How do you measure a year?

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets

In midnights, in cups of coffee

In inches, in miles

In laughter, in strife

In five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes

How do you measure a year in the life?

How about love?

How about love?

How about love?

Measure in love

Seasons of love

If you've seen the Broadway show Rent, you are singing along with me. 

If you haven't, please go download this song and start twirling around your living room. 

I am thinking a lot about how you measure a year because today is the morning of my 49th birthday. I am headed back to my hometown church for my grandma's funeral services with so many feelings.  I grew up in a house across the street from the church.

Before I even learned to ride a bike in that parking lot, I rode my Big Wheel with the pink streamers coming out of the handlebars and played "The Dukes of Hazzard" with the neighbor kids.

Luke Duke, aka Tom Wopat, is from my hometown. I always played Daisy, of course, "10-4."

No doubt I demanded I be the only female character. I was the youngest and the bossiest on the block. One big brother, "Bo Duke," who I haven't seen probably since I was 5, sent his heartfelt Facebook condolences. 

Growing up, I sang in the church choir. It was a character-building moment when I wanted to quit the choir because I was on the edge of being too cool for it. My mom made me tell the choir director myself. Ouch.  I remember the shaky and heart-pounding call to Mrs. Martell. It wasn't all her fault, but I blamed it on her because I didn't know how to navigate being friends 'with my best friend, a year younger than me, and my new friend, who was a mean girl. I did what the mean girl said, which was to quit choir.

This is the church where I held hands under the table during my confirmation lessons with my 8th grade crush Gabe. It feels scandalous to share this secret even now.

It's where I sat in front of the pastor and recited the Pledge of Allegiance instead of the Our Father, and omg, the level of embarrassment when I realized what was happening was cringy and comical, but I was on a roll and my mouth just kept going. I was allowed a do-over a day later. I am baptized, first communion Catholic, and a confirmed Methodist.

That 8th-grade crush Gabe would become my high school prom date, and then I would hold his baby son before getting up to speak his eulogy 18 years later when he had a tragic fall off a roof on the 4th of July.

18 months after that, this church would host my dad's funeral. I would be the last to walk down the aisle holding hands with my young daughters in matching black taffeta in front of all the townspeople before I got up to perform his eulogy to a roomful of people that loved him despite knowing fatherhood was not his best skill set. He was born for leaving, and this felt like the ultimate abandonment to me. My dad's prom date was there. She's the mother of the boy who was my first kiss. Small town's and big families, man.

My dad used to gather money in high school to get the beer for the parties and then gather money again to share where the party was. A modern-day Tom Sawyer. LOL. His classmates took donations in his honor that day to be told where the after-funeral party would be held. These are my roots.  I was born from a party boy; it's no wonder. 

At the end of my dad's service, the pastor asked for anyone to share, and there was a way awkward silence, and then Aunt Joan saved me by standing up and sharing a sweet memory. I would call her every Father's Day from that year forward. I would be asked to do her eulogy years later.

 Of all the eulogies I've done, Aunt Joan's was the worst of all my performances. After all the drinking and all the grief that is woven into my story, I was sober for this one. In sobriety I've learned performance isn't the most important thing. Feeling is. So at Aunt Joan's funeral after all my practice, I just cried and blubbered through the whole thing. I felt the entire church, but mostly my very unreligious husband, praying to God that I would get it together and make it through. Somewhere about halfway in, I did. Then my cousin Paige got up and said all the same things I said, but she did it better. I will not do my grandma's obituary; Paige's dad will. The obituary was written by Grandma and me, so my work here is done. I will let myself just cry in the pew. 

This church holds a lot of my history.  My best church choir friend was the singer at my wedding. The night of my rehearsal dinner, we were singing Indigo Girls karaoke at her gay club. My mom was our audience, cheering us on. Seasons of love.  Measure in love. 

This weekend the church will once again hold my family and me within its stained glass walls. We will bury my grandma next to my grandpa. We surrounded Grandpa at his bedside in his final hours 36 years ago. "I love you, Heddie (my childhood nickname)" were the last words he spoke.  The cemetery is on a beautiful bluff outside of town.  It is a sacred place. My Aunt Joan and Mary are there. My dad is there. All my great-aunts and uncles. My friend Gabe. My grandma was the cemetery treasurer for 28 years. She's well prepared at 101 to join the reunion on the other side. 

My point, if I have one, is that I am happy to celebrate my grandma's life and mine together surrounded in love. When I brought my firstborn baby, Lily to my hometown to meet my dad and grandma, she had just gotten baby acne out of nowhere on her previously perfect skin. I was so ashamed about it. I was afraid they would think I had an ugly baby and that I was ugly too. Immediately upon arrival, they scooped her up, kissed her face, and told her she was in a "house full of love." Over and over they gushed on her and reminded her (me) we were in a house full of love. 

Honestly still, in preparation for going back to my hometown, I am afraid I will be caught being imperfect. I have a sloppy DIY manicure and spray tan. I'll be wearing black (it's not in my color season). I don't have the right things to say. 

We are going to supper club for cocktails. Suddenly my sister-auntie is worried that might sound wrong for me. I assure her I am still a barfly like my dad with his Mountain Dew, and I'll need a stiff club soda and lime after all the hard stuff is done. I can do this. I've been doing this. I can face it all alcohol-free. I can grieve. I am in a housefull of love and so are you. 

If I can encourage you to do anything, it's not to waste the next five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. Commit to a year of personal development.  The women in my circle are growing, healing, repairing, and thriving.  🔗 Join us.  You can make the changes you've been dreaming about, but you can't do it alone.  If one year feels like too much, start with a 🔗 7-Day Free Trial and see. 

Change is possible, and no one is better to tell the story and then the restory than Meghann Perry, who found herself pregnant in jail. That's the podcast drop for this week.

Learn more on the latest 🔗 Peripeteia Podcast.

Need some extra support? I got you.

This week's events for the 🔗 INSIDERS.

• Thursday 3/27 Group Call "Gifts of Imperfection"

• Empowered Sobriety Masterclass with Jody Ventura, Empowered Sobriety Coach
• Financial Sobriety with Linda Parmar, Money Coach

• April's Masterclass "Human Design" with Mindset and Performance Coach Dupe Witherick

Welcome to Aries szn 🔥

Thank you for being here as a witness to my life.

I love you!

XO!

-Heather