Wearing the Swallowtail Butterfly necklace that I designed.
I can’t believe we’re here: Zoe’s final days of high school. Zoe is graduating. I start to tear up as I write this. It seems like just yesterday that she was a little girl, and now she is a young woman. I’m SO incredibly proud of her.
This summer Zoe is going to Los Angeles to stay with a dear friend of mine and be an intern at her talent agency. She’s going to see what it’s like working at a talent agency, she’s going to meet new people, go on auditions, swim in the pool, babysit for my friend when they take Zoe with them for their 10 year anniversary trip, and make so many happy memories. It’s especially neat because my dear friend who Zoe is staying with and interning for was one of my best friends in high school. I was younger than Zoe is now when we met. And since we got to live in California for 6 years, this friend got to see Zoe growing up, and be part of her life. (Are you crying too, or is it just me?)
When Zoe gets home from Los Angeles she has a month before she starts college. And that’s another amazing story, which is part of a larger story that my surrogate dad fondly refers to as, “The Arizona accident.” I laugh every time I say that, and it’s true. You want to hear the story? Here goes:
After living in California for a few years my biological dad died. He was a Major General in the Marines who had very severe PTSD from Vietnam, as well as degenerative head injuries. He left me 50k when he died, and so Andrew and I decided to buy a house in California, using all of the money as a downpayment, as an investment. Three years later our jewelry and accessories businesses (HERE and HERE ) were thriving. And then in the spring of 2020 the pandemic hit the United States. All of the book shops and gift shops that carried us closed. Some never reopened. There was no way we could afford to keep our house in California.
And so at the very beginning of the pandemic we decided to sell our house and move somewhere that was inexpensive. Since we had fallen in love with Palm Springs we house hunted there first, but there was nothing inexpensive for a family of 5. And that’s what led us to Tucson. Tucson (especially the foothills) is very similar to Palm Springs, although not as hot, and Tucson is a fraction of the cost of Palm Springs.
Here’s where the “Arizona accident” begins. After maybe 5 showings or less we got full asking price for our house in California. After closing we paid off our credit cards and are now debt free. Our new mortgage in Tucson is nearly HALF what our mortgage was in California, at $1,200 a month. Our new house has an amazing pool and a hot tub, which is a dream come true for me and the girls. And finally, if we had moved just 1 month later Zoe would not have qualified for in state tuition at University of Arizona. Pure magic.
Only there’s more. Since we first moved cross-country, from Maryland to Colorado in 2007, I have not only believed in taking leaps of faith, but I myself have been leaping. The move to Colorado was my first leap of faith. Starting my first business was leap two. Raising my daughters against the grain was leap three. Moving to California, starting another business, and another, selling our house in California and moving to Tucson–Leap leap leap leap.
All of these leaps of faith have led us to where we are now, to where Zoe is now. Her resume is strong. Zoe not only knows what her own “call to brilliance” is, but she has followed it, and her resume reflects that. Between her resume and her personal statement Zoe was offered $5,000 a year OFF of her instate tuition.
I don’t want you to get me wrong, it hasn’t been easy. We have had HUGE challenges, and it’s been a real struggle. But I think everyone struggles, so you might as well take the leaps of faith. I always tell my kids, “Do the scary thing, the hard thing, the thing you want to do. Don’t think about it, just do it.” You could look at our having to move as a failure or a disappointment, but I don’t see it that way. I see all the good that came out of it as such a surprise gift. And I see us as living a life of adventure, a life that is unplanned (as if we could ever really plan our life anyway), a life that has new challenges and new reasons to be grateful for every day around each corner. It’s not about being fearless, it’s about being afraid and doing everything you can do for the good anyway.
And here is that personal statement for college that I was telling you about. It’s SO Zoe. Read, and you’ll see:
I’m looking at dozens of classic records. There are lots of the greats: Prince, Madonna, even oldies like Frank Sinatra and The Supremes. I choose one of my favorites, The Talking Heads. I move the needle onto the record, and it begins to fill our tiny house with loud music. Sun shines through the front windows onto the wall that my mom painted with giant flowers to match our brightly colored area rug. I’m wearing one of my many fancy dresses, lots of jewelry, even a scarf. I take my sister by the hands, also in a fancy dress that I have chosen, and I swing her around to the music. We smile at each other and jump up and down. We start to laugh. When we get tired I sit my sister down next to me on the floor and tell her all about the play that I thought up for us and our dolls.
In this memory I am seven years old, and my sister Ashley is five. She is happy to do any dancing or make-believing that I dream up. And I dream all the time. I change what my sister and I are wearing many times throughout the day, to go with the theme of my imaginary play, and the music that we dance wildly to. We do this day after day after day. It never gets old for either of us. My most frequent play is “the wedding”. In this play we marry our stuffed animals.
When I reached middle school I tried out for the school play “The Lion King” and got the part of Timon. Learning my lines came very naturally and easily to me, but I wasn’t aware of this. All I knew was how happy it made me to express the emotions of this character and to be a part of a group of my friends, all working together to make something beautiful.
My parents attended our production of “The Lion King”, and they were shocked by my performance. They laughed that they didn’t know I could do that. Apparently, lots of people were impressed. After the play they came up to my parents and introduced themselves so they could say how moved they were.
My sister Ashley has severe intellectual disability. She will never stop wearing a diaper to bed, never wash her own hair or brush her own teeth. She will never grow up. She is 16 now, but she is forever that little girl that I danced and played dress-up with. She is also one of my best friends. Ashley and I LOVE life. Simple pleasures like sunshine, flowers, music, dancing, and just being together fills us with so much happiness and gratefulness to be alive. And I guess in a way I plan to never grow up either. I want to keep dancing, acting, and loving all the little things in life for my whole life. We have that in common, and some things just never change — thank goodness!
I found a treat, Zoe and Ashley, April 2, 2010:
Here’s to leaping, and here’s to my loving Zoe! Cheers!
, Kelly
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