Suitcase Series: Rebekah Noele

Welcome back to the suitcase series, where I interview my friends about their relationship to clothes and creative work. I am so fortunate to have a variety of brilliant creative friends who work in different fields to make a better world. I have been friends with Rebekah since I was 11 and she and my sister were 7. We call her my other sister. We’ve come along way since roller skating in the church gym and singing along with The Chicks in dress up clothes. We caught up recently about parenting and creative work with neurodivergence and chronic illness. She’s wearing a scoop crop and frenchies in chartreuse and a triangle bra and hipsters in logwood (purple).

Addie: Tell me about your routine as a work at home mom. You have to balance different routines on your own?

Rebekah: My routine is currently all about getting my oldest daughter to and from school since it's about 40 minutes one way, but one thing that I have learned about me, as a neurospicy person with some health problems, if I just nap as much as I can in the mornings, then I have 2 or 3 hours in the afternoons where I can get so much done. So if I just cut the shame out, and nap in the morning. Once it hits noon, my brain turns on, and it's not before that. If I am doing something before noon, it's chore related stuff, so it doesn't need my brain really. In the afternoon I can get work done, on my part time job, marketing, or on the full time job that is scheduling children's things.

Addie: So, right now are you doing marketing primarily for the electric business, or for a bunch of different things?

Rebekah: Right now it's just Cool Ray Electric. It's been that way for a long time. Our youngest daughter may or may not go to Pre-K in the mornings this coming year. If she does, it's going to change up somethings, if she doesn't it means a lot of things have to stay the same for now. I'm a bit burnt out on marketing, I've been doing it for so long, almost 20 years. My first marketing job was when I was 14 or 15 years old in Coleman. I would love to go out into the world and do something more customer service related, look at a person, take care of them, make them feel good, daily stuff.

Addie: I can see that. I think that you got from your mom, although not in the same way as her, being a very care oriented person.

Rebekah: Yes. I get a lot of joy out of it. I used to get a lot of joy from marketing, because there was a lot of art involved, and I was there at the beginning where, before there was MySpace there was Xanga. I was there for, "Oh look, our family has a digital camera now, what all cool things can we do with a digital camera to make things really pretty or really cool." And it was really fun, and fun to be successful at it, and see it really do well, but now it's become old hat, and just a part of everyone's lives. Kids don't know a world before social media and a digital world.

I might be willing to do marketing stuff, if it's something that means a lot to me. I've been doing it because it's family related, and it's consistent, and it's good pay, and I'm not going to leave them in the dust or anything like that, but if I was going to continue to do marketing it would be something that means a lot to me, that gave me joy to do. If I take a sabbatical, I might come back around to it someday. Right now in my family life we're looking for stuff that pays. So, all of our little start up ideas, I can't really focus on that right now.

Addie: When you wake up in the morning, how do you want to feel, or show up in the world?

Rebekah: When I wake up in the morning…I am normally still tired. I am a person that requires.. Like a cat requires 18 hours of sleep a day, and I'm not quite the same, but basically. I'm really not awake yet. As a mother, I'm being forced to get up at 6, and then normally, if I'm able to come back to the house I'll take a little couch nap, while my youngest plays with her dollhouse for hours, because that's what she does. Mornings is just trying to get by, and if we weren't stuck on this, we have to wake up early to get to public school thing, our life would look a lot different. I know for me, I'm working with some counselors and stuff, it's really important with ADHD  to be able to create your own dopamine in order to be productive, and in order to achieve the things that you want to do.

Addie: A lot of days, when you take the mornings slower, when you get to the point that you're ready to start your day, how do you transition?

Rebekah: I make sure I find my glasses and put them on. I put some more clothes on and try to wake up from my fog. Get some food in me. I can actually start planning out things. I'm not a planner, but it has to happen whenever I'm ready. The world has this schedule that it expects and I just don't follow it.

Addie: How do you want your clothes to make you feel?
Rebekah: I want my clothes to make me feel comfortable. I am a neurodivergent person. I have sensory processing disorder. Growing up , I was the kid having tantrums about the lining of her socks, and realized even as a young adult that the clothing that is made from synthetic materials doesn't feel good on my skin, but cotton and things like that feel really good on my skin. Through pregnancies and stuff like that a lot of my health has changed and it makes a big difference having natural stuff versus synthetic and I've been having histamine reactions for a while, so a lot of things will set off hives, so I have certain clothes that are natural clothes that I wear, long sleeves, pants and everything, covering up all of my skin, because I know that the cloth is protecting me during the hives attacks. It was safe and my body wasn't reacting to it.

Addie: What different roles in your life do you need your clothes to fill?

Rebekah: right now as a stay at home working mom, I have about 5 robes, and that is my work wardrobe, but that should be changing a little bit in the next few years. Right now all of my "Momma's leaving the house" clothes are things that are just passing for going out.

Addie: Secret Pajamas

Rebekah: Yeah, secret pajamas. That's kind of what I have. My mom got ahold of a lot of muumuu kind of dresses. Not actually muumuus, but I've lived in those dresses for a long time.

Addie: Is there a creative project you've been dreaming of working on if you had more time?

Rebekah: Since becoming a mom, I've done more painting than I ever had before. A lot of my art, especially for marketing work has been digital, but I've been working more with watercolor and acrylics, and there are times when I just get this burning itch to paint, normally because I have a specific idea in mind, but when it comes to actually doing it… normally when I'm like driving alone is when I'll get an idea, but then, getting home, clearing off space, finding the supplies… My dream is to be able to create my own little space where everything is prepped and ready, so I can just paint. It's nice to have a space where you and the kids can just make a mess and do your own things. I just love imagery, and as I have aged, now into my thirties, I have a sense of patterns.

Addie: What are you reading right now.
Rebekah: Fiction. Mostly fantasy, and a lot of it I will read it and then immediately forget it. I love when something is clever or authentic and catches me off guard.

Addie: What is your favorite book?

Rebekah: oh no
Addie: or three.

Rebekah: Well if we're going to go with the classics, it's Jane Eyre. Thursday Next by Jasper Ford, is a very clever book. I did read the Fourth Wing and Iron Flame Empirion series, and that was really fun. I'm waiting on the third to come out. I liked the Discovery of Witches series that they made into a tv show. I don't really have favorite things, because my lack of object permanence, but I can think of things that I really enjoyed, and being involved in book clubs online I get better recommendations on things to read.

Addie: Sometimes I get recommendations and make a list, but with fiction, I really just read, what's available on digital library sources. It's hard to keep track of them all and they don't necessarily have whatever the first thing on my mind is.

Addie: What kind of music do you prefer to listen to?

Rebekah: I prefer to listen to music that is not appropriate for my children to hear. That's not always the case, but it's a never ending process of vetting. These days they think my music from when I was a teenager is cool. I've always liked all of the different types of music. There's something good in each genre, but I've been listening to Adele's 30 on the drive home, and then I cry, and I forced my husband to watch her special with me that night. In it she talks a lot about being a mother and making mistakes and writing love letters to her child. I really appreciated that, because romantic love is so celebrated, but there's so much more to the world than that, or to life than that. So hearing her talking about forgiving herself, or asking forgiveness from her child, and expressing the love she has for her child, different things like that has been really powerful for me. I listen to a lot of Brandi Carlile, because she's amazing.

Addie: I really like Ed Sheeran's album = because it's songs about adult things, it seems like so many pop stars grow up, and get married and start families, but they're still only writing about initial infatuation or break ups over and over. Instead he writes about complicated relationships with adult friends and the variety of feelings in an established relationship and his kids at different ages. There's so many other things to write about, that it seems like people mostly aren't.

Rebekah: I'll have to check that one out. I sometimes have a hard time getting into something new.

Addie: Yes. Me too. I don't have great auditory processing. I only recently realized that I could look up the videos on YouTube for a given artist and give myself a second sensory way to engage with it, and I can tell a lot faster if I like something. Otherwise a new album from a new person just all sounds like the same thing.

Rebekah: I just have a kid there non-stop.

Addie: Me too, but I just stopped censoring. These things exist in the world, and hiding it doesn't do them any favors, and if I don't make it a big deal they're usually not paying attention to what I'm doing, they have their own thing. They will occasionally ask questions. It was so sad, one time I was listening to "Don't Let it Break Your Heart" by  Louis Tomlinson, and my 7 year old asked, "Why?! Why would they let you go? If you love someone, why would they do that?!" I'm sorry man. I don't know. It happens.

Rebekah: Oh, kids and music. For some reason, my oldest has decided that Miley Cyrus, Party in The USA is my favorite, so now, when she's the DJ, she puts it on and says, "I'm doing this just for you." I haven't had the heart to tell her. But I love that she's doing something for me because she loves me.

Addie: Oscar did that with the color, pink, because I'm the only girl in our family. "I made this pink because it's for you." That's not really how it works.

Addie: Is there someone you follow whose work makes you really excited, or who you'd love to collaborate with?

Rebekah: There's a woman on instagram that Molly sent my way where she takes any sort of picture or photo and adds this very simple curvature of women within it, and they are moving along like a giant woman in the clouds resting or something. I used to do a lot more multimedia and collaging. I don't know if there's someone I want to collaborate with. A lot of my collaborative work, is if there's something that brings my friends joy, I want to facilitate that. Make it happen for them. So I'd love to collaborate with my BFF who wants to have a dog cafe with adoptions and a sanctuary. Oh, you need someone to do marketing, or make it pretty. Or whatever, I can do that for you, I can help you. My dream is helping to facilitate other people's dreams. So a lot of my collaborating is around marketing, because that's the thing I can bring to the table. I don't know what collaborating outside of marketing would look like.

Addie: What sensory things make you feel really loved and supported.

Rebekah: My favorite meal is my husband's burgers. He's decided to be the cook in the family, and praise God, because I was doing it and it was mediocre at best. And he has the capacity to start things and complete them and at the end there's going to be this delicious meal. I love Macarons and can't help but eat those at least once a week.

The type of fabric on my skin makes me feel good. Being alone. Just a break from considering other people's needs. If I had a week at home by myself I would turn the tv on very little. I would wear and listen to what I wanted. I'd never ever ever turn the big light on. I'd live like a vampire, or maybe open all the windows. I just have so much executive dysfunction living with so many other people in the house.

Addie: I sometimes avoid even my favorite things when I'm over stimulated, just no more things. stop. senses.

Rebekah: My husband loves whenever I'm able to give him attention, but it's so excruciating sometimes when there's thirty other things happening.

Addie: Do you have any rituals that serve you?

Rebekah: Rituals help me a lot with my ADHD and I didn't realize that I had so many of them, because they're just what gets me through the day. Getting ready for bed at night I call it, "I have to go do the things." Clean out my c-pap machine, I got to brush my teeth, I gotta was my mouthguard. I do all of those things and it helps me mentally and physically prepare for bed. For a while I was doing a lot of hot tea and enjoying that. Most of my rituals right now involve or include meeting the needs of my small children. But I love when I am able to sit down long enough that a cat comes and sits on me. That's pretty great.

Addie: I remember how stressful getting nap trapped was for me when mine were really little. I had so many things I wanted to do with my life, and so many messes that I thought everyone was judging me for, and now, it's actually been so much better for my mental health having lots to do, but I miss the calmness of just sitting and holding them, even just the sensory input of their weight, and their soft little faces.

Rebekah: Oh yeah, parenting my children and their sensory needs has taught me so much about my sensory needs. Like I was the one who didn't want anyone touching me when I slept. I had to be in complete darkness and complete silence. And now, I have to have a sound machine on and something touching me. It used to be my children and now it's - when they were born we bought them each a weighted lovey animal with rice and lavender inside, and now those are my babies I need to sleep with. I put them on my chest.

I'm familiar with that dichotomy of spending nap time thinking of all the things I need to do, when what I really need is to enjoy that moment. There's no winning.

Addie: There's no seasons of life that have all the things, but we tend to spend too much energy focusing on what we don't have right now instead of enjoying whatever it has.

Rebekah: My youngest daughter has been my little amulet for living in the moment, because we had a really difficult time when she was born and it was really traumatic, so every day with her is just a gift, and she's a live in the moment type person.

Addie: Oscar and Rhett have been super instrumental for me, even though I've always been pretty laid back. I'm always laughing at people in the store saying sorry for… also grocery shopping… but Oscar and Rhett are just never in a hurry. It's so easy when they are little and your trying to get everyone to all the things, and it feels so urgent, nope, nobody cares that we are 5 minutes late to dinner because Oscar is moving like a sloth getting in the car. All these things that we think have a deadline, just really don't

Rebekah: My dad likes to say, "Every day is Lilli's best day." And it really is. Even as she's getting older and has more things she has to do, she is always positive and easy going and helpful. She makes life a lot easier in some ways.

Addie: How do you show yourself love and gratitude and how do the people in your life make you feel loved and appreciated?

Rebekah: We have a neurodivergent coach for our family, and when it was clear that I have ADHD and some other stuff, she was like, first off, relieve yourself of all the shame you've been holding forever, and stop trying to meditate. You've been meditating on everything your whole life, you can just try your best not to think about things, which for some people meditation is trying not to think, but growing up in the christian culture it can be so much ruminating on things. It's helped to have rules like, if there's something I'm anxious about, if I think about it more than 3 times, I'm obsessing, it's not helping, it's hurting. My spouse is a very considerate person, so he does a really good job of being there for me. The best thing is he's a good learner. He's really willing to learn something and then utilize that information moving forward. And I've become a good teacher, and someone who advocates for myself. So to be in a relationship where you can advocate for yourself, and be with someone who learns about you and applies that is incredibly powerful and productive. So we have a pretty good rhythm going where he has a good understanding of where I'm at or what I might need.

Addie: What parts of your life stretch and challenge you?

Rebekah: Not meeting other people's expectations, especially with my family of origin and the culture I grew up in. Trying to be true to myself, and give myself the space to have an opinion and stand on that and that's valid instead of second guessing myself. I don't have to have another person's thoughts or opinions on everything. It's mine and that's enough. Other people's opinions have held me back from a lot of things, when I should have valued my own opinion more, So I would like to value my own opinion more and be able to stand on that.