In case you’re new here, I’m a raving, rabid fan of the Texas Conference for Women, and I blather on about it here and there throughout the year, especially right around now, because it’s when the event happens each year.
The Conference’s 20th anniversary was last Thursday in Austin, as usual, and it was my fifth consecutive year attending and my first serving on the Social Media Team (with capital letters, to indicate its importance).
Not like when you walk to your pantry, fling open the door and think, “Wait, what did I come over here for?” then you have to retrace your steps and go aaallll the way back to the couch, sit down, and get comfy, and THAT’s when it comes back to you, so you sigh really hard, heave yourself back up off the couch, schlep back to the pantry, muttering curse words at yourself about how this is happening more and more frequently, and then - because alzheimer’s runs in your family, you convince yourself this is a sign of early onset dementia, then you launch immediately into a panic attack (because naturally anxiety also runs in your family).
I do.
This was my fifth time covering the Texas Conference for Women on Bring Mommy A Martini, thanks to the suggestion of my good friend and savvy press hotshot, Travis Baker, the Austin Metro Publisher at Community Impact.
“See if you can get press credentials,” he said matter-of-factly to me while we had coffee one morning when I was whining about how I wanted to go to the Conference, to which I responded, with a crumb of muffin in the corner of my mouth, “Wait, you can do that?”
I was just a tiny baby blogger at that time, so I didn’t know all the ins and outs of this blogging world just yet.
A few weeks ago I was sitting on the train heading into Austin for the Texas Conference for Women. I spent the hour ride visiting with my new friends, the veteran train riders, and also reflecting on last year’s conference.
Last year, I was honored to interview Carla Birnberg, a local author and blogger. She and I had a 15 minute time slot, but she gave me nearly an hour of her time, and she’s so easy to connect with, that hour flew by.
As usual when I’m heading someplace important, especially if I’m right on schedule - or more likely, late - as opposed to being early and relaxed, which hasn’t happened since before I had children and has somehow become a habit, just like writing run-on sentences, I start sweating and my freshly flat-ironed hair starts to pop into the most pubic and freakish curls around my hairline.
Oh heeeyyy! I realize it’s been a little longer than a minute since you last heard from me.
I’ve been on a nine-month, unplanned hiatus during which I pretty much gave up my entire life in service of others (I’m disgustingly selfless), got my oldest son graduated and moved off to college, moved our family to a new home in a new town, planned a once-in-a-lifetime family vacation in celebration of The Graduate, and find myself now pale with dark under-eye circles, greasy meth hair, dressed like I lost a bet, and almost completely unraveled.
Back in November I attended the Texas Conference for Women and I had the greatest pleasure of meeting and interviewing Carla Birnberg, author of Mizfit and What You Can When You Can, the latter creating its very own movement on social media through the hashtag #wycwyc.
I was excited about the opportunity to talk with Carla because What You Can When You Can was perfectly written as if it were just for me. It might as well have been handwritten on spiral notebook paper, folded into a paper football, and signed, “Lylas.”
Not to air out my medical dirty laundry, but I have a mental condition that you may have heard of: I have ADHD. I haven’t been diagnosed by a doctor, but trust me: it’s obvious.
I fill my days with all the hundreds of things I want and need to do, trying to cram it all in, rushing around to keep the house together, letting dogs in and out and in and out and in and out, writing words for this very blog, with the hope of making other moms realize we’re all dealing with the same B.S., and that, yes, they are “doing it right,” whatever that means, and that it’s totally okay that their kids think their name is “Ja-Co-Li-Coo-Dammit!” because - by the end of the day, our brains are just piles of slop.
Kristan (Braziel) LeBaron is an author, writer, marketing professional, and the voice of the blog, Bring Mommy A Martini. Mom to two hilarious boys: one in college and the other in middle school, she writes “real mom” stories on life with anxiety & depression, and choosing happiness as a daily practice. She lives outside of Austin with her two sons and two lavishly kept dogs.
