The blog in which I share some unpopular opinions and some other stuff

I have these friends who recently split up. The separation was unexpected and, to my mind, came out of nowhere. One minute She was here and making tutus for her daughter's birthday, and the next minute she was packing up her worldly possessions to move 3000 miles across the country.

She called me the day she was leaving. She didn't place blame on anyone, but I blamed her. I blamed her for leaching His wallet dry. I blamed her for not considering couples counseling before bailing. I blamed her for promising my nephews that she'd be there and then taking off.

I put on the non-committal "whatever you have to do" voice, and firmly committed to being Team Him.

And He was a mess. He needed all the help and teammates He could get. She wouldn't even take his calls. We were there for Him and I stayed Facebook friends with Her, mostly just to check in on the kids.

Then things started changing. He got weird and his story kept changing. It was hard to tell the difference between truth and fabrication and I got to the point where I simply assumed everything was fabrication. There really seems to be no end to the depth of his weirdness and inappropriate behavior. So I've put some distance between us.

I don't know how to segue into this next part, so...

Among so many of my other flaws, I am an extraordinarily lazy friend. I'm bad about phoning, I'm lackadaisical about answering emails, and deliberately keep my phone on silent, so I don't hear the text message notification. Most of my friends have accepted this about me, as shitty as it is. This is one of the reasons I love Facebook - I can keep up with everyone from a safe, stalkerish distance.

As I mentioned, I kept up with Her through Facebook, mostly to check on the kids. But after getting some perspective about Him, my anger shifted into understanding. I became aware of the factors that drove Her to move away so quickly and fully, and break promises to my nephews. I was filled with sadness at having let our friendship drift so far apart... Long before she actually left... But didn't know how to breach the gulf that I had forged.

This sadness was further underscored when she had reached out to our mutual friends about Him, but hadn't touched base with me. I felt left out, as selfish as that is, but understood why she hadn't sought my counsel, too. But then she did.

And that brings me to the point of this whole blog entry:

She is HAPPY. She is a wholly different person than the one that I first knew, though I should've known that THIS version of her was always present underneath the materialism and selfish facade she wore for so long. She is cognizant and present, accepting of her role in the breakdown of her marriage, which started long before She ever met Him. She is in a place of honesty and peace, not altogether untinged by sadness at the waste she laid in her quest of self re-discovery.

She is a person I am not only proud of, and admire to a degree, but am envious of. She was Brave enough - or scared enough - to say fuck it and trudge forward to seize what would make her happy, despite the consequences. She is in a more honest place, that has little room for living according to other people's dictates.

I'm closer to where she is than I have ever been before, but not close enough, though every day brings me closer. And one day soon, I'll be there with Her in the redwoods.

Getting my shit together

The Boyfriend™ posed an interesting question to me last night. He asked me what I want REALLY want to do with my life. My answer was immediate, albeit grandiose: I want to change the world. And I do.

I spent the remainder of the evening trying to figure out how I would even begin to accomplish this. I'm scattered and kind of flaky. I want to try everything immediately and simultaneously. Most people that change the world are hyper focused to the point of obsession and hyper focusing is just not my bag, baby.

Then I remembered that my great-grandmother changed the world. A Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim Fellow, she is now celebrated in Australia. People in the states, who wish to, can now receive a degree in Folklore because of her efforts. She wrote a couple of books. She graduated Suma Cum Laude from NYU in 1934, when few women even went to college, never mind graduated with honors.

I remembered my nana, who went to Harvard where she received her masters degree in education, which she used to teach generations of school children who still honor her to this day.

I remembered my mom who overcame a lot of adversity to start her own business which is, by all accounts, very successful.

These are my models. This is the blood that flows through my veins. These women broke through barriers and wouldn't take no for an answer. So, really. What's holding me back? Not a damn thing!

That old saying, "change starts at home" rings particularly true right now. A LOT of what I want to accomplish starts right here. It starts with my life list. It starts with teaching The Trolls about compassion and making a difference. It starts with filling my home with love and tolerance - for myself and my family. And I've already accomplished much of that, with no small amount of assistance from The Boyfriend™.

The next step is to make sure that I am brave enough to share it all here, in this space and to make sure that I am frank about it all, despite the level of embarrassment I may experience. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, so I really shouldn't pretend to be.

After that, I need to make sure that I insist on love. Because changing the world requires love. A lot of it. Self love (not to be confused with selfish love), love for your neighbor and love (for the sake of conversation and to eliminate resistance to the idea, we'll call it tolerance) for your enemy.

It's about honoring processes and the ups and downs that come with the journey. It comes from not resisting but going with the flow. It also means that I'm going to have to learn to live with things thatbmake me uncomfortable and learn when it's time to let go of thosenthings that are no longer appropriate for my journey.

And I realize that I sound like a lot of self help gurus out there. I also sound like a whole bunch of other bloggers out there that want to make a difference with their story. My joining my story with theirs, I believe there's a greater chance for success for the world to tranform into a beautiful, loving place.

Cheers to the first steps on this journey.

Namaste

And The Best Friend will always be two years older than me

It is my birthday today, and I spent a glorious day of doing whatever the hell I felt like doing-- which really wasn't all that much. I napped... A lot. I went out to lunch with my beloved, and got more birthday greetings than I could count on all my fingers and toes. It was a GOOD day.

It occurred to me that I was grateful for just the remembrance from family and friends, and didn't care that I didn't have minds and mounds of gifts to open. The gift of friendship and love from so many people reminded me how truly blessed I am, and all that love meant so very much more than all the gold in Fort Knox.

The thoughtfulness in the arrangement of flowers and 33 balloons from my mom, the book and camera that The Best Friend got me two months ago, the scrumptious edible arrangement from my ever thoughtful uncle John, and my Brion Box of goodies all delighted me to no end. Then gestures, so filled with love and thoughtfulness meant so much to me, that my heart is near to bursting with gratitude and love.

The Boyfriend gave me a kick ass Hindu yoga poster - ever aware of my passing and lasting fancies - and with it, gave me the gift of rearranging the house so that our energy can flow better. He's treated me like a princess all day and I have wallowed in his adoration and love.

Even The Trolls remembered my day, and sang happy birthday all the way to school. The Nugget, who tends toward misbehaving at school, suffered through being haved all day so he'd have a sticker to show me. The Monkey was disappointed that nobody got me a cake, because a person shouldn't have to buy her own cake on her birthday. I had to remind him that I'm allergic to eggs and really don't like cake all that much just so he'd stop worrying so much.

I am damn lucky. My nana's prophecy that 33 is a very good year to be is already in existence, already manifested. It IS a good year. With all this loving kindness, there isn't anything I can't do. Heck, there's even a meteor shower tonight, as if God said, "here. Make all the wishes you can think up, cuz I'm gonna grant 'em all."

Insert blog title here.... And other updates

Ok...so I'm not much for the catchy blog titles today, but can you blame me?

Well, since I haven't updated in a while, I guess you can, since y'all have no idea what's been going on. With me, that is.

So...what have I been up to lately? Moving. Sweet merciful Christ this is the move that will never end. If, God forbid (knock on wood, ptew, ptew), The Boyfriend™ and I don't work out, HE can move because I am never doing this again. Now I remember why I prefer precipitating factors for co-habitation.

But in fairness, The Boyfriend™ has been an absolute dream about all of this. For all intents, I have completely taken over his previously "pristine" domicile and action packed it full of my crap. And the man has HELPED me do it. He's packed and loaded and unpacked and moved stuff around, just so I have enough space for my stuff. And he hasn't bitched once. Outloud, anyway.

have I mentioned, lately, how grateful I am for him? Well, I am.

And The Best Friend® has been remarkably patient with me, too. I haven't exactly been attentive or a very good friend these days, and most of my conversation has been filled with moving updates and Boyfriend chatter. She hasn't even so much as rolled her eyes... In front of me, anyway.

Have I mentioned how grateful I am for her? Well, I am.

And there is a whole slew of other people I am grateful for, too, who have done everything to make this go as smoothly as possible. Even The Ex has been a trooper about it, taking The Trolls so I could move.

So that's what's going on. A whole bunch of moving and a whole bunch of gratitude. All in all, life is pretty good.

Very soon, I hope to get back to the whole life list living and updates about my quest to achieve the dream. But I'll have to find that box first.

Things I'm Grateful For - Part 1

Along with the "blogs of substance" and the updates on my life list, I also want to talk about my spiritual journey. I've had quite a few conversations with Miguelito, over the tenure of our friendship, about the nature of God, spirituality and how we can all have conversations with God (Miguelito is not frustrated with my circular conversational style, bless him. On top of being able to understand my non-linear "logic," he occasionally watches me down 12 shots of tequila, drunk text everyone in my phone book, throw up 8 of the 12 shots and then pass out on his lap. That's friendship, my friends).

Part of my journey is learning how to be grateful for what is, right now, not what I wished and wished and wished for and has finally come true. It's hard to be grateful for the here-and-now, especially when the here-and-now is rather bland or routine.It takes a fair amount of patience (which I lack) and skill (again -- something I lack) to not look forward or behind, to not focus on results and to merely be. Thankfully, the God* I know is patient with process and understands that I will most definitely fall.

Heart-shaped leaf. Photography by me

When I think about my spiritual journey and my progress on my path, my thoughts invariably turn to my friends. People like The Best Friend® and Miguelito -- the only two people who know absolutely all there is to know about me, and the only people I would trust with that knowledge. Or Adrienne, who I can still count among my friends even though we'll go literal years without speaking to one another, and who is the keeper of the closet where I hide many of my skeletons. Then there's Mischka, who's kindness and selflessness got me through the last few and very difficult months back in Massachusetts.

And all my other friends, who would forgive me for not citing them specifically in this post, because they know that I would never, ever deliberately omit them... except for right now. And only because it's too early in the morning for rambling, run-on paragraphs. Not that they aren't worthy or good enough to be written about in rambling, run-on paragraphs, but only that I am tired and under-caffeinated to write the aforementioned paragraph.

These people are my chosen family. I could no more separate myself from them (even when they beg and plead for me to just leave them the hell alone already!) than I could my children. These people are my psychic innards.

Today, I am grateful for my friends.



*I do not used the word "God" typically here. When I say "God" I mean "the He/She/It that created us all, whether it be Allah, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha or Einstein." Basically, I use "God" for conversational ease.