This week, we have a lot of birthdays in my family, including my Grandma Ruth’s. She lived to be 96, and she had an incredible sense of humor.  I learned a lot from her. She was classy and refined; we always ate on her good plates. And she also got a kick out of shaking her knockers at the kitchen table on Saturday mornings while drinking Cherry Kijafa out of a coffee cup.

Because that’s the beauty of life: you get to be everything—elegant and bawdy—all at once. 

This has been a challenging week for me.  I’m more stressed than I’ve been in a bit. And it’s only tonight that I realize the problem: I’m limiting myself to one feeling.  I need to channel my Grandma Ruth.

Yes, I’m sad about so much in the world, and I’m still mourning the loss of a friend. But I’m also happy with my little family.  I miss playing concerts, but I’m also fulfilled by watching my restaurant team flourish. I’m cruel and kind and breezy and rigid and heartless and a great big softy, all at once.

Reader, it can feel like dissonance to have a lot of these wildly different feelings at the same time.  But we don’t have to be just one thing or have just one feeling.  This week, I’m going to let myself have a little more freedom to be all over the place. And I invite you to do the same. You can be an upbeat person who’s feeling down. You can be a serious person who needs to be a goof ball.  You can be a health nut who likes to binge on corn nuts (she types as she crunches on corn nuts). Let's just do what we need to do this week and embrace our spectrums.  I’ll see you next Monday. -Em