The First 50

Welcome to The First 50!

What is The First 50?  It’s a commitment I’m making to myself to share 50 life lessons over the next year.

Why now? 

Because as of yesterday, I’m officially knocking on the half-century door.

(Notice I said door, not rusty iron gate or worse yet, pearly gate.)

In honor of that upcoming milestone, I am going to post 50 life lessons I’ve learned – one each week for the next 50 weeks.

Except for the weeks I don’t. 

Because I know I’ll screw it up and miss a week…Guaranteed.

Something will come up and I’ll blow it.  But that’s ok, because one of the lessons (or maybe the next forty nine of them) are all about grace and picking yourself up when you fail.

But not today.  Today we’re starting somewhere else.

Today we’re starting with:

#1  Learn to eat words.

Luckily, there are no calories involved.

This lesson goes back to a time before I had children.  I was visiting a friend who happened to be a new mom.  She was (and is) an excellent mom, but like so many who haven’t gone before, I had all sorts of incredibly helpful pearls of wisdom for her racing inside my brain.  Tips ranging from preventing the horror of unkempt toddlers and going all the way through college graduation party planning tips.

Because everyone needs streamer etiquette when they haven’t slept for more than 2 hours straight for a week, right?

Thankfully, I kept my mouth shut.

Ok well, at least a little…

I think she knew.

OK, I knew she knew.  We were that good of friends.

There are some things you just can’t hide from the girlfriend who will tell you when your butt looks big in your jeans and expects you to do the same.

A few years later, I had to call her and eat humble pie.

I had spent the last few years sleep-deprived, chasing perpetually stained, snot-nosed, twins whose highlight film already included climbing out of their bedroom window to play outside during nap time, making real eggs on their play stove and attempting to swing from the kitchen light fixture, all-the-while chubbying up the largest baby I’d ever seen.  All true stories, BTW.

Dang!  Motherhood was much harder than I thought.

She just laughed when I told her my new favorite saying,

She definitely knew.

Since then, I have had to learn to eat many words.

Because I don’t have it all figured out.

And that’s why I’m starting here.

I am completely open to the possibility that I just might not have it all figured out yet.

I want to be boldly transparent about that.

Life is about figuring it out as you go and sometimes you just don’t have all the important information…yet.

But as long as you keep trying, you keep getting closer to getting it right.

Let me be even clearer, some of the 50 may end up being quite frankly…wrong.

But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t start.

So I will.

And since every great adventure always starts with a slice of humble pie (said no one ever), I’m going to do just that.

#1  Learn to eat words.

When you’re wrong, learn to eat your words. 

And even when you think you’ll never have any need to eat them, know that you just may end up eating them someday anyway.

That’s lesson #1.

And now, I am inviting you to join me on this journey.

And I’m going to ask boldly, because that’s something I’m learning, too.

If you’ve ever had to eat words like me (or if you just enjoy seeing how many sentences I can start with the word “And”) please give this a share on social media.

I would appreciate your help.

Borrow my boldness.

Share this truth.

And tune in next week for lesson #2.

It’s going to be mind-blowing.  Chomp chomp…

XX – Peg