My Mom's Villain Chapter

My mom is turning 60 next year, and she is deeeeep into her villain chapter.

I’m not 100% sure if she kills Dalmatians for their fur or puts small children in ovens, but she has definitively decided that she doesn’t want to be a mom anymore, and so she’s stopped.

“Hey Earl,” I’ll text her. “You may not know this since you’ve stopped taking my calls, but I’ve been living outside the US for the last 2.5 years. I’ll be home in November for my birthday, and I was wondering if maybe you wanted to see me?”

And the woman will respond with one word:

“Busy.”

In November?! The whole month? Geez.

In May, my middle brother achieved his lifelong goal of becoming a doctor, and my mom-in-her-villain-chapter deigned to go... but she held her hand over her face in every picture.

“I will not be seen with you dweebs,” she kept saying. “I have a reputation to maintain.”

Ruthless, this woman.

Ruuuuuuuuthless.

Fortunately, in my world, that’s a compliment.

When I was running a nonprofit a few years ago, feeling burned out and uninspired and wondering why I made such poor life choices, I started telling all of my coworkers and board members that I wanted to be known as “ruthless.”

“By the end of the year,” I would tell them, “I hope you all look at me and say, ‘That Keely. She’s ruthless.’”

Specifically, I wanted to be known as ruthlessly prioritized. I hated my job because I spent 50 to 60 hours per week burning the candle on both ends in order to do stuff that I didn’t stand behind... which, on a nonprofit salary, meant that I was selling my life satisfaction for around $10 an hour.

I had gotten caught in the weeds, and everyone knew that I had gotten caught in the weeds, and we all wanted to do something about it, but we never actually succeeded in sticking to a “not-to-do” list. (“‘Not-to-do’ lists are often more effective than to-do lists for upgrading performance.” - Tim Ferriss)

But I never achieved my goal. I never became ruthlessly prioritized, and so no one ever started calling me ruthless, and eventually I stepped down (which is a story I want to share someday soon because a single shamanic energy medicine session was instrumental in helping me take aligned action, whereas months of therapy left me feeling more stuck).

I’m reading a book called “Regenerative Business,” and it’s all about how to take lessons from nature and apply them to business building (or, more accurately, life building – the book is quote-unquote “about” business, but it’s really about a way to live).

And, in the book, Samantha Garcia (the author) is all about burning ish down.

“In Nature,” she writes, “death and destruction are a welcome and necessary part of the cycle.”

“A beautiful example is the volcano. When a volcano erupts, it covers the landscape with 2,200° F lava, killing and burning everything it comes into contact with. And at the same time, it brings new life. As soon as the lava cools, new seeds start to sprout that were unable to grow when they were shaded out by more established plants or structures.”

You don’t have to be afraid of the destruction part of the cycles, she says. In fact, she argues, you receive massive benefits from regularly and intentionally BURNING DOWN the things that no longer serve you.

That way, you don’t have to reach the point of saying, “I can’t be involved with this business anymore” or, in my mom’s case, “Whelp, I’m done being a mom.”

So anyway.

My mom hasn’t actually decided to stop being a mom. She’s a mush ball these days and does weird stuff like cry when I get on a plane to China.

But she HAS gone full-on “yeah, I’m done doing stuff I don’t want to do” mode, and she hasn’t made me my favorite chocolate cake in at least 5 years. Five years!! I even blog about how much I miss it, and she doesn’t budge, and don’t tell me to make it myself, readers, because this isn’t about that.

It’s about my mom stepping into her glorious villain power and cackling while she does so.

So, ma. Wishing you delightful years of stepping fully into your power and saying “f all y’all” to the rest of us when it feels right to you.

Controlled burns.

Highly recommend.

xo, your friend who will be arrested if any of you take this literally

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To learn more about Samantha Garcia’s Regenerative Business book, click here.

To learn why I call my mom Earl, click here.

To hear about the family cake war, click here.