No matter what day of the year it is, I believe there is one resolution we should try to keep: to be us. After all, we’ve had the most practice at it. It’s probably a good choice. And when it happens, when we are ok being our full selves and we just ‘are,’ I don’t think we need to be paranoid afterwards about what people think. I think we just need to feel the magic of those moments and seek out those who encourage it. It’s not easy, so today (and every day) I resolve again.  

“12 straight walks! That’s all you need is 12 straight walks to tie the game!” 

My sister, Karen, was sitting next to me on the green wooden seats, and I couldn’t quite believe what she’d just hollered at the team on the field.  

“You can do it!” she yelled. With sincerity.  

I swear the batter turned to look at us, maybe double checking to make sure she meant it.  

“This isn’t over yet! That’s what’s great about baseball!” 

It was with awe and trepidation that we watched the contractors lift the new tower into place on our home. And then just a few short months later I was standing on the ground floor with water dripping onto me from two stories up.  

I dissolved into tears and shouts of disbelief.

And so was born in my relationship with my husband the code phrase for the stressor that is one too many: “The Fourth Thing.” We came to realize that like most people, I can handle a fair bit of stress. I can even handle three major problems at once. 

But the fourth thing is too much.  

I’m sitting in a parking lot when I get an email from my husband with an attachment. The email’s subject line is “Your dad – old newspaper – for fun (attached) + Jason.” I open the attachment and see a smiling photo of my dad from high school next to a young girl’s photo under the headline “Teens Front.”  

When I got married, it felt like an easy decision to start to call myself by just my married last name. I didn’t have great feelings about the name I’d grown up with.  

However, when I decided to publish my memoir, it didn’t take me long to decide that both last names would go on the cover.

When I was teaching full time at the University of Wisconsin-Marinette, one of my favorite days each semester was when the local eighth graders would come to campus for a preview day. A lot of research indicates that young people decide whether they are “college material” or not around eighth grade. Since college includes everything from apprenticeships and certificates through doctorates, it turns out pretty much everyone is “college material.” It’s about finding the right fit. 

My role for these eighth-grade visit days was to give a ten-minute talk about preparing for college. After a few years, I had a refined message that I loved delivering. In a small classroom with maybe 15-25 students, I could look each of them directly in the eyes at some point and pour into them three important messages.  

“You would come to Mom and ask her the most annoying questions,” Karen says. “You were like six years old, and you’d come out and say something like ‘What does “the” mean?’” My sister is re-telling a story I’ve heard quite often. “Do you remember that?"

I started playing the trumpet when I was in fifth grade. My dad was an incredible musician, my sister an amazing flautist and singer, and it was expected that I pick up an instrument. I was excited to be able to play the trumpet well—although I was less excited about the journey and work it would take to get there. Still, I persisted. I practiced almost daily for years, took lessons, and became quite proficient.

My dad used to talk about the silence within music, the power of rests. Perhaps the most profound experience I ever had with music, silence, and sound was over 20 years ago, while I was working on my PhD in English at Loyola University in Chicago. I encountered a piece of music during a research fellowship that challenged me—and challenges me still today—to hear the music of our everyday world, to hear noise differently, and in doing so, to deeply consider the essence of things.

When we decided to name our first son Anton, after my great-grandfather, Jason and I weren’t trying to tell our son to be like his ancestor. We weren’t setting him up to have Anton Aspelund as a role model. We want him to be his own person.

Naming our son after his ancestors was more of a way to help him glance backwards even as he grew forwards, a chance for him to consider his place among thousands of stories, told and untold, from generations of individuals. Naming him Anton was a way to show him a connection to something bigger than himself.

One of my favorite photos from my wedding day wasn’t taken by our official photographer. My friend Laura took it. She died a couple of years ago. Her view of me was always admiring, appreciative, and loving. Perhaps the best way I can honor her memory is to strive to not put myself in boxes with negative or limiting labels, to instead take her view of me.

What would that mean for all of us—to see the positive things about ourselves that our friends see?

My dad’s dad, Stan Stolpa, was only 27 years old when his father, August Stolpa, died. My great-grandfather's death was sudden and tragic. Stan, my grandfather, was a young dad himself at the time—my own dad just two years old. They were living in Winona, Minnesota, my dad’s hometown, and the events surrounding my great-grandfather’s death included places I would later see every day when we moved back to that town when I was 10 years old.

I have believed for years that it is important for me to try to understand this family history if I hope to understand my own family dysfunctions.

The truth is that while I worked hard to earn a PhD, I didn’t let myself feel joy for long. And I don’t feel only pride when I hear someone call me Dr. Flatt.

Unconsciously, at least I hope it’s unconsciously, we are taught and teach ourselves to stay in our place. We hold each other down without realizing it. And then when someone comes along and tries to lift us up, sometimes we’re not quite sure what to do with it.

How can we help each other to own the joy of our accomplishments more?

The 1972 Chevy Vega that I learned to drive on was, by the time I was driving it in the late 1980s and early 1990s, running on hope more than gasoline. The mechanic who had been helping us keep it going for years once told my mom when she picked it up after a service visit, “This car shouldn’t be running anymore. I’m not sure why it is.”

I am incredibly grateful for every person who has connected with me so far since I announced I was publishing my memoir this summer. Some of the people I’ve connected with to date are writers too, but some of them are quite hesitant to say that. They tentatively suggest to me that they might have a story they want to tell too or that they have something written down.

What some of them don’t know is that I also taught writing full-time for almost 20 years.

One lesson I always wanted students to learn was that the best way to write a first draft is to stop looking for the right word and just write words!

We grieve losses in our work lives, but don't talk about it much, brushing aside any sadness as we move on to new jobs and experiences. In this blog, I write about work grief in the context of my first professional job.

In his belongings after my dad died, I found folders and files of music he had begun to compose, almost none of which did he ever finish.

I believe we all need to strive towards finding the kind of joy that comes from connecting deeply with creativity. Most importantly, I think we need to try to find it in the re-doing of things. What would it be like if we let go more quickly of the tears and shame we feel, unnecessarily but understandably, when we see an error in what we have created?

My dad didn’t navigate his life towards a destination; he surfed waves, unsure towards what shore he should aim. I want to be intentional. I want to make choices. I lay out my own values and loves: educating, leading, collaborating, writing, creativity, travel, family, music, spiritual fulfillment. I aim for those shores. I let those guide my days’ work, my choices, and my long-term goals.

I know that I am lucky that Karen and my mom share the same overall feelings about what happened to us as a family. I know that I am fortunate that in telling my stories, I have two family companions and that I have learned to listen better to myself.

My heart aches for those whose families have fractured into more pieces than mine, who don't have anyone to say to them “yes, yes, I remember that!” or have people around them who discount their truth and memories.