didn’t create, simply because of the role they stepped into.

Wow, how that sits with me. So it’s not just me? It’s not something I did or our special situation?

I’ve been accused of thriving on drama, needing my husband’s ex as a common enemy to save my relationship with him, being verbally abusive, making capricious rules, being childish, having an eating disorder, trying to make the children into something they aren’t—the list goes on. To anyone who knows me in real life, this sounds ridiculous. But if you didn’t know me and heard I’m a stepmother, you really might believe it, because of the perception that already exists.

Why do so many women have the same experience?

From what I’ve read and experienced, the stepmother is often the first to notice something isn’t working and starts to look for ways to improve the situation. She tries to create structure and understanding within the home, and that can sometimes come across as controlling or authoritative, even when the intention is the opposite. That can create resentment and distance right from the start.

I’ve also noticed that stepfathers often seem to have a different experience. In many situations, dynamics between households play a role, especially when emotions from the past haven’t fully settled. That can create ongoing tension between homes, and the stepmother often ends up in the middle of it, feeling both responsible and powerless at the same time.

The above becomes even more complicated when the stepmother has children of her own and is trying to create a fair and balanced home for everyone. It’s so important that all the kids feel at home, but when expectations differ between households, it can create a divide between step-siblings and make it difficult to maintain consistency.

If we could all just co-parent seamlessly, many of these issues would likely ease, but that requires a level of communication and maturity that isn’t always present. Unfortunately, the stepmother is often the one labeled as the problem.

These are some common myths that I find so absurd.

She is jealous of the children.

That is such a strange accusation, yet it’s widely believed. I’ve heard it long before I ever became a stepmother, I’ve heard it about myself, and I see it come up again and again. The idea that someone would secretly try to manipulate situations to make children look bad just doesn’t align with the reality I’ve experienced.

She tries to exert power over the blended family and make the children’s lives miserable.

What kind of person actually wants to see children miserable? I ask that honestly. I can’t think of anyone in my real life who operates that way.

I think a lot of people hear one side of a story and form their opinions from that. What might look like strictness or control is often something as simple as asking for basic respect, structure, and consistency.

In step-families where the father is the biological parent, it’s not uncommon for dynamics between households to influence parenting styles. When expectations differ significantly, the stepmother can end up being the one trying to create balance, which can easily be misunderstood.

After this happens repeatedly, the stepmother can begin to feel like she has no control in her own home and has to walk on eggshells. Over time, that only makes things more difficult, and the situation can start to feel strained in ways that weren’t there at the beginning.

She shouldn’t have any say when it comes to the children.

This is a partial myth. There are areas where she should have a voice—anything that directly impacts her home, her time, her schedule, or her children. And there are areas where she shouldn’t. Finding that balance isn’t always clear.

Discipline is one of the most difficult areas. If something happens within the home, it makes sense that the adults in that home address it together. But when expectations differ across households, it can create confusion and tension for everyone involved. Consistency matters, especially when multiple children are involved, and when it’s lacking, it can create resentment between siblings.

If she is kind, the children will warm up to her.

Not necessarily. There are many factors at play, including loyalty. Children can feel that accepting a stepmother is a betrayal of their biological mother, even if that’s never said directly. That creates a barrier that the stepmother has no control over.

Over time, I’ve come to understand that even kindness doesn’t always resolve that dynamic. Relationships take time, and sometimes they don’t develop the way you expect.

Culturally, there is also a double standard. Children are allowed to feel however they feel, but the stepmother is expected to show patience and understanding at all times.

She isn’t immature and childish; she is human, often trying to navigate something incredibly complex without much guidance.

Are you a stepmother or know of any? Try looking at things from her perspective. Most little girls don’t grow up with dreams of marrying a man with children. Almost no woman sets out seeking that situation. Choosing it usually means you love someone enough to take on everything that comes with their life, including the parts that are already complicated.

That doesn’t make anyone perfect. It just makes them human.

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On Lessons from the Garden

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

 

We have a fairly large personal garden at our home. There are flowers, shrubs, vegetables, trees, bushes, and fruit. I spend a lot of time in our garden during the warmer months, and for a while now I’ve been wanting to write about the thoughts that come to me when I’m out there.

The first time I spent a considerable amount of time weeding as an adult was at the condo I lived in in Naugatuck. It was a really small patch of dirt in front of the house, but I spent hours picking weeds and rocks from that little space that I “owned.” It was early spring, and I wasn’t sure what was going to come up out of the ground and what might be a weed.

It was incredibly therapeutic, and what I loved most was how easily my mind wandered while I worked. I remember thinking about how hard it can be to tell the difference between what belongs and what doesn’t—both in the garden and in life. I went out there many times over a few weeks, removing rocks, turning over the soil, planting seeds and flowers. That small garden took off, and from that point on, I only needed to go out occasionally to tend to it.

In my next house, we had much more land—and much more yard work. It became a weekly chore through the spring and summer. At first, it felt time-consuming and a bit overwhelming. I would go out, pull weeds, toss them aside, even out the mulch, then move on to trimming and mowing. But something would always happen once I got started.

As much as I dreaded it beforehand, once I was out there with my hands in the dirt, I could lose myself for hours. I would notice small changes from week to week, watch the worms, pull tiny weeds, dig up deep roots and old rocks. When I was finished, I loved sitting down with a book or a glass of wine and looking at everything from afar. The difference was always noticeable—not just in how it looked, but in how it felt.

Fast forward to my current home. When we moved here in 2012, Daren created a beautiful garden with multiple flower beds and a large vegetable area. I loved the idea of it, but it felt like too much. For the first few years, we barely kept up. We would go out once a month and tackle huge, overgrown weeds. The vegetable garden—the one we actually depended on—was full of them. No matter what we tried, they were always there.

When we finished, it looked better, but it didn’t feel good. I didn’t feel connected to it or proud of it. All I could see were the smaller weeds we hadn’t gotten to yet, and it felt like a constant reminder of something unfinished. It started to feel like a burden rather than something we had created.

Last summer, when I started working part-time, something shifted. I began going out into the garden once a week. At first, it was still a lot of work, but slowly, as I stayed consistent, things started to change. The big weeds became manageable, and the smaller ones were easier to stay ahead of. Eventually, I found a rhythm.

I began doing more than just weeding—smoothing out the mulch, trimming, rearranging rocks, cleaning the outdoor spaces. I started to care about the details again, and just like before, I found myself looking forward to it. When I stepped back and looked at the garden, it finally felt alive, like it was cared for and reflecting something back to me instead of weighing on me.

This year, I’ve been able to get out there even earlier. I know the space more intimately now. I know where the soil is thick, where the water collects, where the weeds tend to grow, and how to tell the difference between something I planted and something that doesn’t belong. To someone not paying attention, it all looks the same, but when you’re close to it regularly, the differences become obvious.

There are patterns in the garden that feel a lot like patterns in life. Everything starts from the same place—dirt. Something that seems so simple, but holds the potential for everything. If you plant something there, it will try to grow it. It doesn’t judge what you put into it; it just responds. What grows depends on what’s planted and how it’s tended.

If you don’t pay attention, you’ll get a mix of whatever shows up. Some of it might be beautiful, and some of it might take over everything else. Thoughts feel similar. What we focus on and give attention to are the things that grow. If we don’t notice what we’re planting or what’s taking root, it can become difficult to tell what belongs and what doesn’t.

Weeds can look a lot like the things we meant to grow, especially in the beginning, and if they’re not dealt with early, they spread. They compete for space, for energy, and for light, much like unresolved issues or habits that quietly take over when left unattended. But just like in the garden, none of this is personal. It’s not a failure; it’s simply how things work.

Weeds are inevitable, and the same is true for challenges in life. Growth requires both what we consider good and bad—sun, rain, wind—and those elements help everything become stronger over time. Tending to anything—really tending to it—takes time, attention, and a willingness to notice the details while also stepping back to see the bigger picture.

That might be the hardest part. We want a lot of things in life, but we can’t tend to everything. There’s only so much time, energy, and attention to go around. When we try to take on too much, the quality of all of it suffers.

I’ve seen that in my own life. Stepping back from full-time work and focusing on fewer things has allowed me to care for them more deeply. I see the details, feel more connected, and take more pride in what I’m doing. The garden reflects that.

The more time I spend in nature, the more connected I feel to it and to something quieter underneath everything else. There’s a kind of clarity that comes when you step away from noise and simply pay attention. The more I listen, the more it feels like the answers I’m looking for aren’t far away—they’re already here, if I slow down enough to notice them.

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On this day

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

On this day 18 years ago I woke up with a pain that I had never felt before. The sky was sort of light already. I looked at the alarm clock by the bed and it was 4:45. I wasn’t used to getting up so early, so the time in comparison with the light sky seemed a little strange.

I got up to use the bathroom and I noticed something else that was weird. Sign number 2 that something was happening. My pulse started to quicken as I crawled back into bed. Should I wake up my husband? It was a Sunday, a rare day to sleep in. What if I’m wrong? I tossed and turned but couldn’t fall back to sleep.

Before John woke up I had a few more pains, but still I wasn’t sure. The next day was my due date. Could I be in labor? I already had a two-year old, but he was a planned c-section, so I never experienced any dramatic water breaking, mucus plugs, or labor pains. I had no idea what to expect. John was convinced it was labor. I wasn’t so sure. The pain wasn’t bad at all. Just different.

That afternoon we had plans with Ned and Crystal who were friends of ours that lived around the corner of the Coast Guard base we lived on. They had a one-year old son named Frankie. He was just a year younger than our son Tommy. We went on a picnic somewhere in Sandwich, MA. It was an absolutely beautiful sunny day. John wanted to tell them that I might be in labor, but I didn’t want to risk being wrong. They were going to be watching Tommy when it was time, so John dropped the ‘news’ in the middle of the picnic. They were enthusiastic and supportive. I had pains all day, but it was so mild I was skeptical that I could actually be in labor.

After the picnic we went back to Ned and Crystal’s house for dinner and stayed until just after dark. We walked back home and put Tommy to bed. I was in the shower when the pain started getting slightly worse. It also seemed to be coming more frequently and timed perfectly apart. I got out of the shower, went downstairs and asked John to start the timer. It was around 10pm and it was dark out. 5 minutes apart. John phoned the on-call service for my ob-gyn and they advised we go to the hospital. We called Ned and Crystal who were still awake and excitedly awaiting Thomas’ arrival.

Falmouth Hospital on a dark, warm, humid evening. I can practically smell it. I went into some check-in area and was already 4cm dilated. Wow! This was happening. We got into a room and settled in. Somehow it was too late for me to get an epidural. I wasn’t upset by this information and decided to use the Lamaze breathing techniques I learned instead. I started with the first of the four breaths. Hours passed. The nurses and John kept offering all kinds of things to do, but I felt so comfortable and focused on the breathing that I was pretty darned content. Every so often I would ask what time it was. Midnight passed and it was June 7, 1999. My due date. John and I speculated about the sex of the baby. For some reason the physicians were unable to read the sex on my sonograms. Two weeks before that we paid $40 to a little ultrasound place in Dartmouth that specialized in determining the baby’s gender. They told us it was a girl. I was pretty excited because I did want a boy and a girl. But my spirits dampened when we told people and we heard story after story about how these places were wrong. John was pretty convinced it was a girl. I was remaining my usual skeptical self.

All of a sudden the nurses said it was time to start pushing. The pain did worsen, but never past the point where I felt I needed to start that next level of breathing. How could it be time? Not that there is ever turning back once you are pregnant, but at the time of pushing you really feel like there is no turning back now. No breaks – nothing… you just have to do this whether you want to or not. I don’t remember too much of this experience, but I do remember noticing it was starting to get light out again and realizing I had been up for 24 hours. I had the medical team and my husband all around me. I never felt alone and I never felt like it was more than I can handle. I kept thinking it will get worse, but surprisingly I was told that one last push was needed and tada – a baby girl was born!

5:00am exactly on Monday, June 7, 1999. Gabrielle Catherine Messeder. We decided on the name months before. We picked two names – one for a boy and one for a girl. We chose Gabrielle because we both liked it and didn’t know anyone by that name. Catherine was after my mom.

The next few hours and days were a reasonable blur. I remember distinctly feeling so good right after giving birth that I wanted to get up and walk around. The nurses warned me not to. It was so different than when I had Tommy and was under anesthesia and in a ton of pain. I was alert and able to hold the baby. Tommy came to visit and meet his new sister. He was excited. I used the hospital phone and my little phonebook I brought with me to call my family and friends. Visitors poured in. A day later I packed up and went home with this new bundle of joy.

We started calling her Gabby almost right away. Tommy adjusted pretty quickly. I was used to diapers and baby things so child number two was an unexpected breeze. I remember when she was 3 or 4 days old I was changing her clothes upstairs in her room and I put a headband on her head. I was so excited to have girl clothes and pink things to doll her up in. The headband looked kind of silly. While I contemplated whether or not to leave it on, I heard the hustle and bustle of my crazy family coming in the door downstairs. It was my mom, grandmother, aunt Fran and Uncle Joey; who was visiting from Italy. I don’t remember if I kept the headband on or not, but I do remember bundling her up and gently carrying her downstairs. When I came around the corner and started walking down the stairs, it was almost as time stopped. I saw my family standing there with their bags and purses looking up at me. For some reason I said, “Here she is everyone – Miss America.” I teared up when I said that, and I had a vision of a day in the far, far future when she would be all grown up and walking down the stairs in a prom dress. My standstill moment was interrupted when the family broke out into Ooohs and Aaahs and everyone wanted to look at and hold her. Time went back to its normal pace and I welcomed my daughter to her small, loud, extended, Italian family.

Those first few weeks were a complete blur. I was prepared for the worst, but everything was mild and well functioning to say the least. I got more sleep than I thought I would. Tommy adjusted better than I imagined. Things were nowhere near as hectic during the day while I was home alone as I was told they would be. Almost immediately I put Gabby on my lap while I read books to Tommy at night before bed. He didn’t mind. I would put her baby tub in the bathtub with Tommy at bath time so they bathed together and they both adjusted just fine. I think the routine we kept got her sleeping regularly pretty quickly. Before I knew it the familiar signs of the beginnings of rolling over started to take place. Then it happened! Solid foods were introduced in what seemed like a flash. Suddenly she was sitting up on her own. Then leaning forward to slither like a navy seal to chase after Tommy. In what seems like a moment in memory she started to crawl, walk, talk, run, and play. We celebrated her first and second birthday on Cape Cod with our neighbors and their children. When Gabby was 2 ½, John got out of the Coast Guard, and we packed our bags to head for Connecticut.

Gabby’s 3rd birthday was in our newly owned condo. We had only just been there a few months. I remember it so distinctly. It was the first of many parties we had there, so it was the first time we moved the table a certain way and bought and prepared food in what would become the pattern for hosting similar events. That same year Tommy started kindergarten and I went back to work full time. It was the first time that Gabby would be watched by anyone other than me or her father. She and her brother had to go to daycare. A few weeks into kindergarten Tommy was invited to one of his new friend’s houses for a party. The boy’s name was Justin. When John called to RSVP, Justin’s mom said it was ok to bring the whole family over. New friends were born for all of us. Justin was just about 6 months younger than Tommy. And his little sister Sierra was 2. She was 6 months younger than Gabby. Within just a few months, their mom Sherrie started watching our kids and they no longer went to daycare. The kids all became good friends.

Everyone knows how time flies. Birthdays came and went. Our friends moved away. We had a plethora of different day care scenarios intermingled with John on shifts and staying home with the kids as often as possible.

I remember the day Gabby started kindergarten. It was just she and I at home that day. She was enrolled in the PM session. We waited inside all dressed up for the bus that afternoon. She was SO nervous. One of our cats “Snickers” was sitting on the desk by the front door. She was kissing him and talking to him, telling him it was ok – that he will be fine without her. My heart melted. Finally the kids started lining up outside at the bus stop at the corner. We walked out there and I met some of the moms. Gabby wouldn’t let go of my hand. She was shaking. When the bus came and everyone lined up, she just let go and bravely stood there on line with everyone else, shyly looking at me. Then the girl in front of her started he started talking to her, and continued to do so while she climbed on. I knew she would be ok. I stood on the curb as the bus pulled away. She found a seat in the back and waved to me out the window with a big smile on her face. My little girl was growing up and away from me.

Whenever I was home (rarely), I made it a habit to watch the kids get on the bus from the storm door of our condo. They would sit at a window on the bus and wave as it went by. Now that seems so symbolic.

I miss those days. Gabby never had a problem making friends or her teachers proud. She fit in wherever she went. She got great grades. She ate well. We lived in a neighborhood with a ton of kids. She and Tommy got to experience that life that most of the older generation experienced as kids, which nearly no children have now. They played outside daily with the neighbors. The condo was up against a pond and the woods, so it was a kid’s paradise. They and their friends learned to ride bikes one at a time. They ate snacks from each other’s houses, had sleepovers, played manhunt, played videogames inside one of our homes when it was raining or too cold. They dressed up, played with sticks and swords, caught frogs, told stories, and spent hours in the woods with the trees, insects, and plants. They couldn’t wait to go back outside after dinner and had to be called in at dark. In those days John worked evenings often. I would call them in, have them shower and read them a story. Like I said, I miss those days.

When Gabby was almost 9 years old we moved to Cheshire. The kids were naturally nervous and didn’t want to move. I remember when we bought the house. Before we moved in we went in to meet a contractor one evening who would be finishing off the basement, and spent a little time in the house measuring that day. I distinctly recall standing in the living room measuring, and looking at the stairs. I flashed back to that day when Gabby came home from the hospital in Cape Cod and I walked down the stairs with her, imagining one day she would be all dressed up for prom. Again, tears filled my eye. I tried to picture her walking down those stairs. It made me sad, but some how I had a foreboding that she wouldn’t be coming down those particular stairs.

We moved at the end of 3rd and 5th grade so we kept the kids in Naugatuck at their old school for the last few weeks. Before school started in Cheshire, there was a little welcome day for new students. Tommy was completely confident (at least he acted as if he was), but Gabby was really nervous. The day we went to Chapman Elementary School to meet her new teacher she was a wreck. I remember walking up the stairs with her. Like that first day of school she was holding my hand and shaking. When we got to the classroom she held on until the teacher said hi. At that point she let go and walked in front of me into the classroom. Again I knew she would be alright.

Less than two years after moving to the new house, I understood why I had that foreboding about the stairs and prom. John and I were parting ways. I had a few living arrangements before moving into the house I now live in with Daren. Nothing seemed right or fit that prom image I had for Gabby until we got here. I never told anyone this weird feeling I had with the prom and stairs, but when I saw the stairs in my house now; I knew these would be the ones. It made me sad though because her dad and I weren’t together. How would that work? How would he see her? How sad that both of her parents wouldn’t be looking at her fondly.

Braces, glasses, puberty. It was a whirlwind. Suddenly Gabby turned 13, then 14, 15, 16. I took her up to the DMV right after her 16th birthday. Again she was incredibly nervous. Her friend Grace was there too. I was a prop along with Grace’s mom as they stood on line nervously laughing and giggling together. She was going to be fine. She didn’t need me. She walked out with her permit and excitedly asked if we could practice right then! We drove up to Home Depot and switched places for the first time. I took a picture to capture what I knew would be a fleeting moment. This was the second child that I was to teach how to drive. Naturally it was much easier knowing what to do. Everything with her was easier since she was #2. We went through the same practice cycles I did with Tommy up until the last day before the test. And before I could blink she was driving at 16 and 4 months old.

All of a sudden it was time for college visits and SATs. That next summer she got a job and had her own money. Senior year appeared. Senior Day for Cross Country. The last banquet. The last fencing tournament. Everything started swirling so fast. College was chosen. Then sadly 3 ½ weeks ago was the day I was able to see my daughter walk down the stairs for her senior prom. Her dad and I are on really good terms and he came to the house to see her and take pictures. I never knew how it would work, but I knew it would. That day I practically dreaded since I brought her home from the hospital has already come and gone. She looked absolutely beautiful and was glowing from the inside out. Now tomorrow she officially becomes an adult.

As with my labor I was always waiting for it to get harder with her, more than I can handle. But it never did.

When Gabby was around 7 years I remember listening to a country song about how quickly a daughter grows up and leaves home. I was playing it loudly when I was alone with the kids at the condo one night. Gabby was dancing around when she listened to the words and said mommy that will never be me. I don’t want to grow up and move away from you. I told her she would and she didn’t believe me.

I was always waiting for those famous mom/teenage daughter “I hate you” fights to happen, but they never did. Every year that passed I thought – it’s one year closer to that possibly never happening, but knowing darned well it could. As with my labor, it never did get harder – but I couldn’t stop the process of her growing up either. It was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.

On this day 18 years ago I was in labor with a little baby girl. I still remember exactly how it felt when she hiccupped in my belly. I can vividly recall watching my belly move on it’s own as Gabby moved around slowly in the little space my body created for her. I remember the smell of her skin after a bath and she was all swaddled and on my lap for a book with her brother. I remember wiping messy food from her pudgy fingers after a meal. That first day of kindergarten when she was telling Snickers he was going to be fine without her there. I remember the day she met Sierra back in 2002. They are still the bestest of friends. Lastly I can of course remember her very recent senior prom; coming down the stairs all dressed up to be taken out by her date. Tomorrow that little baby becomes an official adult. No longer protected by driving curfews or minor labor laws. She is released out into the adult pool with the rest of us.

She just came home from work and sat eating in the dining room, watching something on her phone as she often has done for the past year. Soon she will be in college and I’ll just have the ghost of this memory too. My heart is broken, but in the best way. I’m so proud of her.

Tonight 18 years later I’m going to sleep with a pain I’d never felt before. The last of my two babies is an adult. It’s nothing more than utterly and completely bittersweet.

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On International Women’s Day

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention.

I have to admit—I had never really heard of International Women’s Day either. My initial reaction wasn’t great, but I started looking into it. It’s been around since 1909. Really? It was first celebrated in New York City, and the date later moved to March 8th when it was recognized more broadly. It’s been around for over 100 years and somehow never fully caught on here. Maybe it’s about time.

When I thought about it beyond that first reaction, I started to feel something closer to outrage. To everyone who made fun of the day or felt the need to post something snarky—have you ever stopped to consider why it exists?

In the United States, we still lag behind many developed countries in policies that support families. Paid maternity leave is limited. Paid paternal leave is not standard. Many women still earn less than men in similar roles. Representation in leadership and government positions remains uneven. And culturally, women are still often portrayed in narrow ways that shape expectations from a very young age.

Globally, the gaps are even more striking. Women make up half the population, yet hold a much smaller percentage of leadership roles. Many still face violence, limited access to education, and restrictions on basic freedoms. These realities are not abstract—they affect real people, every day.

So when people dismiss something like International Women’s Day, it makes me pause.

Why is this acceptable?

Why are these things normalized?

Some might say women make different choices—that they step away from careers, take fewer risks, or prioritize family. But why is that the structure we’ve accepted? Why does raising children—future members of society—come at such a high personal and financial cost?

Most families I know didn’t choose daycare because they preferred it. They chose it because they had to. To pay bills. To survive. And for those who stay home, there are tradeoffs too—financial, professional, long-term.

This isn’t just a personal issue. It’s a societal one.

You would think the federal government might set a stronger example. On paper, it often does. In practice, that hasn’t been my experience.

I’ve worked for the federal government for over two decades—active duty, reserve, and civilian. When I got pregnant in 2006 while in the military, I applied for what was described as a generous unpaid leave program. My situation was straightforward—we had no childcare support, and both my husband and I had schedules that made coverage nearly impossible.

It was denied.

No real explanation beyond “I was needed.”

I returned to work after six weeks. There was no place to pump, so I didn’t breastfeed. A coworker’s wife helped watch my son. People were shocked the request had been denied. It worked out—but it easily could have not.

A few years later, when it came time to reenlist, I wanted to stay in. I had strong performance reviews and had advanced quickly. We asked for a reasonable accommodation—one of us needed to be stationed somewhere that didn’t require overnight duty so we could care for our child.

It wasn’t considered.

I was told it was my turn for ship duty. End of discussion.

I left active duty.

Another motivated woman out of the workforce.

Years later, in my civilian role, I saw similar patterns. Flexible schedules, job sharing, alternative work arrangements—all things that exist on paper. In practice, they were rare.

After 22 years of consistent, high-level performance, I asked for an alternative schedule to manage burnout and maintain balance.

The answer was no.

No clear explanation. No real discussion. Just… no.

When I pushed for clarity, the response wasn’t transparency—it was subtle resistance. Enough to feel it, not enough to prove it.

Eventually, I left that role.

Another motivated employee gone.

This isn’t just about me. It’s about a pattern.

At some point, you start to ask—where is the accountability? Why don’t these issues feel more visible, more urgent?

Why aren’t we talking about them more openly?

Why aren’t we asking for better?

And beyond our own borders—why aren’t we paying more attention to the realities women face in other parts of the world?

This isn’t about comparison or competition. It’s about awareness.

Because inequality isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s quiet. Built into systems. Accepted over time.

So maybe International Women’s Day isn’t something to dismiss.

Maybe it’s simply a reminder.

To pause.

To notice.

To ask better questions.

To consider what still needs to change.

Because if we don’t, it’s very easy to assume everything is fine.

And often, it isn’t.

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On Abuse

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

“Don’t be ashamed of your story. It will inspire others” ~Blake Pierce 

Division Bell

Wikipedia defines a division bell as: A division bell is a bell rung in or around a parliament to signal a division and thus call all members of the chamber so affected to vote in it.

Hence –it’s a call to action.

It’s also an album by Pink Floyd that was released in 1994. Pink Floyd was one of my favorite groups in high school. In 1994 when this album was released I was a senior in high school just about to graduate. I heard it right after I made my decision to join to military once I graduated. It felt like a time of hope. The album spoke to me.

It’s time for me to do my part in a call to action against domestic violence. I grew up as a child in a household with domestic violence. My father was the perpetrator, my mother, brothers, and myself the victims. More than anyone though, even my family would agree, for some reason I bore the brunt of the violence.

Like a fish doesn’t know it’s in water, I didn’t know I was in a bad situation. I didn’t realize my father was an alcoholic. I knew he was a gambler. I knew what happened in our house wasn’t right, but I also thought it could be worse and the people who experienced something worse were really the victims. There were so many people in my life who saw the signs and bruises and heard our excuses. Teachers, friends, friend’s parents, our own extended family, our neighbors. No one dared ask past the excuse. They all suspected, but they dropped it there. I always thought – they should suspect more, poke a hole in my ridiculous story so I have a reason to elaborate. Since they didn’t, I assumed my parents were right and it must not be too bad.

Everything went. Things broke. Things were thrown at us – food, boiling water, household objects. Our heads and bodies made holes in walls and doors. I was thrown across the room, beaten with a chair, punched, kicked… you name it. Called names, told I was stupid, lazy, a whore, an idiot, etc. Looking back it’s a miracle I made it out ok.

I was also told not to cry – by both of my parents. Neither could stand anyone yelling back or crying. I learned so early on to bury my feelings and cry only under the cloak of darkness.

I knew I wanted out of that house, probably from the age of a toddler. My mother once said to me she couldn’t leave my father because she didn’t finish high school and couldn’t take care of us. It was my life’s mission as a kid to finish school and get an education so I could take care of myself. I didn’t want to be like her and put anyone else into the situation I was in.

It wasn’t until about a year after I left my house & was in the military that I realized anything was different about me. I overreacted far more than anyone else to other people’s anger. I jumped when asked to do something and did it better than anyone else. The only good that probably came out of my growing up situation is that it made me a good solider, a good employee, one who aims to please. But other people’s anger really got to me. I went to see a counselor through the EAP program once my ship was on land. She gave me a book about co-dependence and didn’t think I needed to go back. It was no help at all to me.

When I got pregnant with Tommy I was determined to be a different kind of parent. I read every book I could get my hands on about parenting, which was pretty limited 21 years ago – it wasn’t like I had Amazon or all the time in the world to shop while I was active duty. I think the books served me well. John didn’t read anything and was quick to listen to me. We were on the same page as parents – loving, stern, caring, rules, and fun. Once I had Tommy and I was a parent myself, I started to realize how it feels to care for and love another little human so much. It really started to bother me thinking about the way I grew up. I just didn’t understand. For about a year I think I cried and journaled EVERY SINGLE day. John was kind and patient. He was more angry at my parents than I was. Again I went to counseling through the EAP, and again I found it to be a waste of time.

One day about a year of absolute post suffering, in the middle of writing – something just clicked inside me. It was like something you read about in books or see in the movies. All of a sudden my sadness was just lifted. It wasn’t replaced by bliss and I wasn’t overly joyed; but I felt a sense of letting go of the past. I suddenly realized what John meant when he said there is nothing you can do about it anymore. I think I just put the pen down and stopped shedding tears. I was just done crying about the past. I was only 22 at the time.

For the most part since then I’ve been able to talk about my experience without getting swept away by it. When I was 30 my mom passed away and her boss asked our family if we would write a little something about her life. I wrote this story that I shared on the 10 year anniversary of her passing on my blog page: https://esterinaanderson.com/tag/my-mom/.

At the time there was nowhere to post it. I emailed it to a bunch of my family and friends. Everyone gathered around & supported me. It was the first time I was public with what happened in my house. I hit send and was kind of frightened by the reaction I might get. I had always felt ashamed and broken by the situation – as if it made me different from everyone else and less of a person. But the love and support I received made that feeling disappear. It felt good to share. I felt light.

For the next 10 years I only talked about it when it seemed relevant (super rarely). It wasn’t until I went to a Yocovery class last March that I realized I was still very much affected by what happened to me. Yocovery is a special program at my yoga studio where addicts and family members of addicts go weekly to share their stories and do a little yoga. I was curious about what it was one Friday evening, so I drove over and joined the class. Everyone started sharing their stories. When it came to be my turn and I started talking, I was surprised to get choked up and then start crying. Wow – it did still bother me. Over the next few months I started to read about the affects of child abuse on adults. I was a classic case. Anxiety, anger, rage, guilt, shame, emotional numbing, dissociation. On the outside I’m very normal and well adjusted, but I hid a lot. And I hid it so well I was no longer aware it was even there.

In December I became aware of a group called Exhale to Inhale (ETI). ETI. is an organization that supports victims of domestic violence and sexual assault through the teaching of yoga. I joined the group and will soon be taking trauma teacher training so I can volunteer my time at shelters and safe houses. In the month of April the organization asked members to hold donations based classes through their own events and at their home yoga studios. I wanted to be a part of that. I emailed my beautiful point of contact at my home studio and got it registered for a volunteer class on Sat 4/15/17 http://www.yogasouthington.com/news-and-events/. I may also host a personal event at the house in Branford on 3/31. Stay tuned.

As strong as I feel, while researching some quotes, pictures and facts to incorporate into this class; I had to stop, cry and feel. Even 23 years after I have left the house, the experiences sit so deeply within in me until today. As a child I had nowhere to go, I didn’t even really know I was in harms way. In school we learned when to tell, but my parents would tell me that is for other people, not us – don’t waste their time. And I believed them.

I just still wanted out of that house. Music through my growing up helped me to escape and deal. Be normal. Sing in the car. Have something fun to connect to. Dance in my room with the door closed. Pink Floyd was one of those music groups for me. Those last few weeks in high school when the Division Bell came out, the end was in sight. The songs on that album mean so much to me. They can be relevant for so many topics. In my room while falling asleep – those songs… the lyrics and instruments were about the rise and fall of innocence before and after abuse. “On the Turning Away” from Momentary Lapse of Reason spoke to me about people who kind of knew but turned away. And then the escape. The ringing of the division bell at the end of that album in the song “High Hopes” as it faded away, sounded to me at the time like the bell toll that was my escape. Any bells I heard after that, especially in my early days of boot camp and in the military were the sound of justice for me. I hope to make that album in some way part of the theme for the karma class to raise money for ETI. The ringing of the Division Bell is a call to action to vote on something and bring justice. It’s time to do something about domestic violence.

Also in reading about the topic of child abuse I had to shake a bit in disgust. Sometimes as a society we take identifying “abuse” too far. Feeling angry, yelling at a kid every once in a while when they actually did something disrespectful, not looking up for the 5th time when a child shows you something and pretending it’s the best thing you ever saw while you are trying to finish something for work, taking some time for yourself and not attending every last little league game is NOT abuse. I couldn’t believe the things I was reading. It’s not even in the same league. Doing these things repetitively could be – absolutely… But children who now feel like they are being neglected and abused by working parents because they only help with their homework 50% of the time is not neglect. I understand why people tune out and don’t pay attention to so many allegations.

There is real abuse taking place. It can be hard to weed through the garbage of allegations, but those who know about it or have experience just can tell. There is a true sense of hopelessness, loss of control, and fear in victims. ETI’s two platforms of Intimate Partner violence and sexual assault help survivors to feel empowered, to feel safe, to help themselves, and to connect with the spirit inside of them that knows the right thing to do.

People are surprised I don’t hate my father. I do love him. I can’t be around him for long. I feel kind of bad for him. He has no real friends. He is still an alcoholic. He hangs with the wrong crowd and does the wrong things. When you talk to him he lives in the past and will still talk about my mom and how she left him, never understanding his part in it. He is still quick to blow up. Has been in jail a few times. He is loving. He is generous with his money. He has some really insightful, intelligent things to say sometimes. People that don’t know him who tell me that my father is a good man and nice company don’t know any better. I liken it to what my brother Mario once said recently about the type of people who support certain politics – if you say you like pops you just don’t know any better; and there is no way I can explain it to you because you haven’t experienced the dark side.

We all come from different experiences. Don’t judge, but do give and command respect back – Always. Act in love, but don’t be pushed around. Listen to your gut if something feels off and stand up for what is right. Push a little harder if you are talking to someone you suspect is having any of these experiences. They likely won’t tell you the first time you ask, but once or twice more may be just the little barrier breaker that can save them.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Please feel free to leave a comment or subscribe for future updates.