LaurieWrites

Do What You Love: the Happiness May Follow

I drove to have lunch with my mother today, with a three-hour gap between conference calls.

It was noon. I had actually had time for coffee and deadlines and general catching up at home. I was wearing jeans, and had nowhere I had to physically, absolutely be outside of my house until the next morning. I had a commitment to do a live Google+ hangout this evening, representing one of my favorite clients. On the way to meet her, I took a call from a former colleague who wanted me to teach a class on short notice (as in tomorrow.)

It occurred to me as I drove that I was happy, and specifically so in my work. All of the projects I was managing were happening almost entirely in words and pictures. I had variety, enough excitement to keep things interesting, didn't have to sit behind a desk in a windowless office 40 hours a week, and flexibility, while I'm getting paid for things I'm producing on a daily basis.

It was one of the best moments I've had in a long time.

It probably helps to know that the path to this was circuitous, and not without tears, worry, and the belief that things could never be better. I could not have told my 15, 25, or even 35-year-old-self that today's feeling was possible. For one thing, the technology that enables me to do the jobs I have now didn't exist. Go back to the early 90s and tell 20-something Laurie that I would someday work most consistently and effectively, and also swap jokes and life news, with a person who is based in California? It wasn't even real.

For another, the person I was, prior to 35, anyway, didn't dwell so much in possibility as in limitation, arising from a difficult college experience and unfocused early career launch. I did mostly good work, sometimes even of high quality. I helped people as a counselor and a teacher. I pulled off some interesting accomplishments in spite of a general lack of a core plan. But it had very little do with my best and most effective skills, and made me feel more regularly stressed than fulfilled.

I started working towards fixing this in 2007, when I went back to journalism graduate school. And since I made the radical financial decision to quit my full-time job last year and embark on a life in writing, editing, photography, and social media, I have had a good number of the most difficult days of my life. Going from a bi-weekly paycheck to freelance checks that arrive on other people's schedules hasn't been easy. Shedding my workplace identity, and learning to work for myself, largely alone, at home? Another good but sometimes jarring change.

It all set me up for the moment I had today, though, where everything almost made sense.

I have always told people (cough**mymother**cough) that there was a method to my madness -- that walking away from a stable job at a supposedly rough economic time was the thing that made the most sense for me at this point in my life (translated in my head as absolutely essential to my daily functioning and any shot at future happiness, honestly.)

Now, at least I believe me, 90 percent of the time, anyway. I don't know what things will look like next month, but today? They looked pretty good. And I know that the people who care about me appreciate that I'm easier to get along with, and somewhat obviously happier, too.

These are a few things that it would have helped to know as I agonized over what to do and how to be, as a college student and an early-career professional:

Identify and use your strongest and most favorite gifts and talents.

I never knew how or wanted to do anything but write. I failed out of journalism school at 19, and always thought that derailed everything, and it was done. Histrionic much? But I was young, it hurt, it was hard, and I didn't rebound well. I could have been a writer anyway, but I took that external event as a sign that it wasn't meant to be, and that I wasn't any good. Never mind that I got As in my writing classes, and it was failing the gen ed classes that bored me and I therefore blew off that wrecked my GPA and sent me out of the major. It took almost 20 years of being called upon to write in all of my completely-unrelated jobs, depression related to a daily working life that had very limited relationship to creativity, and the advent of blogging, to make me wake up and realize that I had to, and could, turn this car around.

Because it can be done. All of the cliches about "doing what you love" aside, figure out what you're good at, and what lights up you up, as early as you can, or I believe that it will keep nagging at you and distracting you from the things that are in front of your face now. Plus, everyone will be better off when you put this into practice. Especially you.

Don't stay in unsatisfactory situations for longer than you absolutely must.

I loved doing this. I loved carrying the torch and playing the tiny violin of the weird assignment or the overworked position. It became my habit, and my excuse not to send cover letters to better jobs, or to submit freelance articles to local publications.

Don't do this. It is an unattractive waste of time, and we don't have a lot of that as it is. You can find another job. You can stay in your job that you hate while you find a new one. You are allowed to quit. You are allowed to hope for and eventually find better. You will be okay. Trust me.

Stop cramming yourself into the wrong spot and wondering why it hurts. Find what fits you.

A big part of my happy moment today was realizing that I was valued in my current work for some of my skills, insights, and personality traits that were considered negatives in my previous positions. And these were some fundamental things, like creativity, independent thought, and the ability to change course without a blink at the last minute. Sometimes it's not just you that's wrong in the environment -- it's that the environment is not right for you. Considering this has allowed me to forgive myself for what I considered solely my errors, and to look at where my personality and habits might fit the best in job. (We're at the best place in history to do this, by the way.)

Do Something Productive

I did not do a single internship, practicum, or independent study in undergrad. As curious about the world as I am, I didn't study abroad, or go anywhere other than Florida or Mexican resorts for spring break, and lolled away my summer vacations.

I didn't have the best advisors, no (which I can say now, since I've been one) but I also didn't seek out challenges or experiences beyond my own backyard. It wasn't until I found myself staring down 40 in a job I knew I didn't want to have until I was 65 that I got motivated. It wasn't until I was the oldest person in my graduate program with the knowledge of what not taking risks had cost me that I said yes to reporting trips to Vietnam and the 2008 Democratic Convention. These were two of the most significant experiences of my life. This is what happens when you start saying yes to things.

Better late than never, but the risks were definitely higher later on, and I can't help but think sometimes, although I know I'm in a good place now, of all of the opportunities I missed to go places, to meet people, to learn things.

I'd go back and tell that (smart, impassioned, confused, needy) slacker to go to the advising office instead of to the quad to take a nap. Hindsight is its own torture, and effective motivation.

Get a Mentor

The people I respect personally and professionally have been essential in helping me identify my strengths, helping me find the confidence I needed to leave a bad situation, to fix it if I planned to stay in it, and to envision a better future regardless (letters of recommendation and job referrals are nice, too.) There are a lot of smart, experienced, kind people in the world, and many of them want to help you. Make friends with them. I did not until the past five years or so, and now I'd be lost without a few mentors in my phone for specific situations. I wasted all of my undergraduate years not reaching out, and who knows how much farther along I'd be if I hadn't?

Create. Have fun. Do good.

My jobs now come from other people, but there is so much of me in them, in addition to the effort it takes to manage my daily entrepreneurial schedule, that this is a strictly DIY operation. It stands or falls on me, and as much as that could seem like the worst kind of pressure, it works better for me than anything has.

It's everything I may have believed at one time that I was capable of, before I started to think I wasn't capable of anything. Now I'm circling back to the beginning, a much better place of possibility and opportunity. I could feel sorry for the me of years ago, that it took us so long to get here, and for the trouble along the way, but that would just take my time away from being glad that it ever happened at all.

There may be a time when it's too late to get it right, but I'm glad that I never got there.

This post is part of BlogHer's Success Guide for My Younger Self editorial series, made possible by Kaplan.

2012 over and over again.

After consultation with Schmutzie I have decided that I am going to attempt to make a list every day in 2013. Yes, I am four days late. Bygones. 

I have been procrastinating and lallygagging over this list mostly because I kind of hated 2012, and I hate to hate a year. What kind of madness is that, to hate a year that you have been given in your life, when you have friends and family who have died and left who would have wildly appreciated that year? Who am I to hate a year? 

I am me, that's who, and 2012 was an asshole. It was of course an asshole that taught me a ton and woke me the fuck up and gave me the incentive to make the rest of my stay here in this space way less terrible, however, so I should thank it, ultimately, I suppose. But you know what, it was hard and awful as it taught me things and while I gritted my teeth with gratitude for its good stuff, and it's still okay to be happy that it's over and to keep my sights set on the glory and promise that is this odd-numbered fantasyland of 2013. 

As a champion multi-tasker, I can do both. 

Therefore, I was not okey-dokey with leaving this trail of tears unremembered. Also tonight I went to my first day of yoga in a very long time, the first of a 40-day series that is meant to bring me back to myself and my space on this planet, so I'm kind of considering this my new year's day. Therefore and thereunto, is the meme I discovered once upon a time from Erin Shea Smith, and may find the energy to link to to my previous answers, or not. Here's this year's.: 

1. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before
Drove cross-country and back. Was a passenger in an ambulance (only vaguely related.) 

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't remember what they were, but probably not. And no, not really. I have goals, not resolutions. I hate that word, "resolutions." We never use it otherwise, so why now? It lends a weird kind of pressure that I think we all have enough of already, I think. 

Best eternal resolution: don't fall in love with a dreamer, cause they'll break you every time.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My brother-in-law's sister is close enough, I guess, because I consider them extended family. Also I got to take that gorgeous baby's first official portraits and that was a very sweet experience for me. 

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My father's best friend since childhood, whom I considerd an uncle, really. It was awful. I will always miss him, and I really still can't imagine a life for my dad where's he's not alive. Sometimes things happen that suck and there is just no good explanation, and this is one of them for me, for sure. 

My Aunt Catherine died, too, after a long walk with Alzheimer's disease. She was my grandfather's younger sister, and one of the first examples of a strong, independent woman I ever had. I loved and respected her.

5. What countries did you visit?
This one. I saw an awful lot of it. 

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you didn't have in 2012?
A stronger business plan, which is happening. A website. More clarity would be nice, and I've made good strides towards that in the past few months, I think. I hope it keeps going. Peace of mind. A stronger in-person community. More food that I cook at home, and knife skills to make chopping and dicing less dangerous, so I'm excited to learn those. I need better shoes. My flats really suck. 

7. What dates from 2012 will be etched upon your memory, and why?
August 23-September 24, because that trip really marked the end of an old life and the beginning of this new one. A few others will be, but I don't remember the numbers of those days. They mostly involved ephemeral love, which left behind a strange combination of happiness that this was still possible after several years of...not, along with sad for reasons that all humans know, but would rather not. I'm learning to appreciate all of this much better in the rear view.

8. What was your biggest achievement of this year?
Working every day, pretty much, no matter what was going on with me mentally or physically. Always moving forward even when it seemed like the most futile, ridiculous thing. Never giving up. 

9. What was your biggest failure?
Letting my emotions get the best of me in some fairly self-destructive ways. Not planning better financially for leaving my job. 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Hypertension and anxiety attacks were new to me this year, and both were terrifying, no joke. I do not recommend either. What I do recommend is taking care of yourself. I didn't, for a long time, and that is what happened to me. Be ye not so unprepared. You only get one you. Make sure you're in the best shape that you can for whatever it is that you need to do. This life is fairly physically demanding. 

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Lunch at Eataly in New York after BlogHer. 

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My mom, my sister, and my best friend, who essentially kept me alive and gave me this sort of unconditional love that is the only thing I would wish for anyone on the planet if I could. My other good friends and family, as I am lucky and loved. All of the writers and friends who let me stay with them on my trip. The activists who pushed forward for equality for all of us. 

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Lying liars who lie, rape/abuse/misogyny apologists and litterers (they are obviously way farther down) remain at the top of my list. Fast lane abusers become a source of extreme distress on a 4,000 or so mile drive across the country and back. 

14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent. Gas. Food. Wine. Stuff. 

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My sister calling me when I was in California to tell me she was going to have a baby. That was a great moment in my life. I am so happy for her and my  brother-in-law. 

Visiting Graceland. Duran Duran in Virginia. New York. Always New York. 

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball cd. Bob Schneider's "Let the Light In." Billy Bragg and Wilco, "California Stars." 

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: A) happier or sadder? B) thinner or fatter? C) richer or poorer?
A) Neither. More peaceful and resolute, which is different.
B) A little thinner, I think. 
C) Ha. Hahaha.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Being peaceful and happy for no reason. Holding someone's hand is always nice. Hanging peacefully with my friends. Listening to music. 

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Riding in an ambulance. Complaining. Focusing on the wrong people and things. 

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With my family. It was nice. 

21. Did you fall in love with 2012?
In a peculiar sort of way, yes. Also out. 

22. What was your favorite TV program?
I'm still committed to Glee and Parenthood against my will. The Good Wife is fantastic. I discovered Homeland and blew through the two not-long-enough seasons in the past two weeks. It owns me. I am checking under my car that is parked in the garage of what is an essentially assisted-living building for bombs. This show is that bad and good. 

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I work on not owning hate for anyone. It's really destructive. Don't get me wrong, I dislike more people than I'd like to admit, but I can let that shit go in a minute. Hate gets into you, deeply, and stays. I don't want it, can't really handle it. 

24. What was the best book you read?
Patti Smith's Just Kids is art of the highest order. She is a beautiful memoirist, and Robert Mapplethorpe was a lucky SOB to know that kind of love in his lifetime (although I know she'd say the same about him, which is always how it goes when people = alchemy. As fucked up as their situation was, I admit I was jealous. If I'm going to love,  may as well love big, right?) Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things got me through a few tough nights with some straight talk. 

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Lots of things, mostly my own mixes of old stuff, which sounds lame, but hey, I drove a lot of miles and it was really important that I created my own soundtrack for that experience. Do you know how hard it is to stay awake through West Texas? Hard.

I really believe your most important music sticks with you throughout your life and serves different purposes depending on where you're at. Like, I listened to Depeche Mode's Some Great Reward over and over again for a week at one point this year, and "Somebody" came back into rotation for me and was as true for me as it had been in my late teens but in an entirely different sort of way, so now it's important to me again, but different (but that piano? Still gorgeous, the same way.) Deep, right? :) I  listened to a ton of Bruce, Stevie Wonder, Prince, old Hem and Cowboy Junkies as usual, country that makes me smile, old metal that kept me awake...As far as newer stuff, Alabama Shakes, Gossip and Black Keys are awesome in different ways. I loved Civil Wars, and Butterfly Boucher fixed my heart in a weird way. I listened to a LOT of Spotify playlists from people who are way hipper than I am at this point, but this year I had way too many nights when I needed Elton to burn down the mission just to stay alive. It's just how it goes when you're sorting through stuff. 

26. What did you want and get?
I survived, mostly. I had a few dicey days and after they were over and I woke up from two years of chaos and questionable behavior, I found that I had retained the support and love of my family and closest friends and that is the only thing that I could never bear to lose. It's always nice to hear "I love you" and I heard that more than a few times from a few people who matter, so that's a lucky thing. My family members are intact and reasonably healthy in their own rights. I got out of my windowless office, finally. The aftermath may have been kind of ugly, and still weird, but I really hated it there, so I think it's safe to say I got what I wanted in not having to go back there every day for most of the year. I think I'll look back on that as a good sign. 

27. What did you want and not get?
Truth, on occasion. Affection from someone who was incapable of providing it, which is a pattern in my life so I'm hoping this year was the teacher that finally appeared. A ticket to a few shows here and there. More consistent chips and guacamole. 

28. What was your favorite film of 2012?
Pitch Perfect made me laugh and sing with my mom at a time when I desperately needed to do both. It wins for that alone.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 42 last week. I had a really nice raw bar dinner with my family and I went out and drank and laughed afterwards with some very good friends who love me and forgive me my failings. I feel pretty lucky about that whole day. 

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Probably more money and less stress, definitely fewer ill-advised text messages, emails, and phone calls? But this is tough to answer. I'm learning that if you're playing it right you end up in the right place, and it's not about what you missed. 

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept of 2012?
Tank tops. Yoga mat flip flops. A couple of reliable sweaters. Chucks. Pjs. Chipped toenail polish. And way shorter hair! I'm digging that the most. 

32. What kept you sane?
My mom and my sister. Sarah, Vikki, Schmutzie, Suebob, my editor Julie, Malbec. 

33. What political issue stirred you the most?
The election made me crazy up until the two days before where I don't think I slept for 48 hours until President Obama made his second victory speech and then I passed out. Women's issues and the insane march backwards that was halted, for the moment, with the election, I hope. Marriage equality. 

34. Who did you miss?
Always my grandmother, I will always miss her face and her hand pats and her clucking over my every move every day. I wish I'd seen my friends more consistently. 

35. Who was the best new person you met?
Vikki, who I met randomly through blogging and who continues to look out for me and make me laugh every day, as has always been true of my very best friends. 

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.
There is very often someone else behind the curtain. Don't be super paranoid about this, but do be a little bit more careful in your dealings. At this point in your life your intuition probably knows what's up up front, even if you don't want to listen. Listen. The people who challenge that impulse the most have the scariest agenda, and will wreck you the worst, no matter their role in your life -- friend, lover, boss. Run from them, slowly if you have to, but run. It's them, not you. 

We should be more careful with each other. I think that we would like it if others were more careful with us, so we should do it first and equally. I'm taking this on hardcore, for life, from now on. 

Most importantly, don't speed in Wyoming. 

37. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"I know a heartache when I see one."

"I know it now, you've got to go home." 

"Now when all this steel and these stories, they drift away to rust/And all our youth and beauty, it's been given to the dust/And your game has been decided, and you're burning the down the clock/And all our little victories and glories, have turned into parking lots/When your best hopes and desires, are scattered to the wind/And hard times come, hard times go/Hard times come, hard times go/And hard times come, hard times go/Hard times come, hard times go/Hard times come, hard times go/Yeah just to come again/Bring on your wrecking ball"

Bring on your wrecking ball, 2013.

What should I make lists about this year? 

Life List 2011

Camp Mighty begins tomorrow night in Palm Springs, and I'm late with my life list. 

Oh hey! Here I am! Already here, just finishing this post now. (Actually this is last night, pre-space party, to which I went without a "costume" that met the theme. This spurred another list item. Please see below.) 

Of course I'm late. Water is wet, etc. 

And oh, here I am, again! Just now posting this, on Saturday, at 3:47 PST. 

Can you tell this exercise freaks me out a little? Well, it does, to tell the truth, and to top off my problem here, the list I drafted last week (sitting in a bar, impulsively, after Kris intelligently got in a cab to go home) is in a notebook that is way, way back in Maryland, in a purse I swapped out the other day. Change bags carefully, people. Sigh. 

Anyway, I just thought that since this is supposed to be a positive, aspirational thing most of all, I'd do it over again, stream of consciousness, here. And that also I would shut up and just start writing. So here we go. 

1. Shoot an Operation Smile surgical mission. 

2. Have Boston Terriers in my house again and work more actively with senior rescue. 

3. Have a yard. 

4. Pay off all student loan debt early. 

5. Embrace my most hated holiday: go to a Halloween-type event in a costume and not feel like a fool and also not complain about it. 

6. Hike the Grand Canyon. 

7. Finish the Ancestry.com family tree for both sides of my family. 

8. Travel the regions in Ireland and Germany where my relatives originated. 

9. Digitize as many of the White family photos as possible and share them with the whole family. 

10. Have an online presence that reflects my personality and my skills, and what I have accomplished so far in writing and photography -- a portfolio, a business site and a blog. Also, to help Draft Day Suit be the best that it can be, along with the other sites I write for. 

11. Have Washington Capitals season tickets. 

12. Have competent knife skills, and a really great set of kitchen knives. 

13. Have somewhere I can go to stay on a beach that is mine, anytime. 

14. Be self-supporting strictly through writing/photo/media work. 

15. Grow a hydrangea and a lilac bush. 

16. Print out and organize copies in books and frames of all of my images that move me or that I want to keep off of the computer. 

17. Find the courage to visit my grandmother's grave, at least once. 

18. Be able to hold crow, headstand, side crane, wheel and all other yoga poses that I currently cannot successfully hold. 

19. Visit the rest of the 50 states. 

20. Have a 41st birthday party, because I wasn't ready for 40. 

21. Have my grandmother's ring resized and made more stable so I can actually wear it. 

22. Go to a Super Bowl and a Stanley Cup championship game with Sarah. 

23. Grow a garden -- even just an herb garden or a few flowers -- without killing it. 

24. Get overall financial house in order so it is not a constant source of anxiety. 

25. Have a Christmas Eve tradition that brings me joy. 

26. See every country in Europe.

27. Go back to Vietnam, and to Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. 

28. Find a place called Dodge and get the hell out of it. 

29. Understand how to competently use Speedlite flash and studio lighting. 

30. Work in a darkroom again. 

31. Publish an article in a national magazine. 

32. Get my 200-hour yoga certification. 

33. Visit the White House, go into the Washington Monument, and other things I've never done because I live in the D.C. area. 

34. Actively support surgeries for at least five children per year through Operation Smile. 

35. Go on one silent weekend retreat per year. 

36. Drive cross-country. 

37. Find a way to give back to my parents in the significant way that they have given to me. 

38. Go to Michael's Virginia Tech graduation. 

39. Get another tattoo before I turn 41. 

40. Host a Thanksgiving dinner. 

41. Have a regular practice of having people over to my house for meals and conversation. 

42. Have a women's weekend in a pretty place by the water with some of my closest friends. 

43. Read every classic novel I feel I should read before I die. 

44. Purge all belongings that have no purpose in my life -- clothing, books, stuff -- and be at peace with the basics that remain. 

45. Spend some time with Elisa and Maria in the Bay area. 

46. Visit the Alamo. Remember it. 

47. Go back to Houston and see my remarkable group of women of the blogs who live there. 

48. Catalog and recognize all birthdays for all important people in my life. Send the damn cards. 

49. Finally -- finally! -- visit Vicky in Seattle. 

50. See Duran Duran in London. 

51. Take trips on all major Amtrak routes in the U.S. 

52. Do something hands-on and helpful in New Orleans.

53. Do the Edgar Allen Poe touristy stuff and other fun things I've never tried in Baltimore.

54. Throw a crab feast for my half-birthday.

55. Learn to pack a suitcase competently.

56.  Have Maryland basketball season tickets -- men and women. 

57. Publish a book. 

58. Understand New York  -- the subway system, visit all boroughs, know Manhattan like the back of my hand. 

59. Cultivate a competent slap shot.     

60. Learn to play the drums. 

61. Go to an Orioles-Nats game. 

61. Actually record a fun and ridiculous podcast with Sarah. 

62. Go to Ireland with my sister. 

63. See all the oceans. 

64. Buy myself a pair of diamond earrings. 

65. Have someone who knows what she is doing rewrite my resume to reflect my skills and experience. 

66. Photograph a birth. 

67. Drive on the other side of the road in England. 

68. Own a pair of ruby slippers. 

69. Pay someone's college tuition.

70. Have a photo site with Laurie.

71. Understand how to design a basic website in a variety of platforms.

72. Publish an op-ed. 

73. Visit Karen and Shannon in Ottawa. See the rest of Canada and all of my friends there, too. 

74. Throw a great 50th anniversary party for my parents. 

75. Take a food and wine trip to Italy. 

76. Spend a whole summer and a whole winter at the beach. 

77. Publish a piece in Salon, Slate, Washingtonpost.com, 

78. Understand wine, maybe at the sommelier level. 

79. Take my mom on a trip anywhere of her choosing, on me. 

80. Know how to give a basic haircut without ruining someone's life. 

81. Consistently practice receiving compliments with gratitude, not apologies or self-effacing comments. 

82. Hike a (smallish) mountain.

83. Sing backup in a band 

84. Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. 

85. Complete my local Mental Health Association hotline training, finally, and volunteer there. 

86. Write a short story I don't hate. 

87. Become a doula. 

88. Learn American Sign Language. 

89. Own a core wardrobe of green dresses. 

90. Have a king-sized bed with really good sheets, an actual duvet, and pillows that don't drive me crazy. 

91. Create an annual tradition with my cousins. 

92. Perfect a variety of vinaigrettes. 

93. Become conversationally proficient in French again. 

94. Have a full Christmas tree of my own ornaments, and also a beachy, small tree with the ones I've bought on vacations. 

95. Go to Bonnaroo and the Virgin Festival in London (or at least see a show at Wembley Stadium.) 

96. Refinish and use an awesome antique writing desk. 

97. Outfit my whole kitchen with good small appliances and all gadgets I need to make me feel like I'm not in college anymore. 

98. See every artist live who is left on my list -- Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and I know there are more. 

99. Drink coffee in a Parisian cafe.

100. To acknowledge the possibility of falling madly, yet sanely, in real, live adult love with an actual functional human being who feels the same way. Maybe let them live in my house. 

And most importantly: 

100. Be able to confidently say that I love what I do, that the structure of my daily life reflects what I care about, what I'm good at, and how I can best contribute in words and pictures. Oh, and that I love where and with whom I live, and that I am content in my life.  

I picked five big goals off of this list to share with my group, that I'm going to work on extra special over the next year. There are some that I know I can do more easily that I didn't put on my five-things list. I saved some tough stuff for that one. I'll share that later. 

And if you've ever thought this activity sounds lame or ridiculous or like something you shouldn't really have to do in an organized way? Well, I thought the same thing. I blew it off and shot it down as stupid for a long time. And at least in my case, I was totally and completely wrong. I just sat in a room with 20 strangers for three hours. I stood up and I said what I wanted, I acknowledged that I need help with some of it, and I listened to the rest of them do the same. It was one of the most powerful, uncomfortable, cool, inspiring, and sometimes just plain enjoyable things I've ever done. 

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I'll keep you posted. 

Additions: 

I keep thinking of new stuff. 

102. Go to the Olympics. 

103. Go to a Sox game with TwoBusy and ClumberKim. 

No, not that kind of cuff.

I am so tired of bad or just annoying news. I'm trying really hard to be positive because although some things are making me sad and some things are really on my nerves and I don't know how to handle some other things, I've got some other things to be very happy about.

So I'm trying to be good and I'm trying to be a grown-up and I'm trying to take care of some of the things that no one else but me can do. Like, I need to go to the dentist. I needed to find a new doctor. I need to get the bloodwork done that I've been putting off for a year. I need to get a (blech) mammogram. 

So I found the new doctor, and I made an appointment a couple of weeks ago, after my mom nagged and nagged and nagged for days. She just started going to her and said that I would like her, and when people in my life say that I tend to believe them, as prepared as they are for me to call bullshit on what and whomever.

I don't know what the ethics are of disclosing a doctor's name online, but let's just say that her last name? Is almost identical to that of a 140-character message that I send way too many times daily, except with a d in between the second "e" and final "t". Trippy, right? Gave me some serious joy. She was also lovely right off the bat -- maybe a little younger than I am, not creepy or distracted or cold, just warm enough, focused, direct. The office itself was also professional and fairly quiet, in the basement of a newish medical building, really nice except for its lack of any kind of 3G or regular G reception. Seriously. Phone dead the whole time, and you know how that flies with me. 

The medical assistant did her thing and then she took my blood pressure. It was 150 over 100, she said. Did I normally have high blood pressure? I told her no, and she said okay, the doctor would check it out. 

The doctor came in and asked me again what my normal blood pressure was, and I was all, I don't know, pi cubed? I don't know math. It's usually pretty normal, never been a problem. 

"Okay," she said. "That's something to keep an eye on. Plus, people are sometimes anxious or under duress when they come here." 

Under duress. Bingo. She just described everything. I neglected to cry like that "I MISS YOU JESSICA" jackhole in the State Farm commercial, but I kind of wanted to. Oh Dr. Twitter (not exactly, but that's what I'll call her) I am. I AM! Thanks for noticing.  

Then she decided to take it again, and I started to freak out a little. She spoke in slow, measured tones that make freaks like me crazier, as she wrapped the TOURNIQUET I MEAN CUFF around my arm and squeezed it and leaned down and read it and said "Hmm."

The 150 was the same, but we were down to 92 on the bottom.

Then she sat down on her little stool and started pounding away on her keyboard, making notes, no doubt, about my descent into hypertension and cardiac disease at 40.

"Okay. We need to monitor this. Let's have you monitor it at home daily for a month to see if there's any change, before we talk about other interventions."

Neat! Where would I procure a blood pressure cuff? Does Target carry blood pressure cuffs? MISSONI BY TARGET BLOOD PRESSURE CUFFS? Actually, what really immediately occurred to me was the blood pressure machine at the Giant that I'd stick my puny arm in when I was little just to watch it expand and retract, expand and retract, no doubt enraging a then-40-year-old woman whose doctor just told her the salad days (with dressing, anyway) were over. Oh hi, future self. Sorry for being a little asshole. 

I nodded calmly and didn't ask her what kind of cuff to get or how I was supposed to do all of the actions associated with a blood pressure reading, including the occasionally impossible task of interpreting numbers, by myself, upside down. Were there left-handed blood pressure machines?This would probably be its own special kind of hell.

I also started to feel a counterproductive pounding in my head, and I told her that yes, lately, I had felt this. I told her that sometimes I don't sleep very well and that on mornings after that I feel a little weird, a little more odd lately. She nodded her head and said yes, yes, yes to all of these things and I just wondered the whole time if there was a blood pressure app, if I could press my broken iPhone screen up to my bicep and have it spit out ridiculously accurate numbers. 

I'm really not sure I'm equipped to care for myself in my middle age, even, forget when I'm actually old. 

Anyway, I left, some crazy orders for tests I don't want clutched in my hand. I walked out into the sunny day, and I did what any mature woman of an advancing, withering age would do. 

I texted my mom. 

"I finally have high blood pressure like you said I was going to give myself. Yay." 

She asked me several questions and then she said "You'll need a cuff" and "What are you doing to follow up on the other stuff" and "Is she going to treat it" and what and when and then I went back to work. 

You know, 40? You're a riot. Lol. 

New York Story

I was writing this super heady crazy thing about how I was in New York and I woke up in this hotel room that I never intended to be in (with friends, not strangers, uh, to be clear), with all of these fuzzy feelings from nowhere because wine and meatballs are weird and kind of awesome in that way. And Occupy Wall Street was all over the television that I never turn on in the morning because I hate noise in the morning, but the person left with me in that room needs noise in the morning, because we're all so different, right? 

And it reminded me that the previous day, before I beautifully ran into Diane, and then Neil and Amy, in the lobby , I had entirely intended to take myself down to the protest to shoot pictures of it for...some reason. Posterity? Documentation of something actually happening in a mostly reactive, crazed society? Yes, I guess. I mean, I live in the D.C. area. I've seen the Occupy D.C. site (the one before it moved, anyway.) I could shoot that. But New York, where Wall Street is, seemed a more important site to document. 

Except then after a period of traveling I saw friends I never see, whose powerful words reach me through a medium that didn't exist until I was an adult, who matter to me in a distinct and powerful way that I don't always remember until I see their faces and bodies and hear their voices again. So I decided it was more important to stay in a hotel bar and talk to them about writing and their lives and what they wanted from tomorrow and whenever. 

I was correct. It was, and they were, more important. It really was. I have not one regret. 

But what was funny was when I ended up in that room the next day, with that news story playing, I muttered "civil disobedience" aloud when I heard it. I've always liked the concept, and how the phrase sounds. There's probably not enough of it. And I wasn't sure what it meant that I'd skipped observing a powerful display of it in action for a conference about how to write better, about how to put my voice into the world in some kind of constructive way, but I knew that that was all there was for me to do, for a number of reasons. 

None of this is easy, really. This world, this country, our states and counties and on down to our individual lives. We do the best we can, for the most part. 

I just know I woke up in that room happy, oddly comforted, and then someone turned on the television. There is a lot of noise. 

We have to find our friends -- the people and spaces who and that will take care of our hearts and needs. We need to find the places where we can best spend our gifts, contribute whatever it is we're capable of and willing to give away. We have to find our refuge, no matter what anyone thinks, no matter what we thought it would look like before. I believe that now more than ever, even the parts that scare me. 

I thought this was a midlife crisis, I really did. But what I think it is now is waking up. It's as harsh as every morning. It's as challenging as unfailingly fucking up my coffee beans to water ratio. It's the most essential thing, I think, that I've ever done. 

I hate it and I love it. I don't know if you or anyone will like me on the other side, and the most perfect thing is that while I do still care about that, that I don't care about it the most. That's a big deal. Not to demean anyone who is sitting in a specific place to advance a much larger cause, but I think that's an occupation of something. 

Reverb10 -- December 1

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

2010 is confusion. I don't remember the beginning of the year, really, but I remember how things fell apart in the spring for real and never really got back on track. Things were upended that had been stable on the surface for a long time. And even though I did some smart things in response, I didn't exactly grab the combined chaos and opportunity of a certain Chinese symbol and run with it.

There were good times this year. I know how to function with a certain level of insanity and I made gold out of straw on a number of occasions so I could be with people I cared about in places I cared about being. I wouldn't trade beers on Sarah's patio in the summer or Marcus's wedding or the M3 festival or the beach with my family or BlogHer in New York or the the Creative Alliance in Ojai. I have such good friends and time with them saved me -- a vegan dinner with Elisa on the Upper West Side, an amazing California day with Sue and Deb and then Erin and her family, Ian and Claudia knocking on a borrowed door to come over and see what was going on when I was in their neighborhood, so many good times with Sarah. These are times I'll wish back in later years when I've lost people and things that are an essential part of now.

Yet, I sit here in December unsure of everything -- where to live, where to go, what to do, who to be, who to be with, who to become. I cannot sit calmly anywhere. I am always freaked out. I feel like I'm running out of time to do things and I don't know what those things are. I'm surrounded by calendars with half-filled in pages and scribbled-on bills and a scale that's reading up and up and up no matter that I'm sweating my ass off multiple times a week in a 90-degree room full of people doing difficult yoga.

I am unsure of everything.

One year from today? I want "fulfillment" to capture 2011. I don't know what it will look like. I don't really care where I'll be. I can't describe air or other things I can't yet rightly see. I don't even know if I could identify it anymore from this space I'm in. I'm not sure I've ever had it. But I'm hoping that whatever this is that has reached into my life and shook it like a snowglobe for real this year settles down, and that on the other side I have a clearer path, a calmer heart and a sense that the place I'm in and the direction in which I'm going are good and right and true.

I want to feel good about and resolute in my life, my work, my relationships and my goals.

I don't expect magic. I expect focus and intention, two things I'm already working on in the midst of chaos and confusion, to help me achieve this. I know that what I'm doing now -- the sorting out, the repairing, the throwing away, the acknowledgement of places I've screwed up so I can fix them -- is essential. I know to value the quiet spaces where I'm sketching out what I need to do so I have a long moment's peace. So that even if it isn't perfect in a year -- because when is it ever, really? -- that it is so much better. That it feels like a place I can inhabit without extreme agitation or fear, without the sense that any life would be better, every day.

It's possible, I suppose.

I'm going to try to do this every day in December.

Drafted

It is really time to deal with the fact that eight of my last ten posts since early April are drafts. These are not your average serial blogger's meant-for-a-diary-but-can't-write-with-a-pen-anymore-hand-cramps-up posts. It's just that right now I can't complete thoughts in very rational ways, much less sentences that turn into posts that maybe have some point or purpose.

I have stuff to write for people that I haven't written. I have so many things swirling around that I don't know how to say. Walking through my on- and offline lives feels very much like slogging through the deepest wet sand part of the beach and has for months. Here are some key points that have not made it to publish, that just kind of died in the water for what appears upon review to be very good reasons.

• I've lost the narrative again and if I told the true story right now it wouldn't be a good one.There was a part where he was playing and talking about music and I realized that even broken he knew what he wanted.
• I wandered as I love to do and chatted with people and probably smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank beers if beers were available (I have no memory, I don't know what trouble of that sort we got into) and it rained and the kids all slid around in the mud and I ruined my Keds, and at the end I bought the most perfect concert shirt ever in the parking lot for ten dollars. 
• And that is where the church leaves me - the rolling away of the rock from the tomb and the body gone, maybe, but literal ascension into heaven? Nah, that's where I can't suspend my disbelief but in all manner of things I can go figurative.
• If I did what I wanted to do right now, it would be extreme. It would be something along the lines of ripping the roof off of this bitch.
• I love professional ice hockey. I've loved it for most of my life and I will love it until I die. (Ed. note: Because finally I can get to the point.)

So. Yes. Who knows? Don't look at me.

I'm actually assuming already that this will be a draft. It's bad habit-forming. And they all kind of say the same thing, I think I just tried to dress them up in different clothes. Let's say the lucky ones got the cute little sundress, the dirges got the big clunky sweaters, I don't know. It's just occurring to me that in the effort to write things true I often end up sounding exactly unlike myself.

I want to burn this place down right now, you know. Kill the archives and start over. I don't threaten ever to quit blogging. It would be the emptiest of threats because that will never happen unless blogs go away or I am somehow incapacitated. And who would I be threatening anyway? It's my own business, what I quit and what I don't, carry on. I just don't like it here anymore. It is on my nerves in every single way. But the simple truth is that I don't know where to go. I am overwhelmed by templates and options and things that go bump in my browser.

It doesn't really matter where you put stuff anyway, what little white box you type into. It's just really, really upsetting when the only currency you've got goes away and just like I have assignments to fix other things in my real life life (oh because I do, I have a rack of assignments at the moment to fix things up around here) I feel like I need to speak to it here, for me. It's just that it's a house falling down. It's a minor disaster.

Because when I lose the words it means that the way I work stuff out is broken and it pisses me off. I mostly don't want to talk about my problems until I absolutely have to and then it's really awkward and uncomfortable. Thankfully there are a few people left in the world who I can talk to right now to whom I feel so closely bonded that I don't care if they think I'm weak or broken and in whom I have the kind of trust it requires to let them see me that way. 

Oh my God, they are so super lucky.

But that actually is really lucky for me. I am oddly guarded for an open person and confidences are terrifying. Honesty sucks because it's difficult. I haven't held a hand in years and meant it except for my grandma's while she was dying. I choke on "I love you." I lost my will to say it for the most part when my heart broke once and for all five years ago and I still don't really want to,  because if you touch me you can maybe hurt me, true story. 

Also I don't like to look or feel like I'm stupid or incompetent or out of control, and I will go to the most stupid, incompetent, out of control lengths to prove that I am not. I am the person who goes to therapy in hopes that I will define my problem for the person in the first ten minutes and save us all a lot of time. I don't want that person to do her job. I want to do her job, better, like I'm up for a certificate of merit or a raise, for God's sake. I just don't want to do any of my jobs, this daily set of odd, mismatched things anymore. I am finally really tired.

It is a strange dichotomy, to be as isolated and off my rocker as I feel right now, and yet to have in some ways the closest relationships to other people, the most honest, the most personally chosen, that I have ever had. I'm not complaining about it, not at all, although it's been hard work except when it was really easy. It has not been without cost and disappointment. I guess when you hit a certain point you figure there isn't time for anything else but the obvious and real, the stuff that works. And the world can surprise you, I'm finding. It gives you people you feel like you've known your whole life, who understand everything the first time. It gives you rooms to cry in and people sitting there handing you tissues who have been watching and knowing something's not right and just weren't quite sure how to put it out there.

Because you thought you were handling this so well on your own? Because when it comes down to it a lot of this shit is hard, I guess. A Facebook friend posted Plato's words as her status the other day:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

When it is so hard to start with yourself in that endeavor of kindness, it is lucky to have other people who can do a few of those things for you until you can, who will talk to you on phones that you force yourself to dial, who have eyes that give you hope just because they're there, who appear in tiny chat boxes from a highway or a continent away. It is important, I grudgingly admit, even if it's really uncomfortable to retrain yourself to hold hands. And this is especially so when your every other impulse is to dart into traffic alone because the data you have collected about the world somehow suggests that that is where you belong. It's enough to believe in the occasional tiny thing until you can dare to consider bigger ones.

And finally you, which is of course to say I, roll over those inadequate words in draft and click over to "publish," so you can finally let them go.

The Girl Scouts and Their Cookies Are In My Computer

Cross-posted at BlogHer. 

January started innocently enough. The eating - er, holiday - season passed and I had a vague plan to get back into last year's fairly successful effort to get myself to a more comfortable weight and back to a sanity-saving exercise routine that tanked in September. 

I don't want to talk about it. 

Anyway, just after my new year's snack of bacon with a side of black-eyed peas and greens, (that I made myself so I know just how much that ratio is true) I went back to work with my almonds and tuna, my newly re-upped membership in the water club and the spring wellness schedule bookmarked on my desktop. 

That first morning back I fired up my computer. And checked Facebook, because that is important to do before proceeding with any other important tasks. And there was my friend Karma, all up in my newsfeed. 

(These names are not real. I will not call my friends bad names. Draw your own conclusions.) 

"Hi everyone! Happy New Year! As you may know, Beautiful is a Girl Scout now and she is eager to meet your cookie needs. 

 This post included an image of a Thin Mint, and a link to a site entitled "MEET THE COOKIES" that not only included graphic depictions of each variety but also gave me a link to "FIND COOKIES NOW," which indicated that if I keyed in my zip code a nearby Girl Scout would arrive at my office door bearing Samoas and a glass of milk.

Not really, but you know, it was sort of implied. And all of a sudden the spring wellness schedule icon shriveled and died on my desktop like the Wicked Witch of the West under water. Damn. 

I mean really, this has to happen in January? Where are my gift wrap and mixed nut children? I can't eat gift wrap and I have to actually think about taking the lid off of a can of nuts. Do the chocolate bars and pre-fab pizza dough come out from their hiding places now too? 

Is anyone selling wine? 

It should be noted just for kicks that I was not a blazingly successful Girl Scout. I never went camping beyond a day trip to a nature preserve or two, and mostly stuck to badge-worthy yet reasonably sedentary activities like cooking and chess. 

 Yes they give badges for chess. Shut up. 

My final straw was the inability to evenly sew the seam on a fake suede skirt - a fuede skirt, if you will. And I honestly wasn't kicked out, it just didn't work out for me. And there may have been other reasons, other small badge infractions maybe because I've just never been much into those sorts of systems, but for me that was the deal-breaker. 

Also there may have been some crying before meetings because I wanted to stay home and watch repeats of Laverne & Shirley rather than build bird houses. That may have been the real problem, but my mother gave turning me into a responsible scouting citizen her best shot. 

Yes, my mom, the faithful team player who remembers her days in sash and uniform fondly, was still the cookie mom for one year out of the two I lasted. All I can remember is a dining room full of boxes, the neon Do-Si-Do orange and Thin Mint green, and the stress of thinking how many I had to sell to meet who knows what benchmark of cookie stardom. 

Anyway, now that that pressure is long gone, I cannot tell you in acceptable language in this forum what I can do to a box of Samoas. I mean, I can, but I have issues with sharing that kind of information publicly. I could maybe share with you how I can picture in my mind what a Trefoil looks like as it disintegrates in a glass of milk in the dim light of a kitchen at midnight, and how my hand trembles and my brain negotiates with itself while it chooses a number to write in the box next to the Do-Si-Do picture on the very colorful order form. 

"Six...NO! What is wrong with you?!? That is approximately one quatrillion peanut butter cookies that you do not need in your life! Three...Ehhh. Still no. Two. Blah, okay. Two." 

Yes. And that is not even taking into account the mental gymnastics required to calculate how many boxes of Trefoils are required for those days of simple milk-and- shortbread comfort cookie needs or the yearly limited edition with the fancy kind that you have to try although you won't like it as much as the Tagalongs so you just should have gotten another box of Tagalongs or how many Thin Mints you'll need minus that rogue box that you find in the back of the freezer on that crappy July day when you most need them because they fell behind the pile of frozen burritos. 

 What? WHAT? 

But now there is no order form needed. There is no paper trail here. There is just a link. And a wall post with a smiley face from Karma who needs, she NEEDS to sell these cookies. For Beautiful. And also, let's face it, for me, so I can guiltlessly or at the very least less guiltily avoid the table of girls and their parents who accost me at the grocery store until well past the spring thaw ("OMG, isn't cookie season over YET?" I will think to myself, as they smile at me in their sashes and threaten silently to kick me in the shins) because Beautiful, SHE has gotten my business. I know her. I have contributed to her cause - to her badge, or her trip to Juliette Lowe's birthplace or to her iPod, because they probably entice them to sell these things with digital music players now. 

Samoas. Oh, you coconut and chocolate and caramel siren cookies of my dreams. Six boxes. Six! 

Now I can tell Karma how many boxes I want at a distance, in a minute. And then they will arrive in her office, and I will write her a check or fork over at least one of my ATM twenties (only one? Cheap. Cheap cheap cheap, cookie miser) and think, that isn't a lot now, is it? That isn't so many boxes of cookies. 

Until I feel compelled to buy five more from other people. Because as it turned out, Karma was not the last, oh no. I know a lot of people, in-person people and people who are not only close enough to leave cookies on my porch but those who inhabit the vast recesses of my computer and distant lands like Indiana. The blog people. The Facebook friends of friends. And among them  are many moms and dads and grandmas and aunts and godparents. And those innocent little children who stare back at me from Flickr? Some of them are joining the nefarious ranks, memorizing the Girl Scout Law as we speak. Some of them are taking their cookie pleas to video (even if it is just, allegedly, for Grandma and Grandpa.) I remember what it was like. And while it may be taking me a few days to adjust to this new digital world cookie order, I would have YouTubed this whole enterprise too, if YouTube had been invented then.

Other voices around the Web:

Michele Cozzens would have bought more boxes from the Girl Scout on her door step but they're only taking cash this year because so many people have paid for cookies with bounced checks.

Sheryl Taylor wanted to support her friend's daughter's cookie efforts but didn't want the goods in her house. She told her, and they're donating her cookies and lots more to a local nursing home. Sheryl sounds scarily like me:

This way the Girl Scouts win, the recipients of the cookies win, and you win for not eating them while you are on your resolution. Although I must say, she is only the first of many that I know I am going to have to dodge and pass up those Thin Mints! Dang those Thin Mints! (fists in the air)

Finally, the Girl Scouts do have an Internet Safety Pledge, which says nothing about a wall post from Mom but does prohibit them from collecting money online. So at least I'll have to walk over to Karma's office to drop off my payment. That's good for at least a Trefoil, I'd say.  

The way that light attaches

Disclaimer to you among the Google-hit masses (you know, all tens of them) who love me and read this stuff: This is where it's working for me to put this right now. And I thank you for everything, as always, especially for making me feel less like a misfit toy than I otherwise would. Now let's just have a drink, shall we?

One night a couple of weeks ago I was standing in the kitchen of an old friend's house in a southern state, looking out the window into darkness, pretty much. She wasn't there. She and her kids were still on a trip and I had come in early to hang out for a few days by the water and it is the benefit of having old friends who trust you that they'll leave the code to their gated community in your e-mail, the key to the house in the fern on the porch and a lasagna in the refrigerator. 

And standing by her sink that night I realized that here I was in the space where someone else lived her life, a beautiful house, a place where I felt really comfortable moving through the rooms. And I soaked up knowing that someone with whom I'd sucked down many beers in parking lots had a house that could be featured in Southern Living, that had more than one hammock and neighbors who waved and a little spit of sand you could sit on by the marsh. 

But it wasn't mine. I could walk around in it, borrow it for a bit, feel as comfortable sleeping and eating there as I really did. 

It just didn't belong to me. And if I was honest, I knew so distinctly at that moment that I didn't really have that place that did. 

And let's not talk about the space I do have. It meets the baseline on Maslow's hierarchy and for that I am grateful but beyond that it's...unsatisfying. 

A few days later I was in one of the warmest homes I've ever visited - both in the way it looked from the curb and from the corners of every room and the way it felt. Again, the doors were opened to me and I found friends inside who if they weren't happy to see me are incredibly good liars. Sunday morning amazing light streamed through so many windows, and there was Elton John on the stereo, kids with serious plans and engaging conversation and an incredible homemade breakfast in the kitchen. 

On my way home to my own life later I started ugly crying about 20 miles outside of Durham after a loud rendition of Last Christmas segued into some bs like Home for the Holidays and I lost my toehold in stability.

It turns out the line about the fool who goes all the way to Pennsylvania from Tennessee for a homemade pumpkin pie can be quite the little bitch of a trigger there, friends.

Anyway, there was something in that last place in particular that I knew I needed and I lacked, something I quite believed I ought not to lack at this juncture, something I tried to believe simultaneously in the car that I would be okay without if it never came my way while knowing that I absolutely would not. I knew that I would die, or might as well, if this is all there is.

It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair. 

But it gives you something to aspire to shut up. 

It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair. 

You're not dead yet. Shut. Up. 

It gets harder to repeat these things to myself the harder I'm pushing 40.  And it turns out that it's tough for me sometimes to live on the fringes of other peoples' lives, although without other people I'm kind of screwed, and when I'm with the right people I don't feel fringey at all. This is all very difficult to describe.

I kept thinking this all the miles it took me to settle down between there and the huge I-95 discount store, that it wasn't fair, that I wasn't as good at this alone thing as I've appeared to be for a long time and I didn't understand why this had happened to me, that as much as I've traveled and as much as I've run and as much as I've tried to make things better for a very long time, that I really didn't know what to do anymore if I ever did know. That as long as this existential loneliness sticks that I would remain in this weird life I've been living for a very long time now. 

Ten years, to be exact. 

That I would always be unhappy. 

I blamed the universe. I blamed my ex-boyfriend for the ancient things that always come up from the ether when I get like this. I blamed the media. (That's a lie but I really should, I mean they get blamed for everything else anyway.) I thought judging thoughts about just about every human being I know even vaguely who didn't deserve the surely blessed life of domestic bliss that they were living if I couldn't have this too. 

I never said this was right or made good sense. I never said I had any. 

I blamed myself. Most of all I blamed myself. I blame myself, for being broken, for not being the kind of person who can be connected to anyone but friends for the long haul, for not just hitching myself to someone decent even though I knew that wasn't what I wanted from them at all because it just wouldn't be right. I blamed myself for not being willing to pack up the next day and move to a place where I could maybe afford property more easily, because oh, wait, maybe I don't have a job there? And at least I have a job. I blamed myself for not being financially stable enough to have a house, a child that so many people seem to think I can just afford on my own in all the ways a child must be afforded (and I am not talking about money entirely here.) 

I blamed myself. I blame myself. 

And I blame myself for thinking these things, for not being content with what I've got and who I am and what I've accomplished, for not being happy for other people and accepting of what has gone down in my life at the same time. I blame myself for not knowing what to do, ever, although my job is essentially to tell other people what to do. I blame myself for faltering in hope and optimism. I blame myself for being afraid.

In truth I don't know what happened in my life to make this all happen. I don't know how I got here. I don't know what I did or didn't do, what other people did or didn't do, what way the stars aligned to make it pan out this way. I mean, I know. I know. It's just not like I knew in the moment, or even in the months and years when choices were being made, roads chosen and discarded. 

I only knew what I was doing at the time. I only knew to follow my heart and to wish and to hope and to do the daily things we all do to get by. I trusted and believed and then I didn't. And that is how I got here, the short of it anyway.

I came home from this trip more unhinged than when I started and I was really hoping for the opposite outcome. I am completely untethered right now and I'm scared shitless. I am running out of coping skills and rationalizations and ideas and solutions. I am working too hard and not getting anywhere. 

I don't know how this will change or when or what succession of steps I'll take to make it happen, although every day I still do some things that feel like they might be the right things to do. I reach out, although I probably will not answer the phone or call, and I'm sorry but that's just my own weirdness not talking. 

At the same time it's ridiculous, really, how rich I am in friends. Quite specifically, several people have offered their homes to me while I figure stuff out and that has been amazing to me and so appreciated. And as an aside, two of these people are people I met on the INTERNET, and then became friends with in real life, so suck it, Internet haters. 

It's embarrassing, almost, to think about it. It's awesome and nice but it's embarrassing, and that is another issue of mine entirely.

It's like I can't trust myself to be in anyone else's environment. I can't be around another family, another couple, another situation. I need to be in this limbo. I need to be uncomfortable. Because I think that's what motivates me. I think that's what will make the changes happen if they are to happen at all.

I told you I have no idea how I got here. I don't like it either. It is an unpalatable to describe it and it's awkward and disappointing to live it, particularly when I'm supposed to have a tinsel-like glow at the moment.

Sorry. Holiday fail.

So all of this is to say that this current whatever this is is why it's so hard for me to write right now. This is why I'm not living, either, as effectively as I ought to be. And that's maybe because I don't know what I'm doing it for. I honestly don't know. And once again, because I'm thinking there must be some reason why I'm here, I came back from that trip knowing that I have to tear everything down and rebuild it so I can figure it out in the process. 

And I'm trying to figure out how to do some good at the same time, I really am. I am sick of myself, honestly and truly sick.

So every day I have to keep finding a reason to do this, even if it's just a self that I don't have a whole lot confidence in right now. And I really do have to keep trying to write it down, even though quite frankly it's the last thing I want to do. It's still really the only thing that helps.   

Now's the Time the Time is Now

This was written as part of Genie Alisa's Living Out Loud project for October.

Music is one of the most important things in my world and I've spent most of my life chasing the kind that moves me, makes me happy, makes me think, makes me feel better, or quite simply allows me to rock out - an essential component of my mental health. It's impossible for me to name one theme song, and I can really barely stop at less than ten. There have just been that many that fit at various times and seasons, for reasons that made perfect sense at the time and usually still do. I've latched on to some - Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls, Change by Blind Melon, To Live is To Fly by Cowboy Junkies, Coming Home by Cinderella - for a long damned time, such that they've become part of my eternal playlist. But when it comes to a theme song, what could really be more powerful than the one that includes the lyrics I've had as my Facebook "About Me" since I set up my page?

Don't answer that. Just know that these two lines from Led Zeppelin's Ramble On are as close to a lifelist as I've managed to get in the past few years that have held an almost unbearable amount of change:

"Now's the time the time is now

to sing my song."

You know, I'm not going around the world and I do not have to find my girl. I had, however, been that way - whatever way that was I was - very nearly (at least) ten years to the day, and it was getting really old. It was move forward or die, sing or go mute, live, or, predictably, die. At least inside.

I grew up on Zeppelin. My parents saw them live, a bit of trivia I held up proudly at parties in college where one of my clearest memories remains of my friend Joey jumping on his bed to "D'yer Maker," singing "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you don't have to go," etc. That was when I came to own them, learned all the words, really got that the bands I knew from my own era had stolen pretty much everything they had from them but oh well - all the good stuff has to start somewhere, right?

I moved on deeper into rock 'n roll, as deep as it may be possible for a person in a life like mine to get. I listened to Led Zeppelin continually, repeatedly, and when the time came where all the roads I'd taken had led me to a place I did not want to be in any way, shape or form, I found in Ramble On the lyrical permission I needed to grab onto something that gave me something to grab onto. It wasn't much - shouldn't seem like much, anyway, just an old song. But when you don't know what your original work is anymore, when the words run dry, I thank God that I've immersed myself in some really good stuff that other people have written and played over the years, to help me get back on track until I can work it out on my own.

It's a mantra now, in the car, in a meeting. "Now's the time the time is now." And sometimes I don't even get to the second line, because the first is enough - all I need to ground me, a weird, British rock zen koan.

But it really should be taken further, because if it's time for anything it's  to sing my song. I get it, even when it's hard, I get it.