Most Embarrassing Moment Ever

I can barely see through the tears as I wrote this. I don’t even know what else to do but write. Screw the schedule I have to get this out… 

So I'm on a Zoom conference with one of the worlds largest businesses. I am trying to do this important meeting with about 20 people! Maybe more. This is such a crucial moment. A make or break one. An opportunity that could be a game changer, and much more, it's an opportunity to help people. It’s for a giveaway program. We have this big pitch for them that we have written. There have been documents. I have made videos speaking to these people about the concept of our integration potentials! This conference was the moment that months of work was teed up for. The big Zoom call… 

So start it, and I'm pitching and trying to be eloquent and personal and thoughtful and just sell this whole idea that is actually a truly philanthropic endeavor. So it feels even more high stakes, because its about giveaways!!! I'm telling everyone how much it means to give on the show and make people days-weeks months- and as I am conducting this symphony and giving it my very very very best… my daughter Frankie runs in the room, screaming and crying, and yells in front of everyone on the meeting … “Olive just peed on the rug!!!!!!!” Whether Frankie is lying or not, doesn’t even matter at this point. She is hysterical. It’s loud and messy and uncomfortable and I just die! Worse. I sink. Lower than the Earth’s Crust. I want to crawl in the deepest hole… and as I turn my neck to reface the 20 faces on the zoom, I just smile. Uncomfortable laughter starts to come out. Now Frankie is screaming even louder. It’s bloody. It’s bad. Like “go deal with it” bad…so I excuse myself to take her out of the room. I turn the corner to the tv room where my sister girls are and I start promising them things if they will just keep it together for 5 minutes and then I think in my head “screw that! I cant reward bad behavior, that is our big rule” the girls even repeat it back to me! It’s our family mantra! “Bad behavior does not get rewarded”. So even though I am so mortified, I am just asking them to please just give me 5 minutes of quiet.

I slither sheepishly back into the room where the Zoom Room is, and the screams and fighting start again between Olive and Frankie. It’s shrill and awful and I see these people staring back at me… and I can feel tears coming… Oh my god NO! I try so hard to hold it in. Picture a cowboy riding a horse in the wild west and the horse is crazy ands won’t stop galloping. The cowboy pulls at the reins to stop him yelling “Whoa Whoa Whoa” yanking at the bit. Well that is me with my tears. I'm trying so hard to keep it together. So of course, I then over compensate by saying “Well this is real life and I am sorry but life is messy” I take a beat and no one says anything. My tears are now welling again, and i’m back up to that cowboy on the out of control horse. Except now the cowboy sees a huge cliff, a chasm, a death fall up ahead! The horse keeping running towards it, and my tears just start falling down my cheeks. No one will talk. No air is filled. The horse goes careening over the mountain and the silence on the other end causes my damn to break… and I just start crying. I am so embarrassed about this whole thing. This big important moment that means so much to me is just a huge disaster. 

I once again try to fill the silence and say “Well you know laughing and crying are a lot alike…twins…, so hopefully this can become really funny really fast?!” Nothing again but silence. Do they hate me? Are they sad for me and don’t know what to say? Are they writing me off as any person they will ever want to work with? I keep talking, and I don’t even know what I am saying but Frankie runs back into the room totally apoplectic, and now I don’t even know what to do. I explain I am here alone at this moment , and I usher her out of the room again. I am gone for a while and I come back, and yep, everyone is still there. I try desperately to pick up where I left off which is ironic because I am spiraling so hard I don’t know where I was or where I'm going and I am pretty sure this whole group is silent because they are watching a one woman show, where the woman, me, becomes unhinged! And then in my head “ I say No! No friggen way am I going down like this” I start to speak with peace and articulation once again. I am the cowboy who just fell off a cliff but I am, getting back up! Dusting myself off. I’m battered and bruised and feeling as naked as it gets, but screw it! ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER” I finish my big diatribe. An oral presentation from the crazy lady who cant control her kids and who just burst into tears… “Yes! come do business with me, its going to be great” I now resort to feeling like a gross old shady car salesman who might as well say “Trust me!” as if I try to convince them. 

Well. I don’t know if I will ever know what they were thinking? It was a situation that left them a bit dumbfounded. The reason for this entire high stakes zoom was not for these people to have to make my messy life OK for me. They are not therapists. This zoom was not scheduled so they could make me feel like I’m doing a good job at anything! It was actually to convince them I was a good fit for them in business, and I'm going to guess I didn't do that? We shall see. Maybe, as shocking and awkward as that was, maybe someone feels better about their own life today and hey, that’s a win! Maybe I won’t loose this account. Maybe I will. The thing is we don’t really always know what people are thinking and feeling. Funny enough a lot of us feel the same way. Vulnerable. It’s just so unimaginable that anyone could ever feel like you, when you're going down the well. But I promise, you won’t find yourself alone down there. We have all been there. 

I am going to have to pull myself together and go back to math with my daughter. I have a story for the blog now at least, and that may be about it. Now, ironically, the house is as quiet as can be. Not a stir. Not a mouse. You could hear a pin drop… 

An hour later, my partner Scott wrote me an email telling me it was going to be ok. He got emotional as he was writing saying that this is such a hard time right now for everyone. Everyone is unchartered water and having to take this meeting from home wasn’t anyone’s plan on the whole Zoom, and it's true, everyone was doing this from home. None of what is happening in our world was anyone’s plan.

The thing is, as a mom of two girls, when you give birth you move into a new town called “Guilt City”. You build a home there, and you stay there. I am assuming for the rest of my life as I care about my kids first and first period. Normally if I was at work, I would feel guilty that I was away from my kids. Now I feel guilty that my kids are being disruptive, and let’s face it…. this whole  episode was a defcon five in embarrassing. Olive will be mortified one day when she reads this. But as of today as she is clearly too young to even understand, hence the bad behavior. And again, I don’t even know if Frankie was lying to get her sister in trouble. But jeez.

When you are caught with badly behaving child, I assume that the person who catches that moment, also assumes that is the whole picture. The picture is I am a bad mom with out of control kids. This is not my ego talking, I pray. It’s that so many people, when your child is having a meltdown just don’t know how to act. And they are not at fault. It’s an extremely personal moment that happens to be on display and the fear is that you are being judged. And that is a hard feeling. You can apply it to anything in life. When you are being judged…it is hard. The funny thing is, we don’t really know what is going on in peoples minds. We jump to conclusion about what people are thinking and yet I want to ask myself is it my own inner voice I am hearing. My own judgement of what this actually looks like? Is it ego? Is there something more wrong here? Is there actually a problem and now I cant’ turn away from it? Am I a bad mom? Why do I hate myself so much aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!! And there I go down the old rabbit hole, beating myself up all the way down down down. 

When my kids are with me and there is no one around, I am not holding myself accountable because I do actually see the whole picture. My kids are awesome and I am trying my very best, and there is so much love. We all work so hard on manors and school and friendships and behavior and life lessons and healthy food. Then we also scream sometimes and they eat Cheetos and they fight like sisters and I want to vomit when I think I am supposed to make a life lesson out of every second of the gosh darn day. So I rebel and give us all a break. We rot on the couch and watch movies. Sometimes quality ones sometimes junk. It’s all a balance. A see saw going up and down. One minute I fell like I got this! The next, well you know…

Life is hard. Beautiful. Complex. Worth fighting for and truly a gift every moment. Yet it can never feel like every moment makes sense! That is not the meaning of life. Take the wins and run with them. You’ll get kicked down soon enough and the question is…can I laugh at myself? Fix what’s broken? Am I grateful for everyone and everything I have? 

Later that day, I was gearing up to play outside with my girls on the lawn. Forcing broccoli on them, and trying my best. I had a heavy heart. I just did. I was writing in my head and trying to make sense of not all, and then I opened my email…

Scott said they feel like the company have a good understanding of what our project will be in terms of content, structure and priorities.  He also said we did a great job illustrating integration possibilities, the components, structure etc. He said the email the sent read “We feel she is genuine and authentic.  They are also confident she has sincere passion for the brand and would not disappoint them.  The situation with the girls was so relatable.”  One of the woman on the zoom had her two kids crawling all over her, and another mom had to mute her line to keep the volume at her house from distracting the meeting. “I'm sure Drew didn't feel this way because no working mom could, but they thought it was hilarious.” In the end, the whole thing was just endearing and lovely. "It’s pretty poignant, though, if you ask me….Drew’s just as subject to the strains of living the COVID life as any of us – especially people with little kids at home."

I started crying happy tears as I read it. The entire ending to my story, no matter what happens on the business end, the story is that people were kind. Empathetic. Saw the humor. And most importantly, they reached out to help me not feel so alone. WE are all in this boat right now together. I wish they could know how much it meant to me. Maybe one day if we meet in person, we can laugh with each other about life! 

And for that evening, thanks to this amazing group of people, I will be pulling out of guilt city, and taking a nice care free drive. Grateful for everyone an everything I have…