In this week's mini-episode, I'm talking about my family vacation and the struggles that came with it. I share how it was different this year without my grandma, who was the backbone of our trip, and how I'm processing the grief of losing her. As someone who is chronically ill and newly disabled, I also talk about how traveling can be challenging for me and how I'm learning to embrace the messy middle of being in a new place. I also get personal and share how losing my job has been impacting me and how I've been struggling with being open about it. I talk about the fear of being judged and the pressure to always be an overachiever, but also the importance of sharing my story and being vulnerable.

To wrap up the episode, I share some of my favorite things from my vacation, including roll-on sunscreen and packing cubes that made packing and unpacking a breeze.

If you're someone who has experienced grief or struggles with being vulnerable, this episode is for you. Join me as we navigate the messy middles of life together.

Lacey Loves

Roll On Sunscreen

Packing Cubes

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My Happy Curves

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My Happy Curves

Welcome to Sharing the Middle.

We're recovering perfectionist overachievers and anyone in the middle

struggle come together to learn to embrace the messy middles of life.

I'm Lacey, your a friend in the middle and guide whose claim to fame this

week is making it through a family vacation, which is really gonna

be our theme for today's episode.

And we're going a little rogue as far as format goes, where today

I'm mostly just gonna talk about.

Me and where I'm at right now.

So that one you can kind of see and feel where I'm at, but also

cuz I don't have a reading to read from the middle and I don't feel

like I'm in a place to give advice.

Let's just think of it as one long, Lacy loves segment as we get started.

as usual.

I'm so thankful for you being here today.

Let's jump right in.

this week was my family vacation.

It's really interesting because my mom's side of the family, meaning aunts,

uncles, cousins, go together on this trip.

Most of us do, and this is.

Something that's been going on my entire life.

It's a pretty cool thing.

There's about 40 of us that stay in a house together and who can go, goes

and it's been something really special and like a touchstone of my life.

It's something I've been able to count on and do.

And this year was different because if you remember, we lost my grandma

in the beginning of April and grandma was the backbone of vacation.

it's weird to think of it without her, even though I've already

done a vacation without her.

It's still weird to think of it without her.

It got me thinking about grief and the middle and kind of the struggles I've

been having in the middle right now.

as a chronically ill, newly disabled person, this was the

first time I've tried traveling.

And it went fine.

I ended up doing pretty well considering, but it really knocked me out.

It doesn't help that my two year old daughter had a stomach

virus for most of it, honestly.

she and I were in bed together a few days.

This year for me, vacation was so different because I was a new

person, going through what I've gone through and not physically

feeling like the same person and then not having our anchor there.

It was really.

bizarre.

We were also in a different house in a different place, which is also weird, but

I'm grateful for it cuz if we were in a previous house that we'd been in before,

I think it would've been hard, harder.

I don't even know where to start.

We lost my grandpa three, four years ago now.

So we've done a couple vacations without him, it was really hard.

Now my family, I am the most emotional person.

Not the most, but pretty close.

So did I cry several times?

Absolutely.

Did anybody else?

I don't know.

I didn't see it.

We have that, this newness and in the middle of grief, cuz back home

they have, my aunts and uncles and my mom have been packing up their house

to sell and I think it officially went on the market this week.

Combining all of that,

Plus a two year old with stomach flu and a newly disabled Lacey,

who's never great on vacation.

Let's be honest, I am not a good traveler.

I've said this before.

I'll say it again.

I'm not a good traveler.

I wish I could be a good traveler.

I would love to be a good traveler.

I have so much anxiety when it comes to traveling and I, if you listen back to

the Lee Freeman episode of Sharing the Middle, you hear me realize I don't like

traveling because it's full of middles.

I don't like having to get to a location because I feel so unsettled

of not having a place that is mine.

The transition from one place to the next, very challenging for me.

Then we get there and I like alone time.

I like downtime even before I was sick.

I needed that.

And then add on.

Whatever's wrong with me, which I'm pretty sure I'm landing on, me c f s.

But it's hard for me to be around noise.

It's hard for me to be around of a lot of people.

Heat is like one of the worst things for me, so a giant beach vacation

with my family is challenging.

My kids have the time of their lives though, so.

Traveling with toddlers is not easy.

In general, our kids were pretty great.

Our kids are really great, so I don't even know, even with the stomach virus.

But today I'm home and it's the first time that I am home and alone in a, a week and

a half, and I'm just soaking in the quiet.

And the rest that comes from it.

The past few days, I've basically been incapacitated in bed because the

trip and travel took it out of me.

But I'm here and I'm sharing with you.

Here in the middle today, I'm gonna have to lay down more times than I'd like,

but I made it my kids' main memories.

I got to spend time with the people that I love.

It did not meet my expectations cuz my expectations are always

gonna be so high for myself.

Everybody else did great.

Can I just shout out to my mom and my aunts and my sisters for always being so

helpful and nieces they did great too

so it did meet my expectations because I didn't meet my

expectations, which is something that I've gotta figure out, right?

As our overachievers and perfectionists, we have a hard time

accepting that that's where we were,

and I don't know where I'm going.

One of the great things about traveling is that you get to spend.

Some quality time with loved ones when you're traveling.

I got to be my nosy aunt self and ask my nieces questions about their lives.

I got to

ask family members how they're doing in the wake of not having really

someone who's a pillar of our family.

And I got to talk to my husband a whole lot, which if you've been a listener

of sharing the middle and many episodes, old bro has made lots of, cameos.

Would you call it a cameo?

Yeah, I'd call it a cameo.

guest appearances.

That one's probably more accurate,

and he and I got to talk deep stuff.

But also silly stuff because once you have, the Smurfs going on in the

back, you can't listen to anything in the right minivan life there.

I came to a realization in talking to him that I've been struggling with the

middle because I've been clamping up about being open about where I'm at again.

yes, I'm sharing, but I'm sharing in a way that I'm hiding things

that I, I don't wanna say hiding.

I'm not continuing to dive into the things that are really going deep down.

I have been really struggling with this idea of losing my job and I didn't wanna

talk about it because I didn't want anyone, to think badly of me or where

I was working or anything like that.

But the reality is it's really impacted me a lot and it's a big

part of my story and it's stopped me from continuing to tell my story.

So I'm still figuring out how.

I want to talk about that, but that was a big realization that I had

with when I was talking to Joe.

oh, that's a barrier.

I'm being afraid to share that.

Now, there are parts of my life that I don't share with you

all because those are mine.

I, and I keep them for me.

But this is a part that I think I do wanna share, but I'm not sharing it out

of fear, not out of protectiveness or.

Strategic thoughts, if that makes sense.

And it's something that I think can be helpful because

I'm an overachiever, right?

I've always been a hard worker and to.

I have this feeling of I failed enough, I wasn't fired.

See, that's part of the thing is I don't even know what to call it.

So I say I lost my job, even though Joe was very adamant to say that I

walked away and that I made the choice.

But yeah, In the next few weeks, you're gonna hear me

being maybe a little quieter,

one because I need to focus on no shame in the home game, which got

has some good stuff and I just cannot wait for y'all to hear it.

But also because there are pieces that need to be shared of mine and I wanna

share them in a way that's mindful of me and everyone else, but also helpful.

If that makes any sense.

I don't know.

So that was, my like 10 minute diet drive on everything that's

on my mind and insight to where I have been and where I'm going

and now we can kind of transition into our traditional Lacey labs.

So in, Lacey Loves Today, I want to share, roll on sunscreen.

I know that this may not be news to anybody else, but roll on sunscreen to

me is like the beautiful, mix of spray, sunscreen, bottled lotion, sunscreen

when it comes to kids, because I was able to, we were at the beach every day and

even today when I sent my kids off to daycare, they have water days on Tuesdays.

You just roll on and then spread out and you're done.

I'll put a link to the one that I used.

I used it all week too.

My face looks great.

I did get a sunburnt on my back, but that was my bad cuz I didn't do

it well cuz I was just too excited to get in the pool with Iris.

That was huge for us.

Big help.

Loved that.

Roll on sunscreen.

What else?

These packing cubes that I got a while ago really helped us pack, and I got this

from Amazon too, so I'll link to those.

I've never been a organized packer, but.

I was this time, and it made a big difference in so many different things.

But one of the big things is, so Joe is a big proponent of if you

can do laundry before you come home.

So the house that we ha were in had laundry and we did laundry there.

So we packed clean clothes and I packed them where each of us had our own

little bag within our big suitcases.

So what he was able to do is just take those individual bags

to our different spots and un.

Pack them quickly and it was so easy to unpack.

I've already unpacked.

Usually I'm a person that like lives out a suitcase again for a few weeks

cuz that's who I am and that's fine.

But this time I didn't do that.

And now we are probably the furthest ahead we've ever been on laundry and

it's post vacation, which is huge.

Thanks for sharing the middle with me again today.

Next week.

We've got another interview episode and next week, no shame in the

home game premiers on Friday, I'm going to keep hyping it.

Until it premieres.

Thanks so much and see you in the middle soon.