Be present or be absent. But not both.

Most of you know that last week I was at a professional conference that advertised itself as being all about leadership.  But in reality, I learned a whole host of things that I think get back to the core of an individual on a very personal level and aren’t about what we generally think of when we think about leadership.

Typically when we think of leadership, we’re thinking about qualities that have an impact external to a person – as in, leading others.  But this conference started in a very different place.  It started with leading yourself.

One of the main teachers had an excellent point that really hit home with me – “how can you lead someone else, if you can’t even lead yourself?”  Now to be honest, I’m not sure I would’ve ever really thought about it in just those terms but it’s an excellent question.  And it starts with some very simple lessons that you have to teach YOURSELF if you ever hope to get anywhere with anyone else.

This one in particular was one that I liked because I think it speaks to some common struggles today – one of which is… smartphones.  Most of us have one.  And most of us are ADDICTED to the dang thing. We’ve all seen them – the families out at restaurants, each person completely ignoring the others, bent instead over their own little handheld personal computers.  Now truly be honest – how many of you have been that person?  Lost in your own little high-tech world, and completely lost TO the family sitting around you?

I’ve been working really hard not to be that person lately but even this weekend, after it had been brought to my attention last week, I still found myself doing it!  Ugh.  It’s so difficult to fight something that’s mindless – because you don’t even realize you’re doing it until after it’s already done.

So I’ve decided to make some changes that will, hopefully, change my relationship with this stupid electronic tether (which sits in front of me  even now as a type on a much bigger computer – for reasons I myself don’t even understand) and lessen its hold on me.  It’s time that I reclaim my mental self – and part of doing that is to clip the apron strings that bind me to my phone.

In search of this reclamation, I have committed to the following:

1)      I removed my work email from my phone.  Let’s face it – I’m not that important.  And if someone does have something that needs more immediate attention, they can call me.  It’ll be faster than sending me an email anyway.

2)      When I got home with Grady this evening, I left my phone in the other room while we ate and played and goofed off.  I had the ringer up high so if someone called or texted, I would hear that but out-of-sight, out-of-mind – and it worked like a charm.

3)      Not phone related but I’m also going back to no real-time TV.  I have three shows right now that I want to watch in new episodes but Grady doesn’t like it when they’re on because it’s pretty obvious my attention is directed not-at-Grady.  And is any show really worth making my son feel like I'm not paying attention to him?  (Another good observation from teach last week: you can hurt those you love with where you choose to direct, or not, your attention.)

I’m sure it’ll be a continuing battle because the difficult thing about changing a mindless habit is that we’re not aware we’re doing it –which makes it hard to stop. But I think the first two of these things will drastically improve my phone dependency. The first because I’ll just have less to look at when I do look at my phone and the second because if it’s not in front of me, I can’t mindlessly pick it up.  I can't help but think - doesn't my family, don't I deserve that?  Deserve to disconnect and focus and just truly BE in a moment, instead of constantly worrying about what's going on outside of that moment?

I’ll let you know how it goes.  But in the meantime – do me a favor and try to implement this in your own life to whatever extent you need to.  I think that our constantly-connected society these days is always pulling us in a hundred directions at once – which, if you think about it, makes it hard to truly be anywhere.   So pull yourself back out of the craziness and just BE wherever you are.  With your family, with friends or even just by yourself.  Be present or be absent, but let's stop buying into the hype that we have to try to be both.

A generation in pursuit of YES.

I was recently encouraged to blog about this subject but hesitated.  I hate jumping into subjects that seem to encourage angry negativity and this could be one of them.  But… well, here it goes.

There’s a lot of complaining that goes on in the business world these days about what’s being called the millennial generation.  Words like entitled, demanding and the oh-so-popular ‘lack of commitment’ are consistently used to label our latest round of recruits – at my own firm and elsewhere.  Sometimes it feels a little bit like there’s a generational tug-of-war going on and the typical responses of upper management are starting to turn the term ‘professional’ into a bad word.

Now I myself am, apparently, in this generation and to be quite honest – I’m pretty darn proud of that.  I’ve often heard others…. with more experience than myself (let’s just say it that way shall we?) use phrases like “Life’s not perfect” or “Not everyone loves their job” or “You don’t have to love work – that’s why it’s called work.”  But my generation is rising up and in response to all of those things we have one, seemingly simple, response.

Why the heck not?

Why should we just accept the idea that life isn’t perfect?  Why doesn’t everyone love their job?  Why does work have to be… well, work?  You hear all the time about people who do what they love and love what they do.  Why is it that I can’t strive to be one of them?

Now I’m not so naïve has to think that my life will be perfect every second of every day or that I’ll just absolutely love every assignment I nab at work (I am married after all – I no longer believe in fairy tales).  That’s not even what I’m asking for.  But why should we just give up on the possibility that work overall could be truly fulfilling, and instead shrug our shoulders, and live only for retirement?

Not to be snarky but if I’m LUCKY retirement will make up about 25% (MAYBE) of my life as a whole.  Why in the hades would I want to put off general professional happiness for the other 75%?

This conflict comes out in a lot of ways but mostly it’s in that nebulous ‘work/life balance’ we so often hear about.  You’ve got executives putting in 12 or 14 hour days not just 5 days a week but 7, not just during a busy season but all year.  And then here come along my happy-go-lucky peers who want to put in their 40 and then spend their evenings and weekends playing in a band, making indie films or growing organic vegetables.  These two groups can’t coexist in a professional setting because they both want to convert the other to their version of balance.

And of course, here’s where my opinion inevitably comes out.  I was raised by two of the most hard-working people I’ve ever known.  They taught me the value in commitment to my career, in exceeding expectations, in approaching my tasks with intensity.  But they also taught me to love, to laugh, to live.  And when those two lessons are in conflict – it’s the second that wins out.

And I’m okay with that.

You see, over the past several years people around me have lost people close to them.  I have been spared the direct experience but I have watched it, over and over again.  And each time one idea is impressed even further on my heart.  Death, in one way, is very final.  Regardless of what you believe about what happens next – in the terms of this particular life – it’s final.  Over.  Done.  And each time I find myself asking about how I would feel if it were me.  If my life were over and done right now, today, what would I think?  What would I feel?

I can tell you what it wouldn’t be.  “Wow I wish I’d put in more time at work.”

And I don’t think that it would be that for anyone.  So then all that I, and I believe my generation, is asking is – why live like it would be?  Why live like we have all the time in the world and overworking ourselves is worth the time we trade? 

Why not live as if today is your last day and if you came to the end of it you would breathe a deep sigh of satisfaction and feel only “YES”…

I believe that there is a place for work in a life like that.  And I believe that life, ideal though it may be, is worth pursuing. 

think think think

This past month or so that I’ve been back to work full time has been… a learning experience.  It feels like so much gets crammed into every week and weekend between work and home and Grady and Colin being smack in the middle of his crazy season that it feels as if time is flying by.  And at the same time crawling miserably slow.  Will the end of full-time ever get here?  Can I make it?

I know I can but forgive the dramatics.  It’s been tough.  Being full-time while Colin is working ridiculous hours has turned into a perfect storm that has left our family a little off-kilter lately.  Colin and I are really reclusive homebodies at heart that feel most grounded when we have ample time together as a family and also time alone as individuals.  Neither of which has been available recently.

We’re making it through but this period in our lives has certainly challenged us to consider what our lives are like now, what we want them to be like and how we accomplish that.  We’ve been doing a pretty good job over the past few years of checking off the short-term goals we had established but now we need to look further.  What does the future look like and how do we get there?

I love times like these for us.  Colin and I are pretty good at entertaining together what might start out as crazy ideas that then follow one of two paths.  They either get chunked in the ‘that is just ludicrous’ bin or we revisit them.  And revisit them.  And revisit them.  Over and over until all of a sudden we realize we’re no longer talking about hypotheticals and silly fantasies – we’re talking plans and commitments.

I like that about us.  We’re planners.  Always thinking.  Overanalyzing.  But when you put us together and give us enough time to make a dream seem like a possibility, we then start talking not about the what but about the how.  And the why.  And then the… why not?

I know it’s a dreadful tease because I’m not going to tell you what it is yet that we might be planning.  It’s too early yet to say if it’s going to come off or not or if we’ll scrap it for something else.  But I do know that change is coming for our little family.  It has to.  This crazy, over-the-top, never-together life we’re in right now just isn’t us.  It feels like an old outfit that I’ve pulled out of the back of the closet to try to weasel back into and it still doesn’t fit quite right.  We’ve been turning it over, this way and that, trying to decide if it’s just the angle we’re looking at but I don’t think it is.  You can’t dress this up and make it better than it is. 

You have to either accept it or choose to change it.  And I think we’re going to change it.  At least, I hope so.

D(r)eadlines

“I got so caught up in other people’s deadlines that I forgot my life has its own timetable: There aren’t going to be infinite years to realize my dream...”

- Katherine B. Weissman

I was reading a magazine article the other day when this quote just reached out and smacked me right in the face.  Do you ever have that happen?  You’re just reading along, minding your own business, and it’s like the author says “Hey - you!  Yes, you!  I know exactly what you’re thinking in the back of your brain where you aren’t really focused on my article.  And THIS is what you need to hear.”

No?  I’m the only one who has entire conversations in my head with complete strangers/authors who most certainly aren’t speaking directly to me?  Too bad.  It really can be quite illuminating.

In this particular instance, this quote pairs rather well with something that I’ve been contemplating recently and it all adds up to the same message: Get a move on.  What are you waiting for?  It could be that tomorrow that you’re waiting on won’t ever get here.

I recently learned something about myself that I really already knew but to be honest, I’m rather thick-headed and need things to just come up and slap me like the aforementioned quote.  I realized that I’m incredibly susceptible to encouragement.  Like, stupidly so.  I had someone encourage me recently to take a step forward on a dream project ‘if it’s something I really have [my] heart set on’ and they didn’t actually even know exactly what they were encouraging me to do.  All they knew was that it was something I wanted and by darn it, if it means something to me then I should go after it! 

I left that lunch that day feeling exhilarated.  “I SHOULD do this!  I want to!  Why am I hesitating?”

In truth, I’m hesitating because of the following reasons:  1) I’m scared I’ll get overwhelmed and won’t finish, and 2) I’m scared people will think I’m an idiot for even attempting it.

To which I say: 1) Surely not finishing for whatever reason might cause me to not finish wouldn’t be nearly as terrible as never starting, and 2) when do I allow myself the grace to not give a crap what other people think?  When do I grow up and put on my big-girl pants and just accept the fact that people are not always going to agree with me (or even like me)?  I’ve realized just how much of my time (and the resultant posting on this blog) goes into worrying about other people’s criticism and it’s really beginning to bug me.

You see, the flipside to being susceptible to encouragement is that I am also very susceptible to DIScouragement.  I am keenly aware of other people’s lack of excitement for something I’m working on and it tends to infect my own feelings about it.  And really it’s just sad because it means I place my emphasis too heavily on what others think - despite my projection of a confident woman, I’m really just a little girl begging for approval.

Well phooey on that.  I don’t have forever to wait for that someday in the sun where everyone around me agrees with my dreams for myself and lavishes me with overwhelming amounts of encouragement to strike out and finally make my path one of my own choosing.  That day WILL NEVER (not just MAY never but WILL never) come and it’s just about darn time I accept that fact and move the hell on with it.

So that’s what I’m attempting to do.  I have taken step one.  I have started down the path.  It’s going to be a windy one and it’s going to take a long time to reach the end.  But in my mind’s eye, this new path is a shady one, wandering beside a little stream with lots of trees and flowers and the sound of birds hidden somewhere up in the branches overhead.  It’s pretty here, and quiet, and I can hear the beat of my own heart and feel the grass between my toes.  This won’t be a bad place to be alone, if that is what I have to be to walk it. 

I know I won’t really be alone.  I’m a pretty lucky girl in the cheering section department, despite the detraction of a few cranky-butts in the audience.  But the important thing really, at least right now, at least to me, is that I have to be ready and willing TO be alone if necessary.  I can’t place my emphasis outside of myself - it needs to be focused within.  On what my heart says I need and on where my feet want to take me.  I have to figure out how to manage that shift in focus away from the encouragement of others, even when they do choose to give it.

The important thing is not to NEED their encouragement, which is where I am now.  I have to get to where it’s just icing on the proverbial cupcake. 

Mmmmm... cupcake...

This love is ours.

So I have to start off with yes, this quote comes from a completely schmoopy teen-angst love song by Taylor Swift.  But no, this post is not going to be some romantic mushy mess about Colin.  (Truth be told if anyone would have to endure familial remarks about the others' tattoos it would be Colin – not me.)  No, this song can absolutely reduce me to tears but for a completely different reason.

Every time I hear it, I think of Grady.

Weird, right?  To hear a love song and think of my infant son?  But let me explain. 

Part of my experience of motherhood so far has been wrapped up in a lot of frustration about the constant critique I find myself undergoing from what seems like all sides.  (You'll remember I had this same issue while pregnant.)  Everyone you've ever met has ideas about parenting (even people who aren't parents) and for whatever reason – they aren't shy about sharing.  You work hard to do what you think is best only to find out that someone you have a lot of respect for thinks you've totally screwed up your kiddo because of your approach to sleeping, feeding, playing, child care, or whatever else is on their agenda for the day.

It's really disheartening sometimes.

You see, my approach to parenthood is much like my approach to anything else.  It involves a lot of careful research, thoughtful consideration and then carefully selected and implemented actions.  I'm not just stumbling around in the dark hoping I don’t accidentally feed Grady cat food because well, oops I just wasn't thinking.  So when someone rips into some aspect of how I'm handling my baby, it can be pretty hurtful because the implication is that I don't care enough about my child to think about what I'm doing and make (what I think are) good choices.

So the reason why I love this song is because it reiterates something that I tell myself all the time about baby Grady: this love is ours.

The thing is – no one can ever understand a relationship when they're standing on the outside.  I know that there are a million ways to raise a child and that even people I love are occasionally going to disagree with the path I've chosen.  But my commitment is what matters – my intention, the inspiration for my actions.  Everything I do, I do for love – love of my son.  Others may disagree, or they may wish I'd follow a different course, but I have to follow the path that feels right to me, that feels like it honors what's best for him.

I'm working on building up a thicker skin in this area but in the meantime Colin and I have chosen to surround ourselves with the people who support us even if they think breastfeeding is overrated and organic baby food a waste of money.  They might gently chide us about things they think we should loosen up on but in the end they respect us and believe we're honestly trying to do right by Grady – and the reassurance that they see that in us gives me an incredible shot of strength when I need it most.

Being a parent is hard.  It's overwhelming at times and downright frightening at others.  I worry all the time about the choices I'm making and what their long-term impact on Grady could and/or will be.  All I want is to be able to give him the best shot at being the best version of himself that he can be – whatever and whoever that is.  Even now at just 6 months old, he is an adorably tiny person that listens and learns and responds.  I strive to always pay attention to what my actions could be teaching him and whether or not those are lessons I actually want him to learn.

And when I encounter one of those people that wants to explain to me that not allowing my toddler to drink soda will just be 'denying him the pleasure' I just smile and say 'yup – I guess I'm THAT mom' and in my head I think of this song and refocus.  This love is ours.  I know why I do the things I do – and I know that one day, Grady will know too and understand and perhaps even laugh with me at some of the things I worried over anxiously.  (And he may very well even be sipping a Route 44 Pepsi at the time – but darn it he'll at the very least be old enough to have ordered it himself!)

Beauty Bravery

As I've introduced the super-short hair to various groups of people (coworkers, clients, etc.), it has inevitably led to lots of conversations about bravery.  People have been telling me how brave I am for chopping off all my hair.  (Secretly I think that's their way of saying they don't really like it, i.e. 'It must've taken a lot of guts for you to get a haircut like THAT.')

What I keep telling them is just a simple response – 'I have a tattoo.  I permanently inked my skin.  I am in no way scared of a haircut.'  But in reality, there's so much more to it than that.

Have you ever had one of those times in your life where you find yourself squirming around in your skin, uncomfortable in your day-to-day existence but unable to quickly change it?  There's just this sense, somewhere down in your heart or at the back of your mind that you just don't quite fit in your current circumstances but you feel at a loss as to what to change or how?

That's where I am right now.  And it's oddball for me because there are certainly aspects of my life right now that I LOVE and couldn't imagine any different (being a mom for example, feels so incredibly natural and fulfilling it's almost impossible to describe) but there is just something… something nagging…

Thus the hair.  The joke in college was that you could always tell if I had recently been through a breakup just by seeing me – because my hair would be different.  I'd end some relationship and immediately call my stylist.  For the first few years of our marriage Colin still looked at me askance whenever I told him I had a hair appointment.

I've been planning this pixie cut for over a year so the decision itself wasn't made on the fly but the timing was definitely driven by an inner need to just DO SOMETHING.  To break out of the rut, to change my perspective, to see the world differently.  I began to feel this antsy-ness coming over me and I knew – it's time.  Time to chop it.

I realize at first blush it seems silly to talk about a haircut changing my perspective or allowing me to see the world differently but the truth is, in our beauty-centered culture, it's probably not so hard to see how such a drastic appearance change can change a person's outlook.  I often encourage my female friends to ditch their makeup or cut their hair to change their point of view.  If you change the way you look at yourself, how could you not change the way you see everything else?

The pixie falls into it this way – I need to see myself and my place in this phase of my life differently.  I need to be able to turn a more critical eye towards every detail so that I can find the one that's giving me grief.  How better to do that than to change the way that I see myself (both literally and metaphorically)?  And what easier way to do that than to strip away what can easily be such a large part of any woman's identity? 

A lot of this has to do, I think, with my needing to figure out where I am now in all this mom-ness.  Just as when Colin and I got married and I lost my 'me' into our 'we' for a while, I'm naturally having that same experience with baby Grady.  My life right now focuses on him, revolves around him, is all about him and that is, of course, how it should be.  But in order to be the kind of mom that I want to be for him, I have to also start taking the time to reestablish myself as a separate entity and figure out how to honor that person as well.  If I can't do it myself, I can't expect him to do it either.

But in order to do that I have to take stock of the changes that have occurred within me over the past six months (and longer) and figure out where they leave me as an individual.  There is more to me than motherhood – but what is it, exactly?  What does she look like and – more importantly – what does she want?

It's a harder question to answer than you might think – but I believe at least some of the barriers to the answer were left on the salon floor among the clippings.  I look in the mirror and I see a different me.  Now I just have to get to know her.

The Great Clean-Out 2012

Phase One: Books

I know – it probably seems counterintuitive to start a clean-out project with the category that you are naturally inclined to hoard but nonetheless it's where I've decided to begin.  I've been feeling a little penned in lately by the amount of STUFF in our house which I have decided is not an altogether random feeling.  Part of it has to do, I know, with the arrival of the latest issue of O Magazine on my Nook (the annual de-clutter issue, naturally).  Another part of it has to do with our current housing debate – to own or to continue renting, to go bigger or smaller… how to redefine our living space for our newly expanded family. 

If you spend a lot of time thinking about what your living space needs to be like, it naturally leads to considerations about the stuff you own – because that's the stuff the space has to accommodate.  And I can't help but look around and think 'what even IS all this junk?!?'

For a pair of natural pack-rats, Colin and I have actually done a really good job in recent years of culling through the junk and giving/throwing away the excess.  At one point last year I was certain the Goodwill folks knew our car before we ever turned in.  But we still have loads more than we need and there are times when it weighs me down – and most often when we're talking minimum square footage of the new digs.

So it seems to me that another massive overhaul is necessary in the crap-we-keep department and I've decided to start with the hardest stuff first – because usually those are the items that you never get to because you burn out on cleaning before you get to them.  For me, as most of you are no doubt aware, this inevitably leaves me standing in front of my book shelves.

I love books.  I love shopping in bookstores and trucking home with arms full of unopened possibilities.  When I first heard that Borders was going out of business I thought, how could that possibly be when they get so much of my paycheck?

Which means, of course, that I have lots of books; admittedly, lots of books I've never read, or will never read again and only a small number of books that fall into the 'lifelong keeper' category.  But I've decided that's what I need to narrow it down to.  I'm going to give myself two categories of keepers – 'haven't read yet, but still want to' and 'favorites – not to be touched under penalty of death.'  The rest will go into a pile to be sold or donated – I haven't determined yet which.

The interesting thing about this is that it affords me an opportunity to dig through the books I own and rediscover them to a certain extent.  I then have to cast a critical eye at them and mentally place them into the appropriate category.  The Rushdie shelf I just skip – all keepers.  Same with the Knapp and the Murakami.  My Nick Hornby books… hmm… split between the two categories of keepers – High Fidelity (favorite), Juliet, Naked (not yet read, but want to), but all of the collections of his old columns… hmmm… I finally decide are keepers (favorites, but part of me feels like I'm pushing the definition a tad). 

But what about Wicked?  Hmm… read it but definitely not a favorite – first addition to the sell/donate box.  Followed quickly by Joy Luck Club (loved it – but not a keeper), then the Proust and several non-fiction books on running, exercising and serial killers.  My tattered version of All the King's Men – definitely a keeper.  The Story of Edgar Sawtelle… ugh… sell/donate… a wonderful story but I never could get past the page near the middle where my heart broke (still so carefully marked by the receipt I was using as a bookmark and never removed).

As I work my way around the room and through the bookshelves, it actually starts to feel pretty good.  I find myself enjoying the process of whittling down to just those books that either still hold my interest (Atwood's The Blind Assassin) or which I know always will (Sontag's The Volcano Lover, my first print edition of The Silence of the Lambs, Stephen King's On Writing).  It's an interesting way to look at myself – how I've evolved based on the purchases I've made over the years and the much smaller subset that I still intend to keep.

And, let's be honest, the other benefit is that all of this cleaning and clearing out makes me feel productive without forcing me to face any of the housing questions that actually prompted it.

Next week – twofold tackle I think.  The guest room closet and… my purse collection… yipes.

Without Regret

This is a common refrain it seems like in our society – people are constantly talking about living 'without regret.'  Like that's a good thing.  Something to strive for.

I think it's impossible.  And really, I think it probably should be.

Let's put it this way – if you get to the end of your life and don't have a single regret – is that a sign that you lived your life absolutely to the fullest, missing nothing and making no mistakes?  No – surely not.  We all have times where we fall short of each of those things even though, ostensibly, they sound like they would be common goals.

So what then does it mean?  Does it perhaps mean that instead you have lived your life in a way that means you questioned nothing, looked back on nothing, and reconsidered nothing?  That is more what it means to me (though, of course, I realize it won't mean that to everyone).  I feel like a life lived without regrets probably just means a life lived with only a modicum of actual self-honesty.

I regret.  Oh boy do I regret.

But not in the way that says 'I wish I could go back and change X, because it would have led me to a different Y' though I realize that of course changing the past could have led to a different today.  It's more that I regret because I now appreciate what those choices meant in the moment when at that point I had no idea. 

For a silly example – I regret my choice of prom date to my junior prom.  Ugh I regret that.  I had three choices actually, two fabulous ones and one that I selected for some reason which I now don't understand (but suspect was based on a completely shallow set of assumptions that ended up being bunk).  And I paid for it too – that was the most boring evening EVER.  So sure I regret but not because in the grand scheme of my life changing that prom date would have changed anything more than the way that one evening turned out.  But I'm fairly certain I would've had a better time.  That would have been nice.  And I'd feel better about it now because the other two choices were, in the end, better people and I let them down because of the way the whole deal unfolded.  And it would be nice not to feel guilty about that anymore.

Part of my feelings about all this has to do with the fact that I am HORRIBLE about self-guilt.  My mom and I were talking about this just this morning – in the context of the fact that motherhood partly equals a lifelong guilt trip.  I torture myself over things and so I can't help but regret because the decisions I made that I wish I could change follow me around with little matching duffels and rolling luggage bags stuffed with guilt, reminding me that my decisions impact others outside myself and sometimes in less-than-stellar ways.

In a way I think that's a good thing – it keeps me honest and thoughtful.  I think about things I did years ago and I wander through the decisions again and consider what it is that makes me cringe even now and what I would choose now to do differently.  And actually more often than not I find that I'm really okay with the choice I made originally, even if it was perhaps a dumb one – but sometimes I realize that I wish I had gone down a different path, for whatever reason, and I regret.

I think maybe what people should say – or at least what I, personally, would rather say – is not that I seek to live a life without regret, but that I seek to live a life such that my regrets are all caused by thoughtless decisions or decisions made without a full understanding in the applicable moment of the whole situation or myself or the other players.  (This in contrast to regrets that spring out of willful, malicious or angry moments in which I make bad decisions because I give over to a side of myself that wants to be unpleasant on purpose.)

Because at least in the way that I, myself, approach my life – I think that a life without regret isn't possible, so it isn't something that I should ever try to strive for.  In a way, I almost want to regret because it means that I understand my life and my screw-ups and I seek to make amends, even if it is just going forward.  So I think I'd rather strive for a life in which my regrets just later make me feel like a goofball or an ass rather than those that might make me feel like a bad person (the difference, for me, being the intent behind the original mistake).

Essentially, I guess, I'd rather be old, looking back on my life and realize that at times I was an idiot but at least I wasn't a jerk.  Or at least not purposefully.

Ha.  Now there's a lofty goal to strive for.  But you know, I like it.  Maybe not as Hallmark-worthy as the more common idea, but these are at least words I think I can live by.

Back to Love

Four months.  That's dismal even by my often low standards of blog update timeliness.  Yeesh.

Suffice it to say that returning to work has proven to be somewhat of a brain-drain which has made writing a bit difficult.  It's not so much the time involved either – it's literally the brain power.  In the afternoon, when Grady naps and I could quite reasonably be expected to post here, I have instead been devouring book after book – resorting to a passive pastime rather than something active like writing. 

I knew I'd get back around in the circle eventually – once I gave myself time to figure out the work thing a little better, to get to where I could sleep a little more at night and to determine where in the world all this change has actually left me.  I'm not quite there yet – but I'm making progress.

While I mulled things over and read books like it was going out of style (which, sadly, it is), there have been several blog posts that have been written, rewritten and scrapped.  In my head.  I have a bad habit of 'writing' my posts mentally while I'm in the shower, or trying to fall back asleep after a bout with Grady at 2am.  Then when I go to actually write them out later they don't sound the same to me and I end up unhappy with the new end product – wishing instead for the one that seemed so well done until it disappeared in the shred bin that is my short term memory. 

One at least of those entries from somewhere in the vicinity of New Years talked all about resolutions.  I love New Years.  I'm a sucker for it every year.  It's like the same rush I used to get every time a new school year started.  The ability to, in some measure, start over.  Revamp, reinvent, refocus.  I loved the start of the school year for just that very purpose (well, that and the excuse to purchase loads of bright, shiny office supplies) and still, even now, I start each New Year with resolutions.

This year is probably the best I have ever done at actually keeping those resolutions.  I have six and of those six, I can honestly say I am currently still at a 100% success rate for two of them – and one of those is a DAILY goal!  (Albeit the oh-so-simple, 'Floss daily.')  Now granted, there is one goal where my progress is slightly-more-than-moderately disappointing and another where I have made no progress at all BUT – I have time.  Right now I'm just choosing to be proud of the success I have had and I take some comfort in the knowledge that at least some of the change I began this year hoping to find has, in fact, manifested itself in my life.

Another one of those entries was going to be a part-rant, part-rave about a long-in-coming realization I had that what someone else might think of me does not have to impact what I think of myself.  Sounds simple I'm sure, but to me it was a huge epiphany. 

It happened like this.  All of a sudden, one day, during a Weight Watchers meeting, I had this crazy thought.  I gave birth.  Sounds like a 'duh!' moment right?  But up until that point, in thinking of Grady's birth all I thought of was how grateful I was that he was safe and healthy, how glad I was that we had such wonderful nurses and doctors to care for us, how lucky we are that our parents could be here, how completely incredible my husband was.  I never once stopped to think 'I did that.'

But that day, as I thought about it, it struck me.  I did that.  Not any of those other people, despite the fact that their assistance was crucial as well as just comforting.  In the end, the actual physical act of bringing my infant son into this world – that was me.  All me.  I made that happen.

And what I then realized was this – I am not a quitter.  I have oftentimes in my life been told that I'm not very good at seeing things through.  That I change my mind, lose interest, move on.  And the sad thing is, what I realize now, that is just a pessimistic view of one of my favorite qualities in myself.

Rather than being a quitter – I would describe myself as curious.  I am endlessly curious.  I want answers to a thousand random questions and I want to dig around in piles of old books seeking the little trivia that will make the pieces of something-that-doesn't-even-really-matter click together.  I love to learn, I love to try things out, I love to stick my hands into just about everything and muddy the water a bit just to watch it churn.

And sure – one of the outcomes of this is that I know just a little bit about a lot of random junk.  I can knit – but not well.  I love to paint, but never mastered it.  I've got a whole collection of cookbooks but would be the first to admit I'd rather order in.  I've worked in a wide variety of industries and settings and in college ended up with almost enough credit hours to have three different minors that had nothing to do with my final degree. 

For years I have used all of that to guilt-trip myself about this difficulty I have with focusing on just one thing and seeing it through.  But in that moment of self-honesty, I saw it all completely differently.  In the hardest moment of my life – at 2am after a whole day without food (and those of you who know me know – I don’t do well without food), tired, in pain, scared and upset – I mustered up everything I had in me and I made something beautiful happen.  I did that.

And what I realize is – I've been doing that for years.  All those times when I dove into something headfirst – that was me, experiencing, learning, loving the moment.  No I never become a master knitter or painter or chef.  But that was never what I WANTED.  I only ever wanted to dip my toes in, learn the basic strokes and let them fill me up and excite me and carry me on to something new.

It's all about perspective and what I know now is that even includes how you look at yourself.  To someone else who might want more than that out of me – I am a quitter.  I'm never going to be master of anything.  But for me, personally, all of those little forays into new things are absolute success stories.  Because a chance to learn, but not to linger, was all I ever wanted for myself.

An interesting lesson to learn as an almost-thirty-year-old woman, that I don’t have to let someone else tell me who or what I am or assign value to my life, such as it is.  A good lesson, albeit a bit late.

So anyway – just a quick synopsis of a couple of the posts that you were denied (spared?) during my absence.  Some of you may be happy to know (others may be disappointed) that I've now added "Blog weekly" to the resolutions list.  Hopefully that'll keep me more accountable to those of you out there who actually care to read what goes here.

And since I know myself well enough to know I work well with bribes, my right to my next learning excursion (rowing lessons at the boathouse downtown) is now tied to my resolution success over the next two months.  So hopefully I can keep it up at least that long!