May 13, 2013 · 10:54 pm

the anti-mother’s day

Ah, Mother’s Day.

It conjures up images of beautiful brunches, adoring children, and thoughtful gifts honoring all that mothers sacrifice and do on behalf of their families.

My reality is a bit different.

Mother’s Day is a holiday I approach with more than a small amount of trepidation.  Possibly without exception (and I only say “possibly” because there might be an exception, but I honestly can’t think of one), every Mother’s Day has been an opportunity for my girls to roundly remind me of all the parts of being mother that I don’t like.  It’s like they spend the day parading their ugly sides in order that I  might, for the rest of the year, appreciate how wonderful they are and how blessed I am to be their mother.  And the universe conveniently conspires to add its own dose of mayhem, lest I get a moment’s respite from their antics.

This year’s Mother’s Day was the perfect example.  Amend the details, and it could stand in for just about any Mother’s Day I’ve had in 12 years:

Sabrina had a good friend who inexplicably had planned a very big, very expensive, and very fun birthday party for the better part of Mother’s Day, so we shifted most of our celebration to the Saturday evening before.  James had to be out of town at his parents’ ranch and asked the girls and I to join him on Saturday and stay the night so we could be together Mother’s Day morning.  Bryn had a birthday party on Saturday that was supposed to end at 4:30 but ran much later, so we were a little late getting to the ranch. On our drive out of town, the girls bickered and poked at each other, setting my teeth on edge.  Then Bryn announced that she’d need to go to the craft store the next day (Mother’s Day) for a school project on Monday. Seriously??  I promptly told her “No.” and, given the tone of my voice, she didn’t ask a second time.

James’ parents have a dog, Gus, who is hardly older than a puppy, although he is probably at least 50 lbs, and James’ giant mastiff, Roxy, was also at the ranch, where she’s been staying until we get a a fence at the new house.  The girls and I had brought along our whippet/terrier mix, Gertie, and Bryn’s mini-dachshund, Bella.  As soon as we  pulled in the driveway and got out of the car, Gus began harassing Bella, which frightened her and set her to whining and yapping, so Bryn started screaming and crying hysterically, causing Bella to amp up the yapping and Roxy to come over to see what the noise was.  Roxy’s method of calming the other dogs down was to nip at them, so Bryn and Sabrina were screaming at Roxy, thinking Bella or Gertier were being hurt.  This is a scenario that played out multiple times over the next 12 hours. I’ve drawn the conclusion that the dogs will never be besties…

Later, with the dogs separated and the girls calmed down, James started the grill for dinner. He had purchased flowers for me, ostensibly from my girls, but when I thanked them for the flowers, neither daughter even bothered to respond.  A summer storm appeared suddenly, drenching the deck and chilling the air.  We waited for it to pass, then ate outside — but quickly because the girls were clamoring for us to start the movie they’d picked – The Hulk.  So into the house and onto the movie.  As soon as we started the movie, Sabrina (who had picked it out and pressed so vigorously for us to start it), promptly left to go get ready for bed.  Realizing that she’d then require us to reiterate for her in vivid detail every bit of the plot she’d missed, James hit the pause button and we all waited.  Just before Sabrina returned, Bryn decided that she, too, needed to change for bed, so we waited some more.  Finally, on to the movie!  Except that the DVD player seemed to have difficulty coordinating with the TV, so the action sequences and background music were VERY LOUD while the dialogue was nearly inaudible.  James kept the remote handy and tuned the volume up and down, up and down, up and down throughout the movie. Perhaps surprisingly, The Hulk has a fairly convoluted plot, and it was actually difficult to follow when you missed the first part of every dialogue.

Even without the technical difficulties, the movie wouldn’t have been the relaxing family time I’d been looking forward to.  Bryn was hopped up on sugar from the birthday party she’d attended, and Sabrina had had too many caffeinated iced teas to sit still.  So, there was a lot of fidgeting, mixed in with arguing over who got to sit next to me.  I’m pretty sure I said “Enough, already!” at least a half dozen times.

The drama of the evening was further enhanced by Gertie and Bella’s discovery of Wobbles, James’ parents’ enormous tabby cat.  I’d neglected to consider the presence of Wobbles in my plans for us all to hang out at the ranch, primarily because I’d never before laid eyes on him.  He’s like a phantom blur — an enormous cat who wanders the canyons, returns with small animals bigger than Bella, and avoids all human contact.  Of course, on this particular night, he had found his way indoors and was located by the enthusiastic noses of my dogs, who then proceeded to chase him all around the house while the bigger dogs chased them to protect the cat, and the girls, James, and I screamed and ran after them all, trying to insure that neither of the small dogs was shredded by Wobbles’ considerable claws or Roxy’s massive jaws.  Twice during the movie, my dogs tracked down Wobbles and a mad dash through the house ensued, interrupting our attempts to follow the movie despite the volume control issues.  By the time the credits rolled, even with three glasses of wine, my nerves were completely frayed.

We put the girls to bed, in the midst of arguments around who had to sleep on the top bunk.  Even after James and I thought we might be done parenting for the night, Bella and Wobbles went for round 3, woke everyone up, and brought Bryn to our bedroom door in tears.  At that point, James and I discussed whether the girls, dogs, and I should just head back home for the night.  Too tired to carry out that plan, we collapsed in bed.

The next morning — Mother’s Day — James helped Sabrina make me breakfast in bed while Bryn pouted and whined about various injustices. As I sat in bed to eat and open my little presents, the girls traded barbs and promoted their superiority as the better daughter.  Honestly, I was exhausted before I got out of bed.  When I did, there wasn’t much time to get cleaned up and out the door in order to start the hour-long drive to take Sabrina to her friend’s birthday party.   Before we left the ranch, I asked the girls if they’d made the beds and tidied the room they’d slept in.  They solemnly assured me they had, but when James went in for a quick inspection, he reported that they’d left it messy.  They know better, for sure.  I made no attempt to conceal my annoyance as the girls and I got in the car and headed down the hills.  I lectured my daughters on their behaviors during this short trip and informed them that they’d really killed my Mother’s Day buzz.  After some strong chiding from me, they both apologized. Once we were out of the canyons and again in cell range, Sabrina texted her friend to find out exactly where the partygoers were meeting, only to be told that the party was postponed until the next Saturday.  So, we’d gotten up and on the road for nothing.  Lovely.

At that point, I steered the car toward home and firmly decided that I was done with Mother’s Day.  No more.  As I told James, I will no longer be “celebrating” Mother’s Day.  From now on, I just want a normal Sunday in my wonderful home with my family that I love.  That would definitely make me happier than whatever “specialness” might mark the day for me.

The good news is that once I threw off the Mother’s Day mantle, I had a nice day.  A good long nap, followed by some time in my yard weeding, and capped off with a welcome home party for James’ eldest daughter.  A perfectly quiet, relaxing, renewing day.

Yes, indeed, I think I’ve finally figured out how to thwart the Mother’s Day goblins that ruin my day each year —  no longer give them a day to ruin.  I am happier in my everyday life than most people, so I believe I’ll just take another everyday, thankyouverymuch.

And to the rest of you, Happy Mother’s Day.  I hope it was everything you wanted and nothing that you didn’t.  And I hope you still like your children now that it’s over. Mine are starting to grow on me again.

giraffe-mother-kisses-baby

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May 8, 2013 · 6:10 pm

boobs

One of my favorite bloggers, The Edmonton Tourist, published a post recently about how desperately so many women (she and I included) have struggled at times to be someone’s physical ideal.

Raised in North America and fed a steady diet of fashion magazine models, MTV video stars, and movie queens, I think we women fail to even realize a lot of the time how much we measure ourselves against certain criteria, and typically find ourselves lacking. I think we’re aware of it in a big picture sense; but the insidious little moments when those doubts whisper in the back of our brains are probably far more common than we notice. Sure, I think it gets better with age – most of my female peers are relatively content with their appearance – but certain aspects of our bodies remain or become trigger points of insecurity. We all know the usual culprits: thighs, tummies, butts, and, with age, wrinkles, grey hair, and flabby arms. But really, the list goes on and is super-dependent on our individual bodies and how we perceive them.

The men that we are with – particularly the ones granted the privilege of seeing us naked – are incredibly powerful determiners of our self-image. And it’s taken me a pathetically long time to realize that men have almost no idea how easily an off-hand compliment or put-down can completely alter our sense of what is beautiful about our bodies. It’s almost frightening how much control we cede to them in this regard,and how perpetually clueless they are of this power.

When I was younger, I took every male comment of this kind as an absolute. If a guy said my legs were hot, I assumed all men would think so. It wasn’t just his personal opinion; I extrapolated and assumed that I simply had empirically hot legs. But the same was true with negative comments. It wasn’t just one guy who thought I was “too pale.” No, my fair skin was basically ugly and something all future men would have to look past if they were to be attracted to me.

Then I grew up (or, rather, grew older…), and it finally dawned on me that the same things that one man might not like about me, might be another man’s favorite. Let’s visit my pale skin, for example. My skin is pale, yes. It does not tan. I will never look like a summer goddess in a swimsuit. But, it is also silky soft, even on my arms and legs, as more than one partner has commented on. So, one man’s “ick” factor might be another’s quiet fetish.

But what’s interesting to me is how persistently (and subconsciously!) I held on to certain ideals about female bodies, even armed with this perspective granted by maturity. It seems I am still coming face-to-face with my own pre-conceived notions. For instance, I am relatively tall – 5’7” – and have always seen that as an asset. All my female friends who are short want to be taller, my daughter Bryn, who is short, wants to be taller, my mother always wanted to be taller. But James, being only about 5’9” himself, has always preferred petite women – small and tiny, which I am not. It’s strange to confront the idea that something I’d always banked on as a physical asset might not be so in every relationship. Here was something I’d never even questioned, and yet it, like all other aspects of physical beauty, was in the eye of the beholder apparently. Does my height bother James? No, I don’t think so. But is it his perfect ideal? No, it’s not.

Then there are the flagrant, incorrect assumptions based on gossamer-thin evidence that we make about what our man might prefer. Maybe these assumptions are founded on off-the-cuff comments about actresses, old girlfriends, or even women on the street. A couple of comments about other women’s “great legs” and we may – without even realizing it – assume we’re with a guy who places a high priority on long, shapely legs. And so we file that away and critically examine whether our legs stand up to that ideal.

In the best relationships, of course, these ideals don’t really matter or affect the relationship in any identifiable way, but I would argue that they usually creep in and get in the way without us even noticing.

And this is where boobs come into my story.

One of the first things I noticed about James when we started dating was that he’s a Boob Guy. In my experience, most guys are particularly fond of a certain part of women’s bodies – he might be an Ass Man, a Leg Man, a Boob Guy… you get the idea. Before getting a real glimpse of the woman’s personality, he is likely to notice and appreciate some part of her physicality. Seems like it’s just male nature, and, frankly, I think women are pretty much the same way, except that we don’t talk about it all the time. I, for example, am an unabashed Chest and Arms Girl. Legs? Eh. Six-pack? Whatever. But give me a man with a broad shoulders, great pecs, and strong biceps, and I melt. Sad, but true.

So, anyway, James is a Boob Guy, and unashameably so. It’s like he can’t help it. He’s never rude or creepy about it, but I’m certain that his particular idea of Heaven involves lots of well-endowed girls in bikini tops. And, as best I can tell, he’s always been this way. There is a long line of relatively large-chested (some made by God, others by man) women in his past, and as soon as I realized this, the little worm of insecurity started wiggling in my brain.

Because I am not big-busted. I am a solid B-cup. Aside from the years when I was nursing my babies, I have never been any bigger. There’s nothing wrong with my breasts but there’s nothing amazing about them, either. Were a musician to wax poetic about my attributes, my breasts would likely fall into the Fine-but-Forgettable category. I’ve never particularly thought much about them. They’re there. They’re fine. They functioned as needed for my babies. But I’ve never used them socially or capitalized on them the way women more physically gifted than I seem to.

And then I ended up with a Boob Guy. After many months together, I realized that I was avoiding walking around bra-less or naked on top in James’ presence. When we were in bed, I would pull the sheet to cover myself without thinking. In fact, if I thought about it all, it was only to be grateful that he was so strongly attracted to me despite my breasts being not the best he’d seen.

But I was wrong.

One night, as I lay naked in his arms and we watched television, James commented – so casually that it took my breath away – that I had the most perfect breasts. Sincerely shocked, I looked at him to see if he was being facetious, but he wasn’t. In fact, continuing in the same tone, he very matter-of-factly enumerated what he loved about them. I was so stunned, I don’t think I even responded. Perfect breasts? Me???

The Moral of the Story should be obvious, but in case it’s not, I’ll spell it out for you: Men are more complicated than we give them credit for much of the time. What attracts and holds them is most definitely not as simple as the latest Cosmopolitan would like us to believe. There is truly no empirical ideal of female beauty, THANK GOD for that. Seriously. A man’s ability to appreciate and admire so many different aspects and manifestations of female beauty is a blessing and a wonderful treasure that we should never discount or ignore.

So, whatever part of your body you’re scared of showing off, or whatever piece of yourself you’ve been covering up in front of your guy, STOP. You never know what he’s thinking or how many parts of you make him totally, crazy hot. The fun is in the finding out.

So go find out. Right now. What are you waiting for?

cleavage

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May 6, 2013 · 3:06 pm

in the line of fire

Ladies, think back to middle-school or high-school… Do you remember that one girl who seemed to hate your guts? Who hardly knew you but always said horrible, nasty things about you behind your back, making your mutual friends uncomfortable and those unacquainted with you desiring to remain so? Remember how, even though you KNEW that she didn’t really know you and even though you KNEW that what she was saying wasn’t true, it still hurt like the dickens?

And then remember how you thought that when you grew up it would all be over?

Haha. Me, too.

And then I moved in with James and found myself squarely caught in the crosshairs of the ex-wife who left him 6 years ago and has been trying to get him back ever since.

James’ ex-wife, whom I’ll call “Carnie”*, is a 42-year-old who spent her youth trading on, as James likes to put it, “her boobs and her smile.” And he’s not exaggerating. Despite being very intelligent, she has leveraged her body and her willingness to share it her whole adult life. She is a cruel, vindictive, conniving, manipulative partygirl who has spent considerable time and energy wrapping men around her fingers and screaming at the top of her lungs about how victimized she is. She has difficulty holding a job, but no difficulty spending money (in 5 years she helped the economy to the tune of more than $500,000). She alternately sends James texts telling him what a horrendous father he is, and how much she wishes they were still together. Therapists who have weighed in on the situation suspect that Carnie is either a schizoid or borderline personality, or, at the very least, suffering from bi-polar disorder. Regardless, she is a font of negative energy and the manifestation of all that is an embarrassment to our gender. And she’s now a permanent part of my life.

Lucky me.

Now, before you assume that I am simply conveniently trashing the ex-wife who is not here to defend herself, let me say this: my regular readers know that I rarely attack other women. Be they my ex-husband’s girlfriends or my boyfriends’ ex-wives or the friends who dropped me like a hot potato because I left my husband, I generally make it a rule not to bash other women. My theory is that women do enough self-degrading that we don’t need it from each other, too. So I choose to assume that nearly all women are truly doing their best and learning their own lessons and making their own best choices.

I also learned very, very early in my post-divorce dating cycle, not to believe most of what men say about their ex-wives (Sorry, guys, but it’s true.). I sat through too many dates listening to how awful and demanding and needy and selfish these former wives were, only to discover, by the second date, that for the most part I actually agreed with the former wife and couldn’t wait to put the guy in my rear-view mirror. So, I don’t simply accept James’ version of events with Carnie, and I never did. Over the last nearly 3 years, I stood back and observed. I watched her behaviors and his reactions. I drew my own conclusions, some of which differed from his in details. But ultimately I had to agree with his overall assessment of her: She’s a Bitch, and yes, that’s a capital B.

The clincher for me was when their son (who was 11-years-old at the time) started expressing an interest to live full-time with his father. Carnie’s method of squashing that discussion? To tell her sensitive 11-year-old that she had cancer, was possibly dying, and needed him to stay with her. The distraught boy went to school and confided in officials there, who called James, who frantically called Carnie, only to be told, “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have cancer and I never said I did. He’s lying.” To this day, their son earnestly stands by his story and insists his fear for her life was real. And we believe him.

I wish I could say that this kind of How-To-Really-Fuck-Up-Your-Kids method of parenting is rare for her, but it’s sadly not. She does not hesitate to openly use the children to manipulate James. Three of the 4 are generally too young to understand that they’re being pawned in this fashion, and the eldest has begun distancing herself from the chaos, but Carnie is undeterred. She soldiers on – telling the children terrible, untrue things about their father and testing their loyalty to her at every turn.

Some have suggested to me that, since I am now filling something like the step-mother role to the children, that her behavior will make it all the easier for me to “win them over.” But I don’t see it this way. I think her behavior, and the impacts of it on the children, is heartbreaking. I am not, nor will I ever be, in any kind of competition with their mother. I simply want them to be healthy and happy and well-adjusted. If, alongside that, we can be something special to each other, then great. But my designation in their life is not primary over their general mental health and well-being. I genuinely love James’ children, so I want them to be content, productive, and in love with life, regardless of what they think of me. And fortunately, they have enough healthy, grounded people surrounding them that they are remarkably stable and emotionally solid, despite their mother’s chaos and instability.

Until recently, I was a silent observer on the sidelines of the drama Carnie plays out with James and the kids. She knew about me, of course, but apparently deemed me too unimportant to devote any time to me. But that changed when James and I moved in together, permanently thwarting her long-term goal of reuniting her family. I feel fairly certain in my gut that, until now, she truly believed that James was still, somewhere deep down, in love with her and that’s why he’d only casually dated in the years since their divorce. As recently as March, Carnie was sending him sweet texts telling him that she was sorry that they’d “lost each other.” It boggles my mind that she has failed to realize that the actual reason he hadn’t gotten close to anyone was because he was terrified of a repeat of his marriage to her. She so damaged his ability to trust and be close to someone that he’d resigned himself to a life with only superficial romantic relationships. He wasn’t waiting for her; he was avoiding a repeat of her.

James and I both knew that once Carnie realized how serious we were, she’d get upset, and she hasn’t disappointed. I was prepared to be tolerant of her jealousy and likely outbursts. I was ready to indulge her tantrums and ignore her jibes. I was awaiting the inevitable maelstrom of insults.

But then she went after my kids. And that I was not prepared for. Nor willing to tolerate with alacrity.

In the last few weeks,  we’ve received some disturbing phone calls from James’ kids.  The first was from “Jay,” James’ 13-year-old son, telling his dad that his mom had been “saying bad things” about me and my daughters. Jay is a good kid, with a strong sense of right and wrong, and he was obviously dismayed that his mom was attacking people that he likes and that his dad loves. Then James’ middle daughter, “Chelsea,” got on the phone and confirmed Jay’s story. Each time we’ve heard from Jay since, he reports that the nastiness has escalated, making him angry and frustrated with this mom.  James has handled the situation well. He talked to the kids about how their mom had never met me or my girls, and how that kind of name-calling is more appropriate on elementary school playgrounds than out of the mouths of adults. He has reassured them that they didn’t have to agree with their mom. And then he’s gotten off the phone and laughed at her childishness.

I wish I could.

Honestly, I didn’t have much respect for her previously, and I’ve always known that she’s not a woman I’d have chosen for a friend, but now I’m not sure I could even be civil to Carnie. It was bad enough to hear the nasty things she was saying about me, although, truth be told, she was clearly struggling to find a good put-down, and I took some small gratification in that fact. But when she started being snide and snarky and rotten to my innocent daughters, any sympathy or patience I had for her burned up in the rage that blinded me. The things she said about my girls were not only unkind and unfair, they were untrue.

I know I should dismiss Carnie’s meanness the way James does, but I’m struggling with it. The power of suggestion is strong, and sometimes people’s opinions color our own despite our recognition of their immaturity or mean-spiritedness or ignorance. For instance, consider this example: Let’s say someone that you love comments to you that someone else you love is “dumb.” Initially, you will likely discard that comment as unkind and untrue, but the seed is planted. And the next time the person labeled as “dumb” says or does something that suggests less-than-Einsteinian intelligence, the little voice in your head might just pipe up and wonder…. And before you know it, the evidence of this person’s “dumbness” is piling up and your opinion of him or her is shifting, ever so subtly. As cogent, thoughtful adults, we like to think that we are immune to this kind of negative influence, but multiple social science studies have supported what we already know to be true: a strong suggestion, when delivered from a beloved or trusted source, is indeed powerful. And I would imagine (although I haven’t seen such research) that children are even more susceptible. So, I worry that Carnie’s flippant meanness could ultimately achieve it’s desired result – an alienation of her children from me and mine.

Only time will tell, of course, and so I must be patient. I will simply continue being exactly who I am and encourage my girls to do the same. Overall, I have a history of winning people over as they get to know me, so I am hopeful that Carnie’s assaults will not completely undermine what her children have learned and will continue to see of me and my girls. James and I want very much to find a way to create a loving, cohesive family out of our various pieces, and for Carnie to thwart that would be unbelievably frustrating, sad, and completely in character for her.

I know that I am not alone on this part of the post-divorce journey, but sometimes it really feels that way. I don’t have any friends or acquaintances in this position at the moment, and I’ve given some thought to joining a step-parents’ group in order to find some understanding and support. I definitely don’t want to allow Carnie’s fierce negativity to infect me with bitterness; that alone could undermine the small dream I have for my fledgling family.

And so we will just keep loving, and being there, and waiting and seeing. But that’s pretty much life in a nutshell, isn’t it?

crosshairs

**Blogger’s Note:  I have a general “rule” on my blog to name those individuals I deem guilty of misbehavior (it’s my blog, so I’m judge and jury…), but out of love and respect for James’ children, I’ve granted their mother a pseudonym.  Reluctantly.

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April 29, 2013 · 11:56 am

moving on and glancing back…

When the moving trucks were loaded, my car packed to the gills, and James’ pick-up truck literally overflowing with the possessions of our two houses, I prepared to the leave the home where I’d healed for 4 years since my separation. I stood in the foyer, key in hand, and allowed the feelings to flow. My mind wandered through various memories and emotions, sifting through them, noticing them and letting them go. I heard James’ voice, “Feeling a little sad?” “No,” I answered honestly. I was amazed, empowered, and excited, but not sad. No, not sad.

I stood remembering how many times I had cowered in that house – moments of sheer terror that I would not be able to do “it” – make the mortgage payment, recover from a broken heart, co-parent with a man who initially wouldn’t look me in the eye anymore, build a new life without having the slightest idea how one went about such a thing. So many “it”s that I went ahead and did. Sometimes I danced through the obstacles with aplomb, but more often I stumbled along semi-blindly, praying furiously for help from whatever source might be listening. But I did it. Over and over and over again, I did it.

One of the many casualties of my marriage was my faith in myself. Prior to meeting and marrying my husband, I had attacked the world with a kind of naïve confidence. I didn’t take a whole lot of foolish risks, but I evaluated risks without concern for my own ability to properly address the variety of obstacles I anticipated. I moved alone to a foreign country. I lived in a ghetto and pretended to carry a weapon in my pocket as I traversed to and from the local bus-stop each day. I came home to the States, got a job, and moved to a city I’d hardly ever visited. I applied to law schools without any knowledge of the process or guidance from mentors. I secured student loans and an apartment and launched my legal career. I chased down and landed a plumb job with a national non-profit. I had faith in myself to handle whatever came my way.

But Bryce changed that. At some point during our relationship, Bryce came to see me as weak. I’m not sure if it was my recurring depression or his honest assessment of my abilities, but he used to tell me that I had terrible coping mechanisms and couldn’t “handle things.” I’m also not sure why I ever allowed his opinion of me to change my own, but I did. Slowly, over time, I began to see myself as weak and incompetent. I viewed moments of evidence to the contrary of this characterization as anachronisms to my actual personality – outliers on the bell curve of who I really was.

I certainly had successes during those years I was with Bryce, but I felt that I was play-acting through them. Surely if the people around me really knew who I was and how weak I was, they would see that it was all just luck, just good fortune, that created the successes, I thought. When my small interior design business took off rapidly, I downplayed it as being “easy.” Giving myself any credit felt like false bravado.

Eventually, Bryce noticed that the bottom had fallen out of my confidence and he would make small attempts to pay me compliments, especially if others were doing so, like when I secured a big design client and my friends were so proud of me. Bryce would tell me how proud he was of me and, momentarily, my heart would fill. But quickly thereafter, criticism would follow and I’d realize that, on balance, I really wasn’t particularly special at all.

I can look back at this and see how destructive it was, and how readily I surrendered my power of self-identifying to his opinions and whims. I am not sure precisely when his opinion of me began to define my own sense of who I fundamentally was; I only know it happened.

In the brief moments that I stood in my little house’s foyer and my brain flashed through a million memories at the speed of synapses firing, I realized something: all those fearful minutes in this house had unexpectedly restored my sense of my own personal strength. I had entered this home convinced that I was incapable of being strong, and I was leaving convinced that I am incapable of being anything but strong. I am not perfect. I am not a constant work in progress. But I am absolutely, positively, most definitely strong.

And the truth is, I always was.

healing home

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April 1, 2013 · 8:56 pm

the healing house

In anticipation of my upcoming move into a new home with James, I have been packing up my belongings.  On a cold afternoon recently, my friend Annie came over to help me crate my earthly possessions. As we wrapped my mother’s delicate china in newspaper and stacked books in boxes, Annie commented on how different this move was from the one that brought me to this little house.  I paused, looked around, and felt the past rush up to meet me….

In March 2009, I moved out of the house that Bryce and I had shared with our daughters and into a small townhouse a few blocks away.  I had discovered the little house a couple of weeks after deciding to end my marriage, and purchased it with the generous help of my mother.  The house closing was a blur — I sincerely don’t remember any of it, only my own numbness.  Moving day was a nightmare, truly. At the end of that long day, I slumped into a heap on my new living room floor and cried with grief and relief.

In the days since, I have painted nearly every wall in the house, imbuing it with an energy and personality that more closely matches the life I’ve created here with my daughters. I have acquired a few pieces of furniture, most notably a large orange sofa for the living room for which I had to save for many months.  I have painstakingly tended the xeriscaped back garden and the lush, flowering front courtyard.  I have hung photos and art, added rugs and curtains, and turned what was a pretty little house into a warm and loving home.

My daughters have come to prefer our little home to their dad’s much larger and more modern house, and my friends have all told me how comfortable they are here and how well my home reflects me.  These validations are gratifying, but more important has been the reality that, through the ups and downs of my separation, divorce, and subsequent dating experiences, through the parenting challenges that naturally appear, through the professional pressures and demands I endured,  I have always been glad to come home to my little house.  It has always felt good to me.  Safe.  Comforting.  Serene.  I shed more tears in this house than I could ever possibly count, and I railed at life’s unfairness all too frequently, but she has always answered back with quiet, constant reassurance.  She has granted me solace and shelter and peace from the storms raging inside and outside of me.

My sweet little house is far too small to accommodate me, James, our six children, and three dogs.   And so we have purchased a much-larger house in a neighboring town in which to create a home for our blended family.  As for my little house, we will keep her and rent her out until such time as my mother decides to move closer to us, at which time, she’ll be folded into the bosom of the house that held me safe while I healed.

I remember the day before my closing, when I walked through the house with my realtor — an acquaintance who’d become a friend.  I made an off-hand comment about growing old here, and he quickly grew serious.  “No,” he said. “This is only a stopping over place for you.  You won’t be here forever.  You’ll have another new beginning someday.”  I was very doubtful, and have never lived my life in this house as if it were anything but permanent.  And yet, once again, I was mistaken.  It was not my forever house.  Another new beginning is indeed upon me.

Annie and others have asked me if I will be sad to leave my house, but I am honestly not.  This leap with James — this wonderful, magical opportunity to create a home with a man I love more than I have known possible — this is precisely what my time in this house has been preparing me for.  All those sad and difficult times during which my little house protected me or her garden soothed me… it was all in preparation to launch me into the next chapter of my life.  I see that very clearly now.  I came here broken and fragile.  I will leave stronger and more fully myself.   This next move is a joyful one, buoyed by hope and love, and the promise of endless possibility.  How different from the move that brought me first in this front door….

The last time Annie packed my mother’s china four years ago,  she worked wordlessly in Bryce’s living room, while I shuttled boxes out of the house and into the waiting moving van and the tension around us thickened to the point of near suffocation.  This time, we packed the china together, the tunes from a favorite playlist filling the room as we chatted and laughed about our men and our children and how far we have each come since those dark days and how rich our futures look.  There was no sadness, no regret, no nostalgia.  Just friendship and gratitude and hope.

So, I shall move on with thankfulness in my heart for my time here.  The point, after all, was never to stay, but to know when to go.

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· 9:13 am

the snowpack miracle

[Blogger's Note: This is part of an on-going series I've titled “perfect little miracles,” a series of posts about moments that have inspired, reassured, or comforted me.]

When James and I got back together last December, both of our lives were, to a greater or lesser extent, in a state of disarray. We had each weathered a brutal year emotionally and were completely uncertain as to what the future might hold or even which direction in which to steer ourselves. We weren’t lost, just a little war-weary and unsure of how to best move forward toward our individual dreams.

Then we got back together. In the midst of trying to knit our fractured relationship back together, we let the rest of it kind of fall away for a while. We focused on nurturing our fragile union and taking good care of each other. Worries about work, kids, exes were temporarily back-burnered while we decided that whatever our next step would be, we’d be taking it together.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about my life is how, once I surrender control of my destiny, Fate (or Faith, if you prefer) swoops in and begins to sail my ship smoothly to a destination I might not have chosen nor even known that I could reach. And that is precisely what has happened over the last few months. One small, perfect miracle after another… gently, slowly pushing us forward.

I think the first time I was consciously aware of it this time was with the contract on our new house. As I wrote about here, the sellers accepted our offer a mere four hours before I was fired for the first time in my professional life. It was the second house we’d tried to place under contract, and there were multiple offers on the table, including a full-price cash offer. We nearly lost the house in all the wrangling, but a last minute strategic suggestion by our realtor allowed us to close the negotiations and secure the contract. Against all odds and all logic – and, some would say, all reason – we were buying a house together not even 12 weeks after getting back together and within days of my becoming unemployed.

So how in the world did we secure a mortgage, you’re asking yourself? In this post-Mortgage Meltdown world, what lender would be that crazy? Well, my mother stepped in and helped with the asset balance sheet, while our mortgage agent expressed strong confidence in the temporary nature of my unemployment. So ahead it went. It was painful yes, but that’s lending these days – a wild rollercoaster of will-you-or-won’t-you be approved. And we were.

And our house wasn’t just four walls – it was almost 5,000 gorgeous square feet of enough space to house our family of 8 (and 3 dogs) comfortably. We had been prepared to settle for a sad fixer-upper that we’d have to expand or renovate or otherwise fit to our atypical needs, but somehow we were buying a big, beautiful house that required almost no fixing or changing. True, the home is in a city different from the ones in which either of us were living, and the commute to my children’s schools isn’t a short bike-ride anymore, but those seemed like small sacrifices to avoid many years of construction dust and expense. We couldn’t believe our luck.

We were supposed on to move on Tuesday April 9th, but some last minute concessions on the sellers’ part gave us possession on Sunday April 7th, instead. April 7th was sunny, cloudless, and relatively warm. Our move went off smoothly and under beautiful blue skies. April 9th, on the other hand, ushered in the record-breaking series of April snowstorms unlike this part of Colorado has ever seen. The next 15 days saw 47.6 inches of snow fall in our town, annihilating the previous record of 44” from 1957. It was one cloudy, snowy, bitterly cold day after another, broken only by the occasional mild day that didn’t last. But not only had we managed to move before the terrible snows hit, but those snowy, impassable days gave us lots of time in our new home to unpack and get settled. James has a sprinkler and landscaping business that provides most of his income for the spring and summer, and, under normal weather conditions, he would have been very busy and not able to be home with me during that time. But the snows made outdoor work impossible, so he was home, unpacking boxes and doing various handyman jobs around the house. It was my own little slice of heaven.

As the snows turned from one freak storm to a series of freak storms, another path before us was smoothed. You see, in this part of the West, water from melting snow (known as “snowmelt”) provides our water supply to our reservoirs. That snow melts from the many feet of snow accumulated in the Rockies over the winter. That accumulation is known as “snowpack.” Those of us who live here watch the snowpack levels through the winter because low snowpack levels mean spring and summer droughts. And droughts mean bad wildfire seasons, like the one we had last year, culminating in the horrific Waldo Canyon fire outside of Colorado Springs. Wildfires are terrifying, and even if you aren’t near them, the communal anxiety they breed sucks the fun out of summer for grown-ups.

Droughts also mean government-imposed watering restrictions. Sprinkler systems are the only way to have a lawn or healthy trees or shrubs or flowers in this high desert climate. Even if you xeriscape your garden and lawn (meaning you employ plants and materials that are naturally drought-resistant), you still have to provide them with some water. This isn’t cactus country – we walk a fine line between green and brown. During the terrible drought of 2002, a neighboring town prohibited all landscape watering and everyone in town without a well for water lost their lawns. You could drive through that town in August and see one brown, dead lawn after another. It was awful.

For a sprinkler and landscaping business like James’, water restrictions are like a death sentence for the season. Every year, James watches the snowpack numbers and follows the water table and reservoir levels for clues as to what kind of season he’ll have. This year, more than ever, he needs a good season, to make up for the losses inflicted by the embezzling employee of last year. But all through March, the Colorado Rockies got little measurable snow. March is supposed to be our snowiest month, so by the time April dawned, James was getting nervous. Denver and two smaller municipalities in our area issued watering restrictions. It was getting dire.

But something told me it would be okay. Everything else was working out so beautifully, I felt certain that Fate wouldn’t forsake us now. It didn’t seem possible to me that Fate would have delivered us this beautiful home, only to create a financial hardship that would threaten our ability to keep it. Such a turn of events seemed unfathomably cruel.

And then the snows came. And came. And came. And finally stopped. The morning of April 24th dawned warm and sunny with only more of the same in the near future. The next day’s local paper reported that one of the cities with watering restrictions would be repealing those, which will likely prompt the others to reconsider, too. And the phones in James’ office started ringing off the hook.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Life sure is funny. You never really know when your next stroke of luck will come from or what your next perfect little miracle will look like. Sometimes it even comes in the form of cold, white, fluffy snowpack deep in the Colorado Rockies.

Who would’ve thought?

snowy mts

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March 26, 2013 · 3:21 pm

was it worth it? (pt. 4)

Following my announcement to my husband Bryce that I was leaving our marriage of nearly 11 years, I had one final conversation with my then-best friend, which ended with her caustically telling me, “Well, I just hope it’s worth it, what you’re doing.  Because I really doubt it will be.”

Certain moments get frozen your mind.  Sealed for the remainder of your life in a corner of your brain where they might gather dust, but they never fade.  Crystallized, every small detail recollected with the same power and force they wielded when first experienced.  That was one such moment for me.

Her yawning question has echoed in my brain and in the hollows of my heart as the months and years since that day have passed.  It has served as a touchstone for me — a chance to check in with myself and the consequences of my fateful choice.  I have revisited the question in my writing, too:

was it worth it? (pt. 1)  (Feb. 2011)

was it worth it? (pt. 2)  (May 2011)

was it worth it? (pt. 3) (Jan. 2012)

Yesterday, James and I closed on a beautiful house that will become a home to us, our children, and our animals.  Afterwards, we had a romantic celebratory dinner at the restaurant we visited on our first date, in September 2010.  We had not been back since then, and the sense of having completed some imaginary circle was palpable to us.  We reminisced about our first date — where we sat, what I was wearing, what we were each thinking — and throughout dinner I sat across the table from him and tried to figure out how in the world we have landed where we are now.

I have that feeling often these days.  I will look at him and it suddenly hits me that it has happened.  I have actually found what I had been searching for since I first fell in love with Parker at age 22 and discovered what true love, mixed with destiny and fate, actually can be like.  Every single day since then, I have hoped to once again be blessed enough to find it.  There were many, many dark days and darker nights during which I wondered if perhaps I was requesting too much of the universe; I had been fortunate enough to experience true love once, perhaps it was asking too much to want it again?

But I couldn’t give up.  Or, rather, my heart wouldn’t let me.  My brain argued quite rationally and logically.  It urged me to settle for good enough and be happy with that.  It berated me for expecting so much.  It pointed out my arrogance in hoping that I was special enough to be so blessed twice.  But the pounding of my heart drowned out the rational logic of my brain.  Thump, thump, thump… like a mantra it reminded me, forced me to remember what it had once felt like to be loved so completely and purely and deeply, and to return that love equally.

And now here I am.  I feel as if I am sitting upon a beautiful mountain top, surveying a valley below lush with possibilities and promise.  The world feels wide open and full of choices, any one of which might become the next great adventure of my life.  My blessings are so many, I feel almost embarrassed by their abundance.  But then I remember my dark times and how much I have struggled to find this space of emotional security, happiness, and expansiveness.  This time is what I have been searching for, defending to my detractors, and protecting from the naysayers.  It is here and I am in it.  And it is even better, richer, deeper than it was the first time around.

But what of the others so deeply affected by my choice?  My ex-husband Bryce seems happier than I think I have ever known him to be.  His countenance is relaxed, his outlook optimistic, his relationship seemingly solid and fulfilling.  My daughters are thriving in every way and embracing our changing circumstances with greater poise and enthusiasm and trust than I could have possibly expected.  They still don’t like moving back and forth between me and their dad each week, but it is the logistics that bother them now, not the emotional aspects of so many good-byes and hellos.  I watch over them protectively, awaiting signs to indicate that I have permanently scarred them with my choice to divorce their father and dismantle their family.  But such scars have yet to appear.  We talk through feelings with compassion and patience, and I wonder if possibly they are learning that dramatic life changes do not always portend endless grief and struggle.  I wonder if they are learning how resilient they are as individuals and we are as a family….

Life is not done, of course, and oftentimes regrets sneak up on you long after you hope the final verdict has been read.  But I humbly suspect that this will not be such a case.  Bryce, our daughters, and I have turned some corner, crossed some bridge, this year.  The divorce has ceased to be the defining construct in our lives anymore.  It is merely a reality of our existence now — like living in Colorado or having two dogs.  Four years later, it no longer constrains us or informs our feelings about everything.  My once-intact family has stretched and grown beyond the pain and grief that accompanied its breakage.  We have each evolved into more fully-formed individuals, with a greater sense of our own possibilities.   We love and support each other, secure in the knowledge that our separateness has granted us hopes and dreams that were not possible in our togetherness.

I can look at the long road since that conversation with my former best friend more than 4 years ago.  I can see how many times her warning scold seemed frighteningly true.  I am aware of how easily fate could have shifted slightly and she would have been proven correct.

But that is not what happened.  She was wrong.  Very, very wrong.  Because it has been worth it.  The good, the bad, the painful, the joyful.  All of it.  Absolutely, positively worth it.

chautauqua trail

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March 16, 2013 · 10:09 pm

fired… up

On February 19, 2013, for the first time in my life, I was fired from my job.

Actually, I was asked to resign and refused.  It doesn’t seem to matter, though, since my former employer is telling everyone that I resigned. I refused to resign because I had poured too much heart and soul into my job, and I refused to be labeled a quitter.  I was not quitting.   I was refusing to go out quietly, as they wished.  If they wanted me gone, they’d have to fire me.  So they did.

In truth, that morning in my boss’ office was the culmination of months of increasing and evolving dissatisfaction and disillusionment on my part, and discomfort on theirs.  I was a politically-appointed municipal employee for a very small town, and the mayor and council that had hired me was very different from the one under which I was serving my second term.  Indeed, when I was first appointed, I felt excited and energized to be part of something special — a newly-elected administration determined to end the corruption for which the town had long been known and institute progressive measures to reinvigorate the town’s economy, attract stronger locally-owned businesses, and improve the quality of life for all residents. But, as tends to happen in politics, the do-gooders on the council were quickly burned out, roundly criticized for trying to change the status quo, and, for the most part, quite literally run out of town.  As the mayor’s two-year term drew to a close, only three members of the seven-member council still lived in the town.  The others, including the mayor, had quietly moved away.

With the benefit of hindsight, I should have left then — in September 2011 — but I chose to stay on, dedicated to the goals of that earlier council and dedicated to my colleagues, for whom I had immeasurable respect and appreciation and many of whom looked to me for leadership that was lacking elsewhere.  I chose to believe that the incoming mayor, one of the original council that hired me, would stay true to the course set by the previous council and the values it embodied.  I was wrong.

Over the next 18 months, I watched the tone of government in the town change.  I saw things that were all-too-familiar to me after so many years in politics — backroom deals, offline conversations, hidden conflicts of interest.  I listened as various council members lectured me on how to do my job, and flagrantly disregarded the ethics training I’d provided them.

I guess I knew that it was over for all real purposes the day the mayor admonished me to “set [my] integrity aside for just a moment” and then consider an issue without it.  Such a request was anathema to my ideas of public service and professionalism, and I told him so bluntly.  That was likely the first nail in my employment coffin.  But there were others — many others.  Times when I told various councilmembers their actions were in violation of the town’s ethical code or even, occasionally, state law.  They ignored me.  I was isolated as a “square” who really wasn’t in sync with the laid-back nature of the town.  I was fine with that characterization, since by “laid back” they seemed to mean seedy and underhanded.

Finally, on February 18th, the Monday of a long weekend, I learned (via social media, no less) that the mayor had once again overstepped his bounds, and this time in such a way that was likely to land me, and possibly the town, on the wrong side of a lawsuit.  I saw very clearly that I would be made the scapegoat in such a situation.  I texted my boss to ask if she was aware of the developments, and she acknowledged that she was.  I paused only a moment, long enough to tell James what I intended to do, and then I fired off an email to the entire council, again stating that the mayor was overstepping the limits of his authority.  I received a reply shortly from my boss, berating me for the email and demanding that I present myself in her office first thing in the morning.

I knew how the morning would go, although James was skeptical that they would react so impulsively.  When I called him a few hours later to deliver the news, however, his first response was “Hallelujah! That place is toxic, they don’t appreciate you, and I’ve wanted you out of there for ages!”  This, despite the fact that only hours earlier we’d placed a house under contract.  A house for which we would likely no longer qualify for a mortgage….

My mom was visiting with us that week, and her reaction was the same as James’ — enormous relief mixed with righteous indignation that they would actually fire me for demanding high standards of public service from our elected officials.  My daughters cheered for me, and my friends offered overwhelming assistance in locating another job.  Clandestine emails poured in from colleagues and former colleagues in that town, filled with disgust and anger that I’d been fired, and sadness that we’d no longer be working together.

What should have been one of the worst days of my life never even broke the Top 10.

I slept well that first night, better, in fact, than I had in many months.  Within days, I had been approved for unemployment insurance, secured new healthcare coverage, and begun filling my calendar with informational interviews and job application deadlines.  Friends who had offered help followed through; I learned of some opportunities before they were even posted, and managed a 90-minute lunch with the local District Attorney, thanks to the only remaining councilmember I trusted.  The comfort, support, and generosity of friends and near strangers was almost overwhelming.  I quite literally had no time to feel sorry for myself.

But what of the house?  Well, Fate stepped in as she often does in my life and worked a miracle.  Our loan was saved and the closing date set.  We would not lose the house just because of my employment situation.  I could barely believe our good fortune.  In fact, I’m still kind of holding my breath.

And there’s more:  A week or so before I lost my job, a former councilmember from the council that had first appointed me contacted me, wondering if I was still doing interior design work.  She and her husband had just purchased a big, beautiful home in a different city, and it needed a lot of personalizing.  I let her know that I was only taking small projects on the weekend, and we commiserated over the disappointment that we couldn’t work together on her house.  So, after I was fired, I let her know, and voila!  Instant design job!  We spent three hours together late last week, laying out the project and the long list of items with which she needs help.  Simply finishing her house could well take most of my current spare time. And the fact that I get to spend that time with a woman I truly like and admire is even better.

And still more: the writer’s block that had settled like a permanent fog over my brain as soon as the book editor said the words “Book Proposal” and my name in the same sentence back in January has finally lifted and I am filled with ideas to write about again. I think I could finish the book in a couple of weeks if I only had the time to do nothing but write.

At this point, it’s anyone’s guess in which direction my career will next careen.  I have not the slightest idea from whence my next regular paycheck will come, but — amazingly — I’m honestly not worried about it.  Something deep inside me keeps telling me to have faith and it will all be okay.  And, somehow, that is enough right now.

I can already fathom that at some point in the not-so-distant future, I will reflect upon that cold day in February as an enormous blessing.  A turning point.  A fresh start.  Perhaps I will even cease to call it my firing… and instead begin referring to it as my release. Because I’m beginning to think that’s actually what it was…

butterfly

Blogger’s Note:  As some of you know, I currently live in Boulder, CO.  To be clear, I was not employed by the City or County of Boulder, but by a neighboring municipality.

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March 14, 2013 · 7:51 pm

an open letter to my friends

To my Dear Friends, far and near:

I am writing to say thank you.  Thank you for your love and support and concern and worry.  Thank you for your friendship and your shoulders to cry on and your ears to bend.  Thank you for the memories and the knowledge that you are also part of my future.  Thank you for wanting all that is good and happy and easy for me.

I am indeed blessed to have you in my life.

But.

(You knew there was a “but,” didn’t you? I thought so.  You’re smart that way.)

But the thing is, this is my life.  Not yours.  Mine.  I know you know this, but sometimes when we love someone, we tend to forget it.  We get so wrapped up in our hopes and fears for this other person, that we forget that each of us has to walk our own path, and that ultimately we walk it alone, no matter how many loving people offer their help or companionship on the journey.  Inevitably, we must make our own choices; ironically, even if we succumb to the influence of others, the choices are still ours alone and we alone are responsible for their consequences.

I know that all you want for me is to be happy and safe and at peace.  And I want those things for me, too.  But how I get there, and how you might want me to get there… well, those might be different paths.

I know that some of you are concerned about James.  You have held me while I sobbed over him and listened to my heart break.  You have propped me up and dusted off my ego and refused to allow me to fall completely apart over his past actions.  And you are reluctant and frightened to see me travel that well-worn path again.

I understand that you would prefer that I put James behind me and find some nice, quiet, solid guy with whom to make a life that is drama-free and steady.  I comprehend your hesitancy to accept that this time with him might be any different.  I respect your fear that I am fooling myself and will suffer a humiliating and painful crash in the very near future.

I cannot convince you otherwise.

Nor will I try.

What I will say is this:  I have never taken the easy road.  That is not to say that I have not led a life blessed with many wonderful things, but simply that few of them came to me easily.  In fact, when two paths were before me, I have mostly taken the more difficult one.   And — go ahead, admit it — it is one of the things you love most about me, is it not?

You say that you admire my strength.  Well, what strength is there in opting for the safe route, when one’s heart cries out for the riskier one?  What strength is there in admitting defeat when you don’t really feel defeated?

You say that I inspire you.  How inspired would you be were I to acknowledge that I love James with all my heart but was choosing to be “smart” and settle for someone I feel less for?  Can you even imagine me doing such a thing?

You say that my life is interesting.  What is interesting about it?  The times that I played it safe and made the choices that others wanted for me?  Or the times that I politely told everyone to take a flying leap and struck out in a direction on my own?

I don’t mean to belabor the point (or is it already too late?), but would you really want me any other way?  Is not my choice to throw all my chips on the table with James not the epitome of everything that you value and love about me?

I know you’re scared.  I am, too.  But I’m still me.  I’m still determined to have that Happily Ever After that I’ve believed in my whole life.  And I want you there with me, amazed at the wonder of it all as it unfolds.  I want to share the beauty of this with you and the authenticity of how damn hard it is some days.  I want to know that I’ve been real and true to myself, and that you have shared that.

I cannot make you comfortable with my choices; no amount of reassurances would assuage your fears or discomfort.  But I can ask you to remember what you love and admire and value most about me.  Because I am exactly and entirely that person these days.  I am true to exactly who I said I would be when I left my marriage 4 years ago and you cheered me on for my bravery to take that monumental risk.

The risks don’t stop.  And I won’t start shying away from them now.  No one is more acutely aware than me of how dreadfully painful it will be if James and I fall apart this time, but I can only tell you that I don’t see it happening.  Beyond that, I can offer no guarantees.  Neither can James. And neither can you.  None of us has any way of knowing if we shall ultimately emerge a cautionary tale or one of those cute, old couples that no one can imagine not being together. I have my inkling, and you have yours, but none is more valid than the other.

So, I will continue to endure your qualified support for my happiness, your obvious expectation that our relationship will fall apart at any moment, your unwillingness to invest in us as a couple.  I will do this because I truly love you, and I am truly grateful for your friendship and support, however limited it has become due to my decision to be with James.

I only hope that someday you will fully join me and James (and other members of my family and friends) in this new chapter of my life.  I will be waiting and hoping.  But in the meantime, I will continue to live my life according to my own instincts and sense of what is right and true for me in this moment.

And really, would you honestly expect or want anything different from me?

road less traveled

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March 8, 2013 · 2:11 pm

at the speed of life

If you were friends with me in real life, your head would likely be spinning right now.  You see, my life has essentially two speeds:  Stop and Go.  There really isn’t a whole lot in between.  Occasionally, I’ll do that thing that most people do in their lives in which they work steadily and diligently toward a goal with all due time and effort and decisiveness, but most times that’s not the case.  More often, it’s a matter of my life appearing to careen from zero to 60 in a matter of seconds, and then coming to a screeching halt again seconds after that.  This can be disarming and alarming to friends not used to my life, and cause them considerable concern over my general welfare and decision-making.

But my old friends are used to it.  It’s incredibly rare for any of them to be particularly ruffled or surprised by any news I share.  They’ve become accustomed to the sometimes frenetic pace with which the universe lobs new opportunities and curve balls my way.  My friend Caitlin, who has known me since our freshman year of college, pretty much takes any news from me in stride.  Almost 23 years ago, I called her on a crackly trans-Atlantic connection to say, “So, I got to England, moved to a ghetto, fell in love with my third-cousin-once-removed who moved to Australia three days later, then I sailed through my coursework, and now I’m working in the music business and decided to stay an extra 3 months.” To which she calmly replied, without a moment’s hesitation, “Of course.  When will you be coming home or are you staying for good?”  Because, honestly, you can’t stay friends with me for very  long without accepting that my life seems to operate in some kind of alternative universe in which the typical rules of time and what qualifies as a Good Idea do not apply.

This probably sounds like great fun when the speed of my life is “Go.”  But when it’s at “Stop,” it’s a whole other story.  My life gets stuck more often and for longer periods it seems than most people’s, and that reality has caused me countless sleepless nights and frustrated days.  And again, Caitlin (and my other old friends) has weathered those storms, too.  ”Why?!” I have moaned to her, “Why can’t my life just be like other people’s?  I’m doing everything that I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m still stuck!  It’s so unfair!  Other people can just do these things and they move forward with their lives; I do them and nothing happens!”  Caitlin’s typical response to these pity parties is to murmur sympathetically while I whine and then firmly  say, “Oh, stop being ridiculous.  Your life doesn’t work that way, and who wants to be ordinary anyway? Just wait.  Things will change.  They always do.”  And she’s always right. Of course.

In the first week of December 2012, my life shifted from Stop to Go, and it’s been a fast and furious ride since then.  Some of my friends who haven’t known me very long are pretty white-knuckled, but my longer-term friends are shaking their heads with bemused smiles on their faces.  Because, after all, I am me and this is my life.  In the last three months, I have:

  • created a stable, loving relationship with a man I was mostly apart from the entire year of 2012 and with whom I had all but given up on the hopes of a committed relationship;
  • weathered a personal crisis of his that rivals a good crime suspense novel;
  • moved him into my very small house with me and my girls;
  • found and placed under contract a beautiful home (in a neighboring town in which I have never lived) that is ideal for our family of 2 adults, 6 children, and 3 dogs;
  • been fired from my job 4 hours after placing said house under contract;
  • salvaged the house contract, against all odds, and preserved the March 25th closing date;
  • launched an aggressive job search, including multiple informational interviews per week and dogged networking in between;
  • met with a book editor interested in getting me a publishing contract to further discuss details of the proposed book (and made a fun new friend in the process);
  • begun to prepare for move-in to our new home during the first week of April; and
  • weathered the inevitable ups and downs of merging our families, particularly the boatload of attitude that Bryn has chosen to heap upon James following his move into our house.

As I was updating my friend Rob yesterday, his response was, “I’m tired after hearing all that.  Must go nap.  But first, is your name still TPG or has that changed, too?”  (Almost all my friends are fluent in Sarcasm, by the way.)  But the truth is, and Rob has known me long enough to know this, that when I am in Go speed, it doesn’t feel too fast for me.  This is my normal.  This is how my life works. I make decisions and I follow my intuition and I ride the rollercoaster. And honestly, it’s not because I’m so good at it; it’s because I don’t really have another choice, any more than when things are stuck.  Sure, I could throw on the brakes and refuse to engage the opportunities, but I’ve learned that doing so won’t slow the pace of my life.  Those opportunities won’t slow down to the speed limit; oh no, they’ll just whiz right past me.  And I’ve never regretted grabbing those opportunities and sailing along with them; it may sound surprising, but those aren’t any of the regrets I count when I’m feeling down.  I think the truth for me (and maybe all of us?) is that I don’t get to determine the temporal speed of my life when it’s going fast anymore than I do when it’s going slowly.  My only option — in both situations — is to make the most of what’s on offer.  So I try to.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed, of course.  Just as I sometimes whine to my friends about my frustration when I am stuck in Stop, so do I sometimes complain about the stress of racing along at breakneck speed.  I mean, honestly, I am juggling so much right now that I’m not even sure how I’m managing it, but I suspect that, when hindsight appears after things have slowed to a Stop again, I will see clearly how the universe leveraged my resources and the opportunities against each other to keep me afloat.  For instance, I’m not sure I could manage all the new house and merging family issues if I were still working at my former job.  The stress level there was so high, it might have been my undoing.  So, losing that job might have been a necessary element in greasing the high-horsepower engine that is currently propelling me forward.

So, for right now, I am flying by the seat of my pants and yet feeling mostly calm about the frantic pace around me.  I can see clearly the abstract forms around me coming together to create a remarkable new life.  With awe, I am witnessing the universe as it works its magic to bring multiple dreams of mine to fruition at once.  Life is miraculous and, unlike us, the universe and the powers around us do not make any mistakes.  So, I am trusting that when my house stops spinning and I am deposited into my very own Oz, it will be exactly and precisely where I am meant to be.

tornado-rainbow

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