Uncharted

I am planning a summer vacation.

I am also planning to cut my hair.

Those two things are battling for importance on my to-do list.

My mother is turning 90 this year.  There is a party being planned that will coincide with another birthday, and a wedding anniversary thrown in the mix.  It is going to be an event.  Think huge venue.  Think catering deposit.  Think hotels need to be booked for out of area attendees. Think every family member invited.  Think Vienna.

The whole thing is happening in Vienna. Yes, Austria.

My mother grew up in Vienna.  Her family, but for my brother and myself, live in or near Vienna. And by near, I mean that they would need a train or plane ride of less than a few hours.  Me, not so much.  I am looking at 15 plus hours just on the plane, with a couple transfers, and booking a hotel from California.  My mom is traveling, too.  My brother will travel with her, but she could easily, even at 90, do it alone.  They will stay with family, in rooms converted from sitting rooms or hobby rooms to bedrooms for the duration.  I will not.

This is not because I could not get someone to give me a room.  I am sure my uncle or auntie, or one of my dozen or so cousins who own apartments would put me up. They would even be gracious about it. But the truth is, I don't want to. At least I think I don't want to. I am kinda thinking I want to do this alone. But I am not sure.  Stick with me here, I will try to explain.

My last several vacations have been with my ex boyfriend.  We were together for just shy of five years, depending on how you count, and all of our trips, while seemingly collaborative, were really my ideas.  We went to DC for cherry blossoms and the Smithsonian.  We went to New York, via train through Chicago, for a Broadway show and a little romp around the city to iconic movie locations (think Rainbow Room and Serendipity III cafe).  We went to Dallas for Valentine’s, only to get caught in the Snowmageddon. We went to concerts, and Vegas, and Kansas City.  We went to the Liberty Bell and Constitution Hall when he lived in Pennsylvania for a year. We went to baseball games. We drove across the county when he moved back. With the exception of a random weekend the first year we were together, most of the trips were because of conversations that went something like “Hey sweetness, wanna go somewhere? Sure, where? How about (fill in the blank)? Ok.” with a mixture of already thought up desires, and a little bit of online research.  I thought it was a joint effort, but not really. Vacations in my head have always been journeys to see what could happen.  He was about destinations, and for lack of a better way to say it, he was completely unwilling to take the journey. 

Now I am not saying every place we went was perfect.  We literally slept on the floor of the airport in Chicago because our train was so late (like 14 hours late) we needed to cancel our last leg and fly to NY or miss our Broadway ticket. The train was uncomfortable , and the food was only adequate to keep from starving. Kansas City was hot. Vegas was hotter.  It rained to the point of being drenched and flooded in DC. And in Dallas, well, it was just the weirdness of the year, and there was not much to do in deep snow with a high of 9 degrees. The road trip through California gold country had us in motel rooms that were truly sketch, and the best thing we found to do on the coast road trip was skeeball in an arcade that had creepy orange lights with gnats hovering and crashing in large swarms around them, making the shadows seem extra spooky.  But in all that time, I was laughing, and enjoying the company, and taking pictures, and laughing some more.  Memory building, at its finest.

But it had a darker side I never really acknowledged.

I always had to ask permission to do things. There was always something more important he might have to do. Realistically, he never suggested alternatives, but the answers were often “no, I don’t want to do that” without any explanation or options for other things.  I spent hours wandering around casinos by myself, or sleeping alone in a hotel room while he gambled.  I didn’t go to the museums I wanted to in DC or New York because he didn’t like that art, or that history, or those events having never done them. We didn’t get off the train because it was too much of a hassle for only a few minutes at a random stop. We didn’t stay at Coney Island because of a broken phone screen.  We didn’t go on the ferry around the Statue of Liberty because he had seen it and there was water. We didn’t go up into towers because there were stairs, or down into caves because there were ladders, or across bridges because they were too high. We got off at the wrong stops (that he wanted to get off at)  for places because I couldn't possibly have been right about the directions he was sure I had messed up. We left every baseball game early. He had to be the one to drive.  He vetoed off-beat restaurants, and off the beaten path attractions, and unplanned festivals that we came across. There was anger about closed restaurants, and broken room locks, and boats that rocked too much.  There was anger about orders that were wrong, and tired waitstaff, and having to wait. And always there were snarky remarks, and barely veiled insults, and absolutely zero gratitude. I eventually, maybe even naturally, stopped asking, and just gave in to the required compliance.   I stopped making decisions because they would always be wrong anyway, and I was sure to know it with the sulkiness, or the heaviness of just how unhappy he was about absolutely everything. Unhappy and angry and I could do nothing about it if I didn’t want to be the target.  And I was the target often, just subtle enough so it was unnoticed by others, and certain to be denied by him.  That left us doing nothing, because without my planning, without my enthusiasm to experience, he had no ideas of what to do (besides restaurants, because admittedly he was always good at restaurant reservations), and certainly not any ability to convey it even if he had. I had given in to all my codependent past behaviors and hadn’t even noticed.  

Even today (yes, today, about 20 minutes ago), when he texted me, he was completely unwilling to do anything more, be anything more. Everything consistently transactional (I had dropped off his keys and an article of clothing he asked for while I was in SF over the weekend), with him attempting complete control, but still being clueless. It makes writing all this down (since I was in the middle of writing it all down when I received the text) even more important.

But what does all this have to do with planning this summer’s vacation?  Glad you asked.

I don’t want to have anyone else telling me what I need to do while on a trip, but it has been so long since I made any real decisions without deferring to someone else's desires that I am having a hard time deciding about it at all.  Do I stay in Vienna for just the party, or for longer?  Do I stay in a family space, or do I find a hotel?  Do I go over to Portugal? Italy? Germany? France? Spain? Do I go by train? Is it cheaper to decide once I am there? Do I stay in a B&B or a hostel or a posh hotel? Do I bring gobs of checked luggage, or like a pair of jeans and some laundry detergent? Tourists, rental cars, maps, souvenirs?  Fuck me, when did I forget how to do this?  And fuck it if I am going to let anyone else decide this time. Even in my near catatonic reaction to my own vacation plans, I know that much.

So I am stuck.  Grand adventure to a once in a lifetime party, or taking out a tape measure to see if my hair is long enough to donate?

Instead, I will publish this blog. 

And, amazingly, I made one decision.

I have a hair appointment tomorrow.

The day to day of a working girl

Tomorrow marks the end of the first three weeks at my new job.  I am bored.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the new job.  I just already know it.  Like pretty much everything about it.  I have done this kind of work for years, and but for a couple little tricks and local policies, this is the same job.

The cons: 

The new office location is in the basement of a really wonderful building.  Truly, the architecture is wonderful, the grounds are wonderful, the artwork is wonderful. I just don’t have a window to see any of it. And worse, the basement means zero cell reception.  So while I can connect to the network and have internet on my personal device, I cannot receive any phone calls or texts. None.  Which meant that I changed all the emergency numbers for my kids’ schools to my actual office number and I now receive all of my school notices for things like PTA meetings and basketball games to my work voicemail.  The upside is that I have visual voicemail so it gets sent to my email to listen to or read.  The downside is I have visual voicemail so it gets sent to my email to listen to or read. It is funny that the same technology cannot enter TWO numbers at the school in case my child is bleeding to death, but it CAN call me 17 a day to remind me that my child needs a good night’s sleep. Basement location is a con.

The new office is super friendly.  Which means you say hi to everyone.  Every six seconds or so. We have a bell the clients can ring if, for some strange reason, we did not see you standing there, saying hi every six seconds. And more than a few people we have already said hi to think that ringing the bell is just sweet, like a noise that we would not find annoying because, well, they said hi while ringing it.  Super friendly like, and often while giggling about ringing it to begin with.  Three weeks in, and you would not believe how many people ring the bell when we are actually talking to them.

The work never changes.  There are no problems to solve (but for the little bit of learning curve already mentioned). It is the same thing, different person.  Truly it is the same questions, the same logic, the same concerns.  We babysit everyone, and (see above) they are super friendly about it, but really, three weeks in, and unless there is some specialized type of something that comes up, this will be it. Every day. Forever.

There is not enough work.  I know that this should not even matter, because I make the same money, don’t have to fight for parking, have a computer, nice coworkers, music to listen to, a fan on my desk, and a cool stapler. And a friend pointed out to me that maybe I just forgot what a normal workload looks like, because it had been so long since I had had a normal workload, that this just might be what people who have regular jobs do. Like they go home at the end of the day with a semi clean desk and having accomplished some things, and then the work just continues without being fucking stupid busy all the fucking time (clearly I still have some resentment about my last job). But I feel like I could use a little more work to fill my day.  Even if it was just more of the same, just a bit MORE would be good.

I see military officers all day.  Like fit, hardworking military officers.  Sexy, hot, funny, intelligent military officers.  This should not be in the con section, right? Um, yeah, they are all really young, relatively arrogant, and taken.  Yep, married/ engaged/ GF/ BF/ committed.  So eye candy, but not a single actual prospect for dates and stuff. 

The pros:

It is not my old job.

I have plenty of time to update my resume and apply for other jobs and it does not even effect my work.  Like not at all. Work is done, still got time. No one even questions it, like I am adult who can manage my time and all, all by myself. *snicker*

See this blog?  Yeah, I got to write it at work. Best. Pro. Ever.

 

 

 

Emotional seaglass

I went for a walk on the beach this afternoon.  Seems like the usual thing to do when you end a relationship, it’s Father’s Day and your dad died 7 weeks ago, it is the Summer Solstice, and, in the absence of any clarity, you just keep moving. 

This is not a bash-my-ex kind of blog, not really.  Anyone that knows me will tell you that I write to release emotions, tell my story so that I can find my own journey and responsibility, learn, in some written flash of brilliant insight, and stop the spinning in my head that keeps me from taking it to the next level.  This should be like that (keeping fingers crossed) because really I am not clear, possibly about anything, and this is how I cope.

So I was walking on the beach at Surf and Tide.  A wonderful beach for families and bbqs and all the kinds of things that you would expect from a summer weekend when the weather is nice.  Low tide meant lots of things to look at, and since I was there to avoid families (feeling a little like I don’t have one now, both by design (the break up) and uncontrollable circumstances (my kids with their dad for the weekend, duh, and my first father’s day without my own dad) I wasn’t really in the mood to people watch.  I was in the mood to find seaglass.  Like a ton of it. Nothing says emotional stability like broken glass, right?  I needed to have something to use to slit my wrists or at least cut my foot.  Pain, I was looking for pain.  Feel anything, Elise, anything at all.  I hadn’t cried about any of it yet, and with my biggest fear always being that I will feel nothing, and no one will come get me because I will be invisible, this was a rather pathetic goal. Wallowing and shallow, and completely twisted in its fucked up kind of misery, but a goal.

So I rolled up my pant legs, took off my shoes, and started walking. No glass.  I kept walking, closer to the shoreline. No glass.  I went into the surf, took off my sunglasses so I could see the reflection of the light.  Still no glass.  Surf and Tide to Wharf #2, almost 2 miles and NO FUCKING GLASS.

What I did get was out of my head.  I couldn’t think my way through this.  I was smack raw in the middle of emotions I had been holding under for a really long time, and now, all I was getting was anger. No glass, and I had been looking.  Trying. Knowing it was out there, I just needed to be smarter about it, more careful about it, more sure about it.  And nothing.  Not one thing.  Empty beach, empty heart, emptiness that truly had been there for months.

On Friday, in an attempt to just be out of my office and away from my boss (a sleazy oily little man with zero integrity) I had attended a workshop billed as an opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship.  Starting business, finding capital, blah blah blah.  If you look up Steve Blank, or Phil Randazzo, you will understand that there were going to be some heavy hitters, and I could learn a lot, if I cared.  I didn’t.  I just wanted an excuse to have my place of duty be somewhere else, and this was perfect. 

I knew I was in a place of transition with my job, my writing, my now-over relationship, but hadn’t any clue how to start the conversations necessary to make the leap to the next level.  How quickly or slowly I made that leap was entirely in my hands.  I was stuck in old patterns of thought, though I didn’t know it yet. Though by noon on Friday, in the middle of a small-business workshop, I had just listened to a speaker who had nothing to do with any business dealing, talking to us about clarity, and moving forward, and finding authenticity, and making decisions about relationships, and not settling.

I had a light bulb moment, with not many skills to act on it.  I had made a decision about my relationship needing to move into something else (I had already defined it as friendship in my head by the end of the talk) and while this was not really going to be a fun conversation, I knew both Jim and I would be happier about it if we could stay talking as openly and honestly as we had for the last nine months, and could become an amazing life long friendship.  I was excited.  Petrified, and confused, but excited.

Oh yeah, I guess I need to say something about my relationship at this point.  I have been in a relationship with what I can only describe as a complex man for the last nine months.  We met online, he asked me out, and we met three days later.  Just breakfast. No real touching, but the conversation and energy (in my heart) had me knowing I was already heading into something deeper than casual dating.  I also knew he was an alcoholic.  He admitted much later, after he had been sober for a few months, that our first few dates he had been pretty much drinking heavily.  I knew that.  It kept me at a distance, and I even wrote a blog about it in a couple months in (if you want to go back and find it, it is in Nov 2014) But he was changing, our conversations were becoming deeper, meaningful.  We stopped being guarded, if we ever actually were.  I was totally present, always authentic.  I never, not even once hid who I am from him.  Our dates became days.  Our days became weekends.  We didn’t do much more than cook or hang out, sometimes going here or there, but always there was conversation. Intimacy that rivaled anything I had ever done, and he said it was new and scary for him too.  The physical was a chore, neither one of us being what had been usual for past relationships, but it was good when it happened, and (again, in my heart) based in love and true affection, the way I had always thought long term relationships ended up with each persons desires ebbing and flowing, and negotiable.  I was liking it a lot, letting the love portion fill me up as the emotional intimacy grew. 

That probably would have been fine, but for the addiction.  Turns out that old relationships can be addictive, too.  Bad ones.  Ones that feel normal because it is all you had ever known.  Ones that you seek when emotional intimacy scares you, and the physical with the other person was the best thing about your world.  That happened in a full blown, and completely caught in lie two months ago.  I should have walked away then, when already I was compromising some my more intellectual desires for travel and adventure, and for shared reading, and for activism.  I had already convinced myself that I could do without those things because the man was kind and open and as we grew we would find out own paths both separately and together and start sharing support and love in whole new ways.  I was sure of it until that moment, the lie, and instead of being a fucking bitch, I listened and kept and open mind and found the time to admit my own struggles and found a level of forgiveness I didn’t even know I had. 

I know this now to be my codependency showing up in this relationship too, and I was determined not to go down that path.  Delusional somewhat, (okay, calling my own BS, completely delusional) but it was okay because I would talk with him, we would work it out because that was what love looked like in our world, and in the world I always thought I wanted to create inside of relationships, different from what I have ever done before.  The real me.  The trusting me.  The authentic me.  And sadly, in the process, I taught him how to treat me.  It became acceptable to lie, and then the lie became inevitable.  No matter what we talked about from that second on, the possibility to lie would always be there. And, because of fear, addiction, not moving forward on his own clarity, I became invisible.

Invisible?  Yeah.  I knew everything about this other woman in his life, and she knew nothing about me.  Well, maybe about my presence, kinda sorta, but nothing what-so-ever about the relationship we had created.  Nothing about the conversations. Nothing about the promises and commitments.  Nothing about plans, though vague, and had each of us committed to staying, to asking to stay, to not leaving out any conversation, about never being afraid, and showing up and making the emotional intimacy the strongest most important thing in our lives.  Creating bonds, that even if not clear, would be strong enough and we would build a friendship that would be able to weather anything just because it could.  I already knew that kind of emotionally intimate bond could happen, because I gratefully have one with someone else (who, when he reads this, and he will, will know how grateful I am).  So I was sure that all my effort, all my staying in truth and love was totally worth it, even if/when our relationship changed. 

That seems to not be that case on his end.  Seems, when it came to conversation he was having with this other woman, I meant nothing.  In the version she got, I was barely a friend.  We had never kissed. We had never touched.  We had never made love. Our conversations were shallow. His attraction to me was nonexistent. His words of commitment and love to me (and my children) had never happened.  I was completely invisible in his life. Unloved, unimportant, and unclaimed.

Whether or not any of that is actually true, I have no way of knowing. But what I do know is that on Friday I knew something had to change.  Something life changing.  Something about me, and I invited him along to join me in this leap forward.  A chance for us to get MORE emotionally entwined, but in a more healthy way, something new for both of us.  Something that gave me my visibility and dignity back, and allowed him to step up his vulnerability and truth, both.  Change. The next level. Clarity. Serenity.

Saturday morning, more of the misnamed entrepreneur seminar continued.  I had invited Jim, signed him up, almost begged him to come.  I knew something amazing was about to happen, and I wanted him to be part of it.  I love(d) him that much that even as I was becoming more clear that our relationship would be changing, I saw it as a positive, where we could both grow and understand and find clarity in our path.  I heard more words of inspiration about keeping yourself in light and honesty. I was sought out by a teacher/coach who listened to me for more than a half hour explain my fears and short comings and taking myself for granted an allowing that from other people.  I was taught words and techniques and feelings about how to improve my life right that minute with a tiny shift of the compass needle (and a little help from Jesus and some black magic) I would move my relationship, my thoughts, my life into a 100% better place, even if the change meant doing things differently.  I was clear for the frist time in months.  I knew.  I could not go back.  I was excited to share this with Jim. To help him grow, too.  To understand there is enough joy and light and happiness in the world for everyone, and we could both have it and still love each other.

As is true in my world for every time I am in transition, that did not happen.  In the course of one evening, one morning, and one short afternoon, both of our lives had changed.  I was moving out of codependency and towards more authenticity, and he had allowed the presence of the other woman to change his path away from his spoken choices. While I was seeking friendship, he was seeking dissolution.  Every conversation about growth together, every commitment we ever made to staying honest with each other, ever scared and unclear step that we had made together, was gone in one very pointed telephone conversation.  I was not given the chance to share everything I had just discovered, because he walked away.  His fear and insecurity and inability to change his past had just evaporated the us we had created.  I had a place of strength.  He had gone back to his past. He did not give me the courtesy I had asked that we talk and share in person.  He emotionally vomited all over me, and did so without any courage, over the phone within earshot of the woman who was now in control of his world.  The selfish alcoholic he had been 6 months ago was back, even if he hadn’t picked up.  I was just one more lie.

So all this came to me as I sat there at the end of the beach, angry, without seaglass or any other implements to commit suicide (ok, I am not suicidal.  This is a blog, and I am a writer who has some emotional license, get real folks).  And as I started to cry, realizing I hadn’t yet, I looked up and saw a single shiny piece of copper amber glass, not two inches from my foot.   I picked it up.  I laughed.   There was my sign, right in the fucking middle of my path, that I was on the right journey.  I got up.  Stopped my head spin right then, and used the gifts I had been given over the previous day to steady me.  Strengthen me. Lift me.  Reframe my way of thinking. 

And I did.  My reframing got me to where my father was not suffering any more and could be, if I was of a heaven and hell kinda nature, be holding my son in some really comfy chair in the pasture of forever.  My reframing got me to where I could see Jim as flawed and worthy, but not someone who could meet my needs, maybe not ever, as long as he keeps himself in darkness, and I don’t have the ability to stay there. I like the light, it is not an illusion.  I know better.  And I could also see how his absence in my path, though heartbreakingly sad in this moment (and it is, I am kinda a mess missing him, if I am honest), just created a space for the next level person to occupy.  I had no ability to invite that into my world with my honesty if I was too busy keeping closed with me moving pieces, that didn’t quite work, around hoping to find the fit.  I will be worth it, and not invisible.

On the walk back to the beginning of the beach, along the same exact path I had come, I found dozens of pieces of glass.  Shiny. Easy to see.  Right there in my path.  I did not even have to look for them.  It was easy. Showing me that I need to remember that even things right in front of you can’t be seen without the right mindset.  And that once I change my game, change what is acceptable, the path becomes inevitable.  A whole collection of seaglass to prove it.

Fake Flowers and other 5th grade tragedies

I continue to struggle with what is real and what is not real in my world.

There are only 6 days left of school, and my son is feeling every single one.  In his world, he stopped learning things of any value a month ago.  To his defense, he is one of the smartest, fastest learning kids around.  Things in his head just click, and common core standards have left him bored with the lessons that are taught 12 different ways so that everyone gets it, when he got it the first time, finished all the lessons and enhancement materials on the first day, and has to sit, often for another week, with nothing to do.  This in not a whine about the failing health of the school system in California, or even a justification to let him be a slacker (I don’t let him, read on), but more of a baseline for how to balance what is real and what is not. 

My son is 11.  He has started puberty.  Yes, every bit of it.  Hair, height, food, sleep patterns, disgusting smells, and the over use of hair gel. What has also come with it, for an overly intuitive, smart ass, super witty, hysterically funny kid, is a complete sense of loss of reality.  His body doesn’t quite fit, his voice doesn’t quite sound right, his desires don’t quite match his abilities, his logic is totally flawed even when the argument is flawless, and he is angry. Angry, like all of the time.  There is zero justice in the world, good things happen to bad people, while good people get hurt, and he gets no say.  He has decided that the real world is not to his liking, and since there are no actual requirements to participate, why bother.  He has already passed 5^th grade even if he does not go to school for the rest of the year, so why bother.  It, for him is one more way that the world is showing him that it hates him.

But that’s not real.  The world does not hate him.  The world, more than likely does not give a damn about him.  But I do. 

He may have figured that out.  I mean, I am the person he is taking all this anger out on, and I am the one that hasn’t left. Anger is real. He gets to have that and I get that it is testosterone infused emotion, fueled by introspection, and a little bit of laziness. He hates transitions.  And in a world full of them, especially in his recent past, he is struggling. He is questioning his place in the universe, his value as measured by someone else, and how to break out of that while still wanting to be taken care of.  How much of the real world, (that couldn’t care less about his 5^th grade science project), does he still have to put up with before he can be done. And does he, in the true sense of the world, need to rely on anyone else for his own sense of freedom.  If everything in his world is subject to change, how does he know what is real?  If everything can change, his body, his heart, his mind, that what can he rely on.

On the sill of a bay window, in a kitchen I have been spending a lot of time in recently, there is a new bouquet of artificial flowers.  They are sorta pretty, until your realize the red is too-red, and the green is too-green, and the narcissus are too-white to be actual paper-whites.  I won’t even talk about the Styrofoam and glass marbles in the clear vase hat make up the base, because there is no water.  No movement. 

I know how the flowers got there, and heard the story of why they are preferred.  It seems fake flowers are preferred because they do not change.  There is no fading of color.  There is no stagnation of water.  There is no dropping of dried petals or crinkled leaves.  There is never any imperfection.

I thought about this for quite a while, about why this might be a desire at all.  I got it, the need for stability, to have something in the world on which you rely, which you can predict to be the same.  Lasting.  Forever.

Except nothing is forever.  Everything changes. Lasting, without change, is not true. The only thing real is that which you create.  Real requires work.  Fake, well, fake is an illusion.  A mask.  A charlatan’s crystal ball.  No one gets to know what happens.

So as I try to explain to my son that everything changes, nothing (including the school year) is forever, how do I also help him know that I am real?

This week some of that belief about what is real, and what is not, hit me.  With some words I did not create, I was labeled as invisible. Non-existent and dismissed inside of a world I was creating.  This hurt me more than I realized when I thought it through, but not for the reasons you might think.  Yes, I still have all my deep seeded fears about no one ever getting to know me, and about no one seeing me, and well, about being disposable and worthless as judged by my mere existence.  I know the words were just words of self-protection and zero ability in the moment to make the hurt stop, truly.  What hurt was my own self-doubt that I could change.  What if I was the fake flowers, pretty for a time, but with no substance?  What if I really was surface and shallow and not able to adapt and learn?  What if my being real, flaws and all, wasn’t enough?

So I picked real anyway.  I am real.  I adapt and I change.  I will not stay the same, without growth and I decided to try this in practice.  What if all this frustration my son is feeling is much the same as my feeling of not wanting to be fake (I mean, really, how many more times do you have to do math papers you aced three months ago just to get to the end of the semester). 

I want my world messy. Calm, easy, moving forward, but messy.  I want leaves on the counter from real bouquets. I want conversations that are hard but real, and filled with love.  I want to change the way I do things even as I make mistakes.  I want my son to get that, too, that I will change with him as his needs changes, and we will be okay as we figure it out.  That transitions are real, and that I will help him through it as I transition myself.  I want him to see that modeled in my life with other people who are real so that he can see that change is okay, and maybe grasp some (of my hard learned) lessons that life and love are fluid, always adapting.  I hope he sees other models in his life doing the same.

It is exciting.  Scary.  Terrifying, actually.  To get to move out of fake and in to real.  I also hope I get brought flowers (apricot-colored tea roses and dutch irises are my favorite, just in case you need to know that), and I will happily clean up the fallen leaves to open up space for more real in my world.  Join me.

Spilled Perfume

This took me three days to write, so forgive me that it is long, and kinda all over the map.  Maybe you will understand.

I woke up on Sunday morning desperately lonely.  Please don’t think this blog is now about some poor-girl pity party.  It isn’t.  Read on.

On Saturday, after having an experience that is all too few in my recent years (my last blog, if you want to know what happened), I went off and did some other wonderful things, all by myself. I shopped for clothes (something I rarely do).  I went for a drive up the coast.  I took out my drawing materials and played with watercolor pencils I hadn’t gotten around to trying yet, though I purchased them over a year ago.  I rode my bike. I went to the movies.  I read.  All completely delightful, and totally needed, and refreshing in a personal kind of way that we all need once in a while.  Especially in the happiness I had been feeling since early that morning, and the adventure I had opened myself up to. I could even use the word divine.

So Sunday, when I woke up, what I most wanted to do was share that.  And by share (I confirmed with a friend via Facebook) was collaborate.  I wanted Sunday to not be about me, per se, but about the possibility for connection and trust.  About giving and getting, without having to walk around any issues, or hide any feelings, or pretend to be something I am not.  Or to ask, and for no other reason than convenience, have your really basic needs rejected.  I wanted someone else to totally get what I was saying, and “share” their perspective and help me move forward, as I was helping them.  Staying in the moment, because if I don’t have the time to do it right the first time, when will I ever have time to fix it.

It took me a long long time to get motivated.  I had woke up alone, in my house that was empty, without any clue who I could find that piece with. 

I was gratefully enough to find one friend that dialed back after I had called him.  I hadn’t left a message, because my need felt too immediate to wait through a voicemail.  I was lonely, and before I could move, I needed a human voice.

It shocked me that at first, I couldn’t speak.  The word “hello” came out more as a sob as I realized I hadn’t actually spoken to anyone, not one person, in over 24 hours.  All that time I spent in my own head, and doing ONLY things for me had left a void.  It had not made space for real connection.  Real communication.  Real people. Voices and words, and not typing on a screen, or a post to the ether of a social media site.  I had missed that PEOPLE in my life are not just a function, but a necessity.

After he and I hung up, I made a plan for the day.  A little experiment based on things that I was unsure about from the previous 48 hours or so.  Social connection or solitude?  Friendships based in mutual dynamics leading to deep understand, or head-clearing aloneness?  Me? Them? Us?  How did it fit, what did I want, where are my strengths, and what is missing?  And when I have known what is missing, did I ask for it?  And more importantly, did I ask the right person?

As part of my now motivated quest, I made some rules for myself to follow for the rest of Sunday.

First, I had to try to see if what one person I know suggested would help.  (Trusting the advice of others is part of the whole building real connection thing I am going for here.) He said what works for him is going to the beach, and “seeing” the white noise.  My thought was that every time I have tried one of those “white noise” machines I have only heard nails on a chalkboard.  It annoyed me, like mosquitoes in my ears, and the idea of having that be my visual scared me.  Would I get lost in the noise, or would it, like it does for him, help you think of nothing? A perfect little tool of not having to have the noise in your head at all.

So I went to the beach.  I tried to think of the waves washing over me, the light being just a warm spot, of the noise from the crash of the surf as the only thing I needed at the time.  A way to slow down.

I failed miserably, if the idea was to see and feel nothing.  The thoughts in my head are always there, always require my attention.  I noticed the way the sand felt under my feet, the way it shifted, the grains, the change in colors as each swell retreated and the water absorbed back into the shore.  I noticed the people, swimming, walking, playing.  I saw them getting wet, the legs on their pants changing from pale to dark.  I noticed how their shirts pushed against their bodies in ripples as the wind shifted.  I watched as the birds did the same, moving their bodies to give them the balance and grace to stay aloft.  I picked up sea glass, but left the shells.  I smelled the seaweed and the ash from the night before’s bonfires.  I heard the laughter. 

And each little piece, each little space of someone else’s experience was interwoven with mine.  I knew the sand, and could remember days at the beach.  Foggy ones. Bright ones.  Rainy ones.  Days filled with talk and play, and hand holding, and searching, and every other thing I could have possibly done at the beach was right there with me, right in that moment.  There was no white noise.  The space was full.

I did learn a few things while there, though. 1) I have a hole in the bottom of my (formerly) favorite sandals. 2) I can’t touch the fronts of my knees and the backs of my heels together at the same time (admit it, you just tried).  If you just said “yeah, um, duh”, then I have to confess that I have never tried this before, or probably never even thought about it before Sunday.  And 3) I don’t want to find the white noise.  I absolutely, without a doubt, want to think, feel, see, hear, remember and know EVERYTHING.  It is all going to be there anyway, so trying to push it away in hopes that I can find nothing is not even remotely appealing.

So this brings me to my second “rule”.  I had to talk to people.  There were no rules about what this talking would entail, just that it would happen.  I was going to start conversations with anyone and everyone I wanted to. 

One conversation was between me, the sales lady, and another customer in an art gallery, about these beautiful artisan made earrings, and the story of calla lilies that inspired them.  We talked and laughed, and shared stories about our own favorite pairs of earrings, and getting our ears pierced and our daughters.   The lady and I each ended up buying handmade earring the sales lady had behind the counter.  She apparently had been making these earrings for a long time, and was too shy to ask her boss to put them out for sale, so she just had them in a plastic bag near the cleaning supplies.  This could have been a really good sale ploy, but I doubted it.  The woman was shy, and not at all confident about just how much her artistry would be appreciated.  She did not have them priced, and I paid $10 for my pair of silver and amethyst dangles.  I wore them all day, smiling.

Another conversation was with a man buying an antique lamp for his wife for her birthday.  He knew what she wanted (apparently she had picked it out the weekend before, good man!) and he just wanted to know why women liked these things.  I thought the lamp was ugly, and told him so.  He laughed and wondered how long it would be before he could sell it at a garage sale.  He hoped she was not putting it in the bedroom because it was a serious mood killer.

I overheard as the owner of another shop I wandered into left a message on someone else’s voicemail.  He told the guy (I assumed it was a guy) on the other end that he understood about never being able to reach him because of his overwhelming social calendar, but did he realize that when he died, there would be no one at his funeral because just because you are always busy with people did not mean you actually had any friends (I have no way to describe just how much sarcasm and humor was in this message, except to use the word “dripping”.)   This cracked me up, made me sad, and was the most perfect opening for a conversation I have ever heard.  I asked the shop owner about his message, and why the recipient of the message did not have any friends.  We talked about how friends actually share (see, there was a theme here) and connect.  I agreed, and told him that I did not expect anyone, and especially not friends or partners, to have a clue what I need if I don’t bother to tell them.  They are not mind readers, divining my desires out of thin air. We did both think that if we asked someone directly for something we wanted or needed, and the answer was vague, or worse, complete rejection, maybe we ought to decide if their role in our lives is friendship, or just an event on a list.  Both would be okay, but confusing the two is what we both had a problem with.  In his case, the person he left the message for really was just a social engagement, but that he enjoyed the little bit of smugness that went with reminding the person of just how shallow they really were.   I told him that in my case, it seems I was trying to ask for what I wanted, and I had recently either been getting crickets or flat-out refused.  We both thought that maybe picking that kind of “friend”, one who wouldn’t or couldn’t connect in any real way, could move over into the “pink pages”  (so glad he knew the Chronicle reference) of our lives.

After that conversation, I had one of those light bulb moments as I figured out the lonely part of how I started my day.  I want, no, I CRAVE the genuine connection.  Without it, I am feeling lost.  I don’t want a full social calendar if the people in it are superficial.  Dancing is fun. But it is always more fun if you have someone (even just one person) who also thinks the band is not really that good but will dance anyway.  Parties are fun.  But it is always so much better when you find someone (even just one person) who will sit on a couch in the corner and tell you about that summer they spent on a crowded train on the way to Paris.  A concert is fun.  But it is always so much nicer when you have someone (even just one person) who understands why you can’t sit on the blue blanket, or why you need a band t-shirt in mint green.  It would always be because some how you had a connection.  One that kept both of us in the moment.

There is a line (from a country song, of course) about the difference between being lonely, and being lonely for way too long.  I am somewhere in between, but seeking the connection. It is missing, and I know it. 

So I am asking.

Boldly going

This morning, while thinking about the potentially stupid way I may have acted last night, I decided to do one more potentially stupid thing.

 

I read that sentence to my breakfast partner, and he says that stupid is not a good descriptor.  Reckless, and serendipitous (there is a wonderful word in Spanish that I can’t even begin to pronounce that this is the best translation for, I am told), but not stupid.

 

Okay, so after drinking more than I should have, and putting faith in someone I should not have, I get this gift. 

 

Guiermo sits next to me, reading over my shoulder periodically as he types away on his laptop and watches the soccer game.  He is from Brazil. And only in Monterey last night and today for a few hours before heading off to LA.  I vaguely remember giving him my email, and potentially a phone number, though if it is mine I cannot say. (He is looking at the slip of paper.  Yep, mine. The fact that he had it in his wallet is shocking and makes me smile at the same time).  I completely remember the kiss (oh, I just made him blush, which got another kiss, so not so bad).

The reckless, serendipitous, potentially stupid part is that I did not go home with him last night, and instead hunted him down this morning where he was staying and brought him donuts. (He laughs). This could have backfired in a ton of different ways.  It didn’t.

 

This is new.  When I was writing yesterday about moving into the unknown without fear, this was not what I expected.  I was totally thinking about someone else, and trying to fit an open friendship into a space where none exists.  Sitting next to Gui, (a man I have now known for about 2.5 hours), as he checks his email, and drinks an Americano (he thinks this is a funny name for coffee with milk), is already more intimate and vulnerable than I have been in years.  He is 15 years younger than me, has beautiful green eyes, and when we kiss good bye after breakfast (he just asked if it will really be only a kiss?), we will more than likely never see each other again.  The conversation has been about love, and adventure, and being present.  It has been about risk, and about the benefits of actually being open to anything, in a way that is not words, and not selfish.  Donuts, it seems, is a very open gesture.  And the same thing that made talking to him last night amazing, is what makes me miss him already.

 

He makes me promise that I won’t forget what today feels like. That he knows that I know this, but that somewhere along the way I pushed it aside.  This part that is life, all flaws and unknown.  A kindred spirit. 

 

No rocks anywhere.

 

It is time for him to go.  I am excited for what the rest of my reckless day may bring.

Becoming Captain Kirk

I have some amazing friends in my life.  I cannot deny how grateful I am for them, daily, for love and support.  They constantly challenge my beliefs about myself, and, when necessary, make me think about it when words won’t come.  At least not words that make any sense while I am saying them for sure.  I am a pretty articulate woman, so when those times happen (and they are not explained away by the half a bottle of wine sitting on the counter), I have to go back and figure out why I could not explain what I really meant.  Did I actually mean it at all?

This happened the other night while talking to a friend. Granted, I had been drinking wine earlier in the evening, but I drove myself home, and hadn’t had any more.  So when he and I were talking, and the topic of relationships came up, of course, vulnerability was part of the conversation.

Vulnerable is one of those things we all have to be, while also being strong and in control.  It is the process of trusting someone else to not fuck you over if you share a part of yourself.  

So the conversation went something like this:  

“What keeps you from being vulnerable?”

“Fear.”

“Fear of what?”

 “The unknown.”

 (Yeah, he and I probably need to get past some of our one-word responses.  It is a process.  We will work on it.)

This is what had me inarticulate. 

Sure, we all have fears.  I am not a really big fan of snakes, or being in really really enclosed spaces (that might have snakes).  But the unknown?  I am not so sure.

So I thought about it.  Like, a lot.  And what came out of it (besides this blog) is that no, I am not fearful of the unknown.  I am completely and totally afraid of the known.  Not all the known.  Just the painful known.  Of the known, happening again. 

Imagine this scenario (because we are talking about vulnerability in relationships, right?).  You are on a date.  Maybe you have been on a few already, and getting to know this person is going well enough.  And then something is said.  Maybe it is something about a childhood trauma.  Maybe it is something about the way a former relationship ended.  Maybe it is a comment about weight or exercise, or parenting.  Maybe it is about alcohol. Or drugs.

 Whatever it is, all of a sudden, in my head, I know everything about this.  I have done all this.  Don’t like museums?  Yeah, one of my exes didn’t either.  Don’t have the patience for children being sick?  Yep, a guy I dated before didn’t either.  Been in rehab, had a “fat” wife, won’t get on an airplane, passed out at a cousin’s wedding, can’t read a novel, allergic to chocolate, hate cats?

I get lost in all this noise.  I hear all the things I already know spinning in my head.  I write the story before you tell it.  Have the questions and the solutions to any problem you have, and you don’t even need to ask me about it.  I got this.  I know what is going to happen next.  I have already been there.  In the cases of things I have no desire to repeat, the big red flag I threw for you without you even knowing it has just made me shut down.  Vulnerable? Oh hell no.  That giant pile of rocks you see in front of you?  Yeah, that is the scrap left over from the monstrous wall I just built.  You are not getting in, because I know how this ends.

So this makes the unknown my friend, right?  What is so scary about having something brand new? 

The known, for some, is a comfortable place to be.  It feels warm, and homey. Settle in right now, and don’t worry about the shit in the corner.  I don’t like that place (read some of my other blog posts if you need specifics).  The place most people feel comfortable, for me is lonely.  I know it too well.  I have lived in it too long.  It is not an old pair of jeans that fit all the curves, that you love.  It is pair of shoes with holes that keep getting pebbles.  I can throw the pebbles away, but the pain from having to do it over and over is old. I don’t want those blisters anymore.  I think I may have already run out of Band-Aids.

So, back to the gratitude I feel for friends.   They are showing me a new way.  Challenging me to think about it in a way I haven’t before.  The unknown.  It is actually a good place to be.  I am not fearful of that.  Creating a new world, one small blog post at a time.

 

Crackerjacks and Insulin

Last week, my father spent five nights in the hospital.

It was not the first time this year he was there, and I have no doubt it will not be the last.  He is 84.  He is diabetic.  He has had colon cancer removed.  He has a heart issue that can best be described as failure from an unknown cause.  He has severe back pain from years and years of climbing in and out of a dump truck and using the heavy foot-operated pedals to do his job.

He was a heavy smoker for almost 60 years, quitting only after his heart doctor could not hear his heart with a stethoscope through the congestion in his lungs. I think that might have something to do with all the shortness of breath, but no one wants to say that because he quit 13 years ago, and no one wants to admit that crappy choices for decades could have anything to do with right now.

And right now, well, that is all we are concerned with.  Comfort, prolonging, and more comfort.

Our conversations while I visited him in the hospital usually revolved around his medical condition, his medications, and his daily routine.  And baseball.  Always baseball.  So while looking up the scores for the day before’s games, we talked about the nose bleeds.  While comparing pitching stats, we talked about sugar levels.  While watching the play from third for out number two, we discussed how to get in and out of the shower, and if we need to install grab bars, or ramps for the outside stairs.

He did not want to have any of these conversations. I don’t blame him, I didn’t want to have them, either.  We will need to have more because my mom is exhausted, and worried, and couldn’t possible lift him to help him get to the bathroom if it comes down to that.  Right now he is home, and stable.  But he is tired, so tired.

In the midst of all this conversation about health and baseball, the one thing my dad did want to talk about was me, my kids, and what, in his opinion, I am not doing right.

It took all my effort not to yell at him, or walk out. Instead, I listened to him say that my house repairs are behind, my yard work and fence needed to be taken care of and made presentable, and how he had not, in his entire life, ever taken more than a two-week a year vacation.

All those things are true.  I probably should finish putting in my baseboards, and replacing the sink and toilet in the Master bath.  I probably should pull out the dead plants in my front yard, and take the ugly watering hoses to the dump.  I probably should care that I don’t have a lawn, nor will I be winning any Yard-of-the-Month awards from my city. I actually feel blessed that they have not ticketed me for leaving my garbage cans on the street for days after the regular pick up.  What is not true is that I have any regrets that I take my kids on vacation to wherever we can go at every opportunity I have.

I knew, as my dad was complaining about my yard, and my garage, and about my vacation choices, that he was not really looking for me to say anything back.  He wasn’t even really mad at me about what I was doing, and why.  I don’t think he was really expecting me to suddenly like yard work (I haven’t in 48 years, so not like I will be starting that up any time soon), or for me to put a priority on painting my hallway. I will get to it, eventually.  I always do.

 And while I know that he thinks I should probably not be taking my kids to Kansas City in July (our next road trip) in favor of spending the money on a weed-whacker and a good handyman, I don’t think it was about me at all.  I think the entire conversation was about him.  About his decisions.  And about him being scared that I was judging his choices, for a perfect yard and no vacation, as something missing in my life, and maybe, in the long run, something he missed in his, by doing something different.

I will admit, I made that choice a long time ago, to not be him.  Not because of any judgment I have that his choices were wrong, but just that I wanted something different with my children.  I am grateful for the home and the security of my parent’s house.  I never wanted for anything, all  of the basic needs taken care of, though we were not rich.  I had clothes and food. I had a bike.  I always had gifts and parties for birthdays and Christmas.  I also have zero memory of a movie with my parents, or a museum with them, or a trip to a national monument or place of interest.

Every year we went on vacation.  Two weeks of camping, and either fishing or hunting.  The camping involved a trailer and cooking every meal.  The fishing was trout, either stream-fishing or fly-fishing.  The hunting was deer or boar, but since I never went out with my dad, I don’t actually know what that was about.  My experience of it (contrary to the memories my brother is sure to have) is that I sat around a lot, bored because I never brought enough books or paper or art supplies, in the dust and heat of whatever remote campsite near a lake that we were at.  I should sound more grateful that I was allowed nature, and any form of recreation, but I feel like I missed something.

The memories I have of vacations with my dad is of him, as I watched from the bank, as he fly-fished.  I have one intense memory of a wasp nest swarming because we parked our trailer a little too close. I remember the rifle shot that echoed from the hillside as my father and brother went after a deer that was illegally shot by someone else, and was now suffering and dying because of it.  They never fired a shot, but the sound is still in my ears, and I am still a slight bit frightened by the memory some 35 years later.

I have never been anywhere else with my parents.  No skiing trips.  No drive-ins.  No city cafes.  We never took a ferry.  We never went on a train.  We never took a trolley, or a gondola, or a horse.  We did the same thing, every year, once a year, for as long as I can remember.  There is no judgment about if this is right or wrong.  It is just is.  I wondered why the memory I have of losing a fish from the line one year is so strong , when it struck me that it is just because there were no other memories to hold on to that could make this small one less significant.

I picked something different for how I spend my time with my kids.  We have been to Yosemite, and Washington DC.  We have taken a train to Denver and a plane to Seattle.  We have visited monuments and historical places, and taken ferries to offbeat islands with weird little artist’s colonies.  We have gone to plays and movies and festivals and concerts.  We have road-tripped, and accidentally met potters who gave us pieces of clay to play with, and poets who wrote haiku for us about the color of our shirts, and musicians who sang us songs they just made up, and laughed at all the silliness of the moments as we let ice cream melt on our chins from homemade stands on the side of the road.

So back to my dad.  I did not point out to him that I was making specific different choices based almost solely on the lack of choices I had as a child.  That would have been cruel. And I am not cruel, I love my dad.  So I sat there, and listened as he planned how I was going to have to buckle down and get my lawn planted, and how I should not be driving my kids half way across the country in the heat of summer.  I knew he was not judging me with his words.  He was, in fact still taking care of me, like he did when I was little, knowing maybe that his time to do this is getting short.  He didn’t want compliance.  He wanted validation that his choices would be remembered.

I get that, dad, don’t worry.  If there is nothing else we can ever say to each other amidst all the talk of medicine and home safety, we will always have baseball.  As a matter of fact, on that road trip you don’t want me to take to Kansas City this summer we will be going to a Royals game.  Stay out of the hospital long enough for me to tell you all about it when we get back, so we can have some more memories together, with baseball at the center. I'll bring the Crackerjacks.

In the reality of the world

I am about to have something new in my life.

No, not anything daring or drastic, like regular sex or a pet.  I am about to have Sundays, twice a month, to myself.  My children are about to start having overnights with their dad, with him dropping them off at school on Monday mornings.

In the reality of the world, this does not change much.  When I picked them up at 7pm on Sunday nights, we drove home, I fed them something (they were always hungry, but that is a different issue), we would read and go over some homework, and before I knew it, we were brushing teeth and it was bedtime.  Nice, quiet little Sunday ritual that lasted about an hour, including drive time.

I have to admit, I really liked this bit of time with my kids. But again, in the reality of the world, it was only an hour, and the Sunday overnights will only happen 13 times in the next year, once you factor in all the vacations and holidays.  13. Only 13.  Less than two weeks.  Doesn’t seem like much.

It had me devastated last week, for a few hours that I did not hide from my children.  Not because I can’t do math.  I had already figured out the 13 day thing, so that was not the issue.  What had me freaked was that my kids had asked it not to happen, had appropriately told that to two different counselors and directly to their father, and none of them, not one, listened one little bit.  I could do nothing about it, because no matter how much I want to be able to write the story of the relationship my kids get to endure enjoy, I don’t get to.

So no matter how this turns out, I get no say, and the loss of control has me freaked out.  It is the codependent in me, I know, but freaking out just the same.

In the midst of all this, my ten year old had a total meltdown of his own. One that almost got him kicked out of a planned event at his care center.  While playing some kind of basketball related game, something happened that seemed unfair, and my son’s reaction was to block the kid and then try to trip him.  If that wasn’t enough, when the adult leader caught him, the other kid shut up, and my son got verbally mean to the leader, and more than a little mouthy.

Sigh.

It took two days for he and I to be able to talk before he could tell me the whole story without one of us being defensive and more than a little pissed.  When we worked it all out, he knew that reacting the way he did was not a smart idea, but wanted to know why some people can do things and get away with them, and when he does them, he is punished.  And more, why no one bothered to listen to him in the process to find the truth out before the punishment was handed down.

This is big, and without even having to have a light bulb moment, he knew that he was angry because adults around him weren’t listening to him, and that even when he told the truth, nothing really mattered because he was being forced to comply.  He flat-out said he was sure that talking to adults was a waste of time because his dad and counselors didn’t listen, and that the one adult who was listening (me) was unable to make anything happen.

Ouch.

He was right.

So instead, I had to admit to him that I am scared and angry about all of it, too, and that I feel just as helpless.  And together (with the help of his 12-year old sister), we came up with what we can do to make US better even if we have to suck it up for now that other people get to make out choices and we have to comply.

I said I was going to write on Sundays.

I said I was going to miss them like crazy and write something I could share with them on Monday nights. 

I said I was going to come up with a plan to spend the extra money I was not going to be using on gas to come pick them up and hour each way.  Did they want to help? I was still listening, even if no one else was.  What were they going to do?

This will be new.

I will miss the drive, to tell the truth.  I will miss my kids terribly.  I will miss the Sunday night ritual and the bonding.  I am putting my faith in the Universe that we all will survive it, and that, in the reality of the world, it is only 13 days.

I can only hope that while I am in my reality, theirs will be okay, too.  Maybe I will write about that on my first Sunday out.

Taking it to the streets.

Do you all know I write a blog?

I guess if you are reading it here, you might have been here before.  I write about my life, as I see it (my blog, duh) and I don’t make any apologies for it.  Okay, to be fair, I apologized once for calling this one guy a pussy whipped pathetic loser.  I didn’t actually apologize for what I said about him, but for not having warned him that I was calling him a said pussy whipped pathetic loser in a public blog that as high as a dozen people (not any of his friends) might read.  That, and that although I did not actually use his name, I would not feel bad in divulging his name if someone asked (mostly so they could avoid him, I am sure).  He called me a whore right after that (awesome!) when he read a few of my other uncensored blog posts and thought we couldn’t be friends then because of the sexual nature of them (again, awesome!).  My regret was that I hadn’t come up with anything more colorful to call him than a pussy whipped pathetic loser, but I can learn from my mistakes.

So back to writing this blog.  You still reading?  Good, because I need readership.  Yes, perfectly self serving and possibly a little desperate, but today I would really like people to read this stuff. And what does that have to do with you, you ask?  Here goes:

1) Read this blog.  You are already here, so thank you!  I get a little obsessed about my numbers sometimes. Yes, there is a way to track this, and every blogger (okay, most bloggers) out there knows how many hits they got on a particular post at any given time.  I want this number to be higher.  So while you are reading it right now, I want you to also log on and read it from your hand-held device, your smart phone, your work computer, your boyfriend’s computer, your second cousin’s pet tarantula’s computer, and anywhere else you so desire.  See, each time you read it from a different device, I get a hit.  Hits are good in this case, and more (in this case) is what I am shooting for.

2) Follow this blog.  You already read it, so now click the little button in the right hand side that says “JOIN THIS SITE” and you get to be one of my fans.  I don’t know what actually happens after that, like if there is some “Follower Genie” that will send you emails telling you when I have once again posted something amazing for you to read, but you might as well have your little icon picture right there on my page.  Oh, and let me know if you have a blog.  I like to follow blogs.

3) Tell your friends.  You are enjoying reading and following the blog, so share the wealth.  You can have book club meetings about it even, all of you reading the blog, sharing with people what you gleaned from the amazing value it brought into you life, and how inspired you are to continue to read and grow.  I suggest you do this over a few (I suggest a half dozen) glasses of wine or pints of beers,  in a smoky dive bar, in a part of town you are not likely to be seen.  It is more fun that way.

4) Give me feedback.  No, I don’t really want you to point out spelling errors.  Or grammar errors.  Or suggest that I use too many non-sentences.  I know all that.  It is a style thing.  I am good with that part.  But, what do you want to read?  I have a gazillion stories about the woes of being a single mom with amazing kids and an idiot for an ex.  I could talk endlessly about surviving my mother. I could brag on my kids forever.  I can save you a little trouble here and say that I don’t post pictures because: a) selfies as a fad needs to go away, b) I want my kids to have a little tiny bit of privacy (I will use the pictures against them later at my discretion), c) If there are no pictures of me I have deniability in court, and d) you do not really need me up in your face with scary pics of myself in a too tight tank top, or some silly graphic that I pulled off bing.  But other than that, tell me what you DO want, and I will listen (as much as my creativity will allow).  And since you are now a fan (remember you are now FOLLOWING my blog, right?), you might as well have some semblance of ownership, no matter how false it actually is, and read what you like.

Feel free to go back and read older blogs.  I never actually read them myself, because honestly I was a huge mess back then.  If you do like to read expose-type blogs, reading from the first blog forward in time will give you the best picture of who I was, who I am, and where I am going.   It will also give me tons of hit-counts to my page views.  Win Win.

Are you still reading here?   Awesome, Thanks! Now go tell someone else, and feel free to share the link anywhere you want.  I won’t mind.