That Flippin' Bird!

Have you ever had to endure that phone call from another parent informing you of some error in judgment committed by your child? And you are stunned because you had not been told about it by your own kid and secondly because of the superiority transmitted in the voice of the other parent? Where you know that parent is making judgments about your parenting skills, your education, your class, your child’s worth? When you have to fight the urge to lash back at that parent’s arrogance and want to tell them that perhaps they have sheltered their child for too long and that it can be a big, mean world out there and when someone is feeling like they are being ganged-up upon, they usually lash out? And you know that your child has a good heart and is a kind kid and is going to grow up to be a fine adult? But that this parent is going to use this opportunity to declare to others how much better a job she is doing raising her children than you are? When all you can do is say thank you for bringing this to my attention and assure her it will be dealt with?

No? I didn’t think so. Me neither.

28-day Storm

I survive a 28-day storm every month. It starts out barely visible off beyond the horizon. As the days turn into weeks, the storm builds. My normal, staid focus becomes increasingly erratic with new thoughts arriving the instant another leaves. I begin to fill up inside with stories and ideas and philosophical ramblings. I am prolific in my output. I have to get it all out on paper. The storm rages on for another week and I’m riding it, exhilarated. I’ve got my mental surfboard in the rushing waters and we are taking every wave. I like what I write, what I think, what I see. I feel like there is no end to my abilities. I’m in my groove and it feels good. And then, suddenly, the storm ceases. And I’m left standing there wet, with my surfboard in hand and no waves to ride. And I can’t force any stories to come. I am empty, sad. I put my surfboard away and watch the dry horizon for any sign of the next storm.

Lost In Reality

Where is my map? Where did I put it? Do you have it? Do you know where I’m supposed to be going? I look for signs everywhere that I’m on the right path. I consult the astrology books in the supermarket checkout lines. But until I read one that says “Quit chomping on that Snickers bar, fatty, because the man of your dreams is sitting outside with a sign that reads Will Work For Food,” I can’t really take them all that seriously. They are just too vague. It’s the same thing with the “Magic 8 Ball”. What is so magic about it? I keep asking the same questions over and over, and the best it can come up with is “Reply hazy, try again.” Of course it would say that! I know that my life is hazy! It is supposed to tell me if I am on the right track or not. Reply hazy, please!

Maybe those stalwarts are just too outdated, not technological enough? Perhaps a personal GPS system is a better tool? Kind of like a really miniature version of C3PO. Do they sell a GPS system for your life? Wouldn’t that be cool – just attach a 4 -inch screen to your wrist and have it tell you – “Turn left here.” Or “you’ve gone too far, turn back NOW!” Or “I would not advise putting all your money in that fund; it does not show up on my radar.” Maybe they could even make it able to detect good eggs from bad eggs like in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory? You could be thinking this guy (or gal) is pretty cute or funny and you are interested in him (or her). As you begin to get closer, your GPS system could give you an alarm that said “Mayday! Mayday! Danger ahead!” (Of course if he is really good-looking, you can always ignore it and go ahead with all your own devilishly good plans. I’m not here to judge.)

Alas, there is not a personal GPS system for me. And the astrology charts and Magic 8 Ball don’t tell me anything. I’ve even looked for direction reading the placemats at Chinese Restaurants. Nothing. And fortune cookies are only fun to read when you end all their statements with the words “in bed.” But so far my life plan hasn’t materialized. I have had to get where I am today on a combination of hard work, good mentors and sheer luck. And the next segment of my life will pretty much follow that same plan. However, I have gained a bit of wisdom over the years; perhaps I’ll employ that too.

Some things I have learned....

Some things I’ve learned:
If you smile pretty, the sales guy at the Auto Zone will put on your new windshield wipers for you at no charge.
There is a big difference between organic chicken and that other stuff in the stores. Organic chicken actually tastes like chicken.
It doesn’t matter if I do one shot of tequila or 12 shots of tequila, I’m gonna throw up.
Children under 6 are brutally honest even when it is not requested.
No one is going to show up on my doorstep with my dream job on a silver platter; I actually have to go out there and get it for myself.
Houses do not clean themselves, no matter how much I twitch my nose back and forth.
I’m not ready to dance with just one man.
Floss.
You can’t orgasm when you’re dead. So you might as well have as many as you can while you are living.
Carrying around guilt and shame that is 20 years old is like burying yourself alive.
When they say to take ibuprofen with food, they really mean it.
I do not have to be unhappy; I can change my circumstances.
Dancing tango is like being hugged for three hours.
No matter where I have traveled, people are the same. We cry, we laugh, we get married, we have families, we dance and we die. Oh and the sun shines everywhere not just here.
Having children does not fundamentally change who I am, they enhance my life.
White wine or red wine, it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m sharing it with a friend.
I cannot live without passion in my life.
Sometimes I have so many thoughts rushing around my head that I just have to get it out on paper. And sometimes, I just want to dance.
Our hearts have an incredible capacity for love and that it really is better to have loved and been loved even if only for a short time than to have never felt it.
Not to give up on hope. Having once lived without it and after reclaiming it, I will never let it go again. It is too precious.

Space needed...

A Proposed, no, Preferred, Stall Management System

I used to wonder what the appropriate ladies' restroom etiquette should be. But now I'm just going to say HOW it SHOULD be. Ladies, because we don't pee standing up, we get these nice stalls in our restrooms. Thankfully. However I'd like to recommend that when going into a restroom that has more than two stalls and one of those is already occupied that you choose the stall one stall over, not directly beside it. And conversely if you enter a restroom and there are more than two stalls, choose one that allows someone else to not HAVE to enter right next to you. It boggles my mind each time someone enters a stall right next to me when there are plenty of others (empty) they can choose from. I am thankful that we have stalls and door locks because otherwise they probably would march right on in to use the one I'm using. And don't get me started on those women who don't bother flushing or washing their hands!!! Where are you from? You're too busy to wash your hands but not too busy to spread disease?!

(Please know that I understand this stall management system is moot when all the stalls are occupied such as at concerts, sporting events, etc... but if we all start to employ it, public restroom usage won't have to feel so 'public'.)

Delicious Ambiguity

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. - Gilda Radner

I wanted the perfect ending too. I wanted to have the perfect life. I wanted others to envy my life like I envied theirs. I was jealous of the happiness that seemed to be everywhere but in my soul. So I mimicked. I tried to replicate what I saw others doing. But no matter how I succeeded in following the paint-by-numbers direction, no matter how ‘beautiful’ I made it all appear, I was not having the perfect life nor the perfect ending. The happiness eluded me. And I cried, quietly and softly, inside for years. With every attempt to renovate failing though, my tears got less and less and resignation set in. My heart’s desire to be happy extinguished. No use continuing to try to appear perfect or to strive for that perfect ending I saw everyone else having. Life for me was always going to be gray with the occasional fleeting bursts of sunshine. Because no matter how hard I tried it wasn’t working. Why were others happy and I wasn’t?

My first memory of trying to manufacture or manipulate happiness was back in high school, I successfully stepped in and filled the shoes of a beloved classmate whom everyone loved. She had it all, I thought. She was blonde. Vivacious, outgoing, happy. She made you feel that the moments she spent with you were as valuable to her as it was to you. I wanted to be her. So when she moved, I did all the things that she did. I did the same activities. I even ran the same sport in track. And it worked. At the end of the next year, a boy, whom I had a crush on, commented to me that I reminded him of her. And I was thrilled but also sad because even though I had succeeded in becoming LIKE her. I still was NOT her. And I NEVER would be. I would always be Michelle. I couldn’t ever be anyone different. So I decided that I wanted people to like ME for who I was not for whom I made them think about.

(You might think that was the only lesson I needed to learn about manufacturing happiness. But no, I need multiple lessons before brilliance sets in.)

So for the next 20 years I didn’t try to be anyone but myself. BUT I followed the instructions laid out for me by many previous generations and influences in my life. I tried to amass those things that were necessary to make me happy to give me the perfect life, the perfect ending. Where people could look at my family’s photo and think, “Wow. What a great looking family! They look so happy!” I graduated high school (with grand hopes for my future), went to college on scholarship (still hopeful), got married (cause that’s what you did and everyone else was doing it and they seemed happy), went to graduate school on scholarship (having multiple degrees means you’re smart which if you’re smart, you have to be happy), had one baby (because people who were happy had children), started creating my career path (earning money naturally makes you happy) , bought a house (a mortgage means you are grown up and grown ups are happy), had another baby (mothers with multiple children are, naturally, happier than those with just one), got another job (earning more money had to bring me happiness), bought a bigger house (I had to live on this one particular street because every time I walked on it, everyone there seemed so happy), got a dog (pets are important for happiness, I read it in a magazine.), got laid off (oh wait, what about the money equaling happiness part?), saw less and less of my husband (oh wait, I’m raising two kids basically on my own. I’m still not feeling happy and now I’m getting angry), got another job but on a different career path (I could make everything right again if I were employed; life would have to get easier and happiness would then come), had another baby (another child would be the perfect antidote to the misery that was enveloping my life; the child would make me happy), and I began screaming and raging inside because my ‘perfect life’ was far from it and I didn’t want that ‘perfect life’. Happiness had eluded me at every turn and at every attempt so far. I woke up from my years of resignation and knew there had to be more to life than I was getting. And I was determined to change my path. My perfect ending, my perfect life was not what anyone else could describe or plan out for me. It was inside me the whole time. I had just been afraid of living it. I didn’t know where it was going to take me but I knew that it was going to be perfect… for me.

Walking the Dogs

Why have I spent so many years going around and around this park? I asked myself. Always on the same path. Oh I might change it up and start out going left instead of right but I never really veered from this path. And each time I went for a walk the experience was less and less of a joy and more of a burden. I followed all the others who moved in a circle around the park. All of us moving clockwise or counter-clockwise not thinking about why we are there; we are just doing it. Living in our gray world, walking on the black, marked path. And I hated to take the dogs on a walk with me too. They barked at everyone. They ran back and forth across the path. My shoulders and hands hurt from trying to reel them in and make them walk quietly and peacefully around the park. Not to disrupt the flow of the walkers and runners. My ears rang from the high-pitched bark and my soul hurt from the stares of others who judged me with their questioning looks of “why can’t you keep your dogs quiet?” I hated every moment of those walks. So I began to walk less and less. I left the dogs at home. We just couldn’t conform to the status quo. We couldn’t be ‘good circle walkers’. I couldn’t take the stares anymore. Then the vet said – the dogs NEED exercise. So guilt overtook the shame I felt walking us in the predetermined circle. I laced up my shoes, grabbed the leads, the dogs and took a deep breath.

When the three of us got to the park, I froze. I wouldn't budge. The dogs tugged and tugged on the leads to get moving. But, I didn’t want to walk the circle. I didn’t want to just move around like everyone else anymore. So instead I stepped off the path and extended the lead for the dogs and we trampled through the green space. We investigated the lakes, the underbrush and chased squirrels. We didn’t step on the path once. We went up hills and down trails. The dogs raced back and forth and didn’t bark. They just bounded happily. And then, it hit me. I have spent so many years just going around like everyone else and wondering why I haven’t gotten very far and why it hadn’t been very enjoyable. But I made that one small change to walking the dogs and suddenly the experience was much more enjoyable for all of us (even for those we would not see on the path).

It is time to make each experience mine no matter the form it takes. And when I walk down MY path and follow MY heart, the experience is so much more enjoyable. I'll do it again and again because it is so much fun! Time to take the dogs for a walk!