commitment

The phone was ringing. That’s odd, I thought, trying to clear away that cotton candy that inhabits your brain after you’ve just fallen asleep.

Only minutes earlier I’d turned off the light after struggling to stay awake while reading my latest self-help book, “The Road Less Traveled.”

It has to be late, I mumbled, rolling on my side to get a look at the time on the digital clock radio next to the bed. It was half past eleven.

Now it is my experience that NO good news is EVER on the other end of a phone that rings after eleven. Ever!

Either that person is drunk and dialing, picking a fight about something that happened a week ago, telling you that someone is sick—or there’s been an accident.

This call ended up kicking all of those things to the curb.

“Janet, sorry, are you awake? I know it’s late.” It was my friend Rita (not her real name).
Rita is one of the “herd”, as we were called. We were given that moniker because of the level of noise that entered a room wherever we showed up, and because there were always seven of us. Seven teenage girls attached at the hip through all four years of Catholic high school.
I’m sure you can imagine.

We shared everything teenage girls share—all the firsts.
First periods, first cigarettes, first joint, first drunk/sick night, first loves and all the trouble, chaos and complications that boyfriends bring to a young girl’s life.

Now we were in our late twenties. Everyone was pairing up, I was the first, already married and divorced, Rita, the smart, choosy one, was the last. Several of us had left LA, but the following weekend there would be a reunion of sorts.

Rita was getting married.

“Yeah, sure, no problem, I’m awake…what’s up?” I sat up in bed.

“I think Marco’s cheating on me” she started to cry.

“What? Noooooo.” I said, lighting a cigarette. I was up now, sitting on the edge of the bed. This was in the days before mobile phones, although I did have a fifteen-foot cord on my yellow push button telephone – so I could wander.

She was crying harder now, rustling papers in the background.
Still groggy, the cigarette was getting me high, had I heard correctly? “What are you talking about? What happened?” I asked. The rustling stopped.

“A woman called me yesterday claiming that she and Marco are in love! That they have been for a long time…she knew my name.” she spit out that last part like she’d bitten into a lemon.  I could hear in her voice she was getting mad.

“Oh. My. God.” I replied while frantically searching my drawers for an ashtray, but deciding to settle on a potted plant.

“That’s bullshit, he loves YOU, you’re getting married in less than a week…” She interrupted, her voice agitated, almost yelling, “She told me to check the phone bill for her number. Janet, it’s on here over sixty times just this month, the same with last month and as far back as I…”

“Hold on a second, where is Marco?” They’d been living together since the engagement, but he had a job that took him out-of-town two weeks of every month, so the rest of the herd didn’t really know him all that well.

“He’s in Atlanta until tomorrow night.”

“Did you call him? What did he say?” This I had to hear.

“Of course, the minute I hung up with her.”

“And?…” I was dying to hear his explanation.

“Well he denied it, said she’s a girl from work, that she’s super needy, really insecure and kinda crazy. He explained that her number’s on the bill because he’s her supervisor and they have to talk about work problems. I mean I know things have been super stressful at the office lately, with all the layoffs and personnel changes.” She was quiet for a minute. “He started accusing ME of having cold feet!”

That didn’t sound right, but I stayed on script. “Okay, well let’s see—she’s just a kook from work and he’ll set her straight honey.” I lit a cigarette with a cigarette, something I never did, but this situation called for it.

“That’s what I thought, but she called again tonight, I just got off the phone with her and called you!” Her voice took on a desperate edge.

“Shit.” My blood went ice-cold.
There was a sweater in a pile of folded laundry that was waiting patiently on the chair to be put away. I pulled it on, switching the receiver from hand to hand, turned on the light, and started pacing, wandering the room.

“She’s been here! At MY house! They’ve been here together! She described the condo and she even described me! She’s seen me, she waits for me to leave! Get this – she says that I’m the girl he marries and has children with— but she’s the girl he loves. Fucking bitch!” That sent a jolt of whatthefuckery throughout my entire body. Rita NEVER used the “F-word.”

He was feeding my friend a crap sandwich. And that other woman! It sounded like the asshole was dishing out crap all over the place.

I was speechless. She continued. “She said he’s Latin and that it’s a cultural thing.” She started crying again. “They laugh at me, she says they laugh about how unsuspecting I am, that I think I’m going to get married and ride off into the sunset…they laugh at me, Janet.” As I listened to her sobs, tears filled my eyes and I started to sniffle so I pressed the receiver to my chest so she couldn’t hear me.

After a long time I thought of something to say, “What does she want from you?”

Rita cleared her throat, her exhausted voice barely a whisper.
“She wants me to walk away, to break things off, otherwise at the wedding, when they ask who objects—she’s going to stand up and tell everyone the truth.”

“That’s bullshit!” I yelled. “That only happens on soap operas!” my voice was so loud it actually startled me.

“Janet, what should I do? He’s just going to deny it. So what if she IS just a crazy girl from work, she’s still going to ruin my wedding!”

“Maybe when Marco comes home, you guys have a heart to heart. He has to figure this mess out… I don’t know, maybe postpone things…” Rita jumped in, she was bordering on hysterical. “I can’t call off the wedding! I just wrote the balance check for the hall! This morning was the final fitting on my dress!”

“Okay, I know, listen.” My tone was firm.
“If he’s cheating on you, you sure as hell are NOT going through with this wedding! I don’t care how much money is lost and how embarrassing it is. People will just have to get over themselves.”

Crickets.

“You know I’m right. I’ll help you. I can call people and…” She interrupted me. “I’m tired, I have to go. I’m sure when Marco comes home this will all get settled.”

Her voice turned Stepford.
“I’m sorry I called you so late, you’re right, it’s probably nothing.” What was happening? I never said that. I never said it was nothing. “Goodnight.” The line went dead.

I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night, struggling with whether I should share it with anyone else. If this whole thing didn’t blow up before then, the rest of the herd would be in town by the end of the week so I decided it was best to just zip it.

The next time I saw Rita was at the rehearsal. I was singing Ave Maria and One Hand One Heart from West Side Story at the ceremony, so we did a run through. Rita looked beautiful and happy, all smiles. Even when I searched her eyes while saying our goodbyes after the rehearsal dinner, there was no hint that anything was amiss. Marco sat beaming, surrounded by relatives and friends from out-of-town.

So okay. They’d worked it out. It was one just of those late night calls that you just chalk up to nerves and forget it ever happened.

The next morning, up in the choir loft, after Rita’s entrance in her big, flowing, white gown, I watched from above, scanning the crowd. Marco’s family and friends on the right and Rita’s giant Irish Catholic family on the left – and a mystery woman dressed all in black wearing an enormous hat and standing in the back.

Who was that? I bent waaaay over the ledge to try to catch a glimpse of her face, but short of doing a half gainer with a twist off that balcony – it wasn’t going to happen.

All black. To a wedding? Really bitch? My heart was pounding. Was this the “other woman” all set to ruin Rita’s special day?

I was helpless to do anything. It was time for the Ave Maria. The minute the song was over, the last note still reverberating, riding the incredible church acoustics, I ran back to the ledge, searching for the stranger in black – but she was gone.

I wish this story had a fairy tale ending…

As it turns out Marco did have another woman. Several actually. He let it be known right after Rita told him he was going to have a son. They tried to play happy family for a while, but I think the marriage lasted all of three years.

It’s been about thirty years and Rita hasn’t had a serious relationship since. She’s never been able to let herself trust a man again.

She got the big white dress – but at what price?

The thing that Rita really lost was the trust of her own internal navigation system. She stopped trusting herself. She’d known in her gut what was going on, even when he denied it, but she thought she was too far in to get out. She wanted to save face, to be married, only to be divorced a few years later, as a single mother.

We all do things we know in our hearts are doomed to fail.
We stay in situations that we know aren’t right, because we’re deeply invested.
But there can be a way out, there’s always way out.

Gut check – intuition – rumors – lies – denials.
WE KNOW.
If it feels bad – it probably is.

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? It’s not just about weddings. Did you get out? How did you do it?

Carry on,
xox

It’s Tuesday morning.
The start of day three of my sort-of-self-imposed green drink fast.

My stomach is growling so loud it woke up the dog.
It sounds like the insistent, angry growl of a lion eyeballing a Gladiator like a pork chop.

I would kill for a pork chop right now. A thick juicy slice of pig-on-a-plate.
Or bacon.
OMG. Don’t get me started on bacon. If I smelled the savory aroma of bacon cooking right now I would drown in my own saliva—I just know it.

Instead of a mass of bloated puffiness, after two days I am now all gaunt and boney.
Seriously.
Okay. Not really. But anyway.

“Feel that!” I urged my husband last night in bed, taking his hand and rubbing it down my right side.
He humored me with a couple of hand passes before rolling over.
“Those are my RIBS! I can count them. Do you know how long it has been since I could count my ribs? I am literally wasting away.”

I heard him snicker from his side of the bed now to be referred to as Outer Siberia.

On Sunday night, that same guy stood in the kitchen and finished off two pieces of cheese pizza and half bottle of wine while I stood feeding kale into the blender.

“It doesn’t count if you’re standing. Everybody knows that” he responded to my dirty looks. “But in solidarity I’ll eat power bars and protein shakes for the next three days.”

What a guy.
As of this morning, he’s lost seven pounds. SEVEN POUNDS! In TWO days!

I have never weighed myself. I go by how my clothes fit. Besides, for me this is about finding clarity, not weight loss.
Yeah, right.

But my gaunt and boney self wants to hurt him—just a little.
I can’t lie. I’m too hungry to lie. It takes too much energy to lie.

My dreams have changed. They have been colorful and epic in their scale and scope.
I dreamt of swimming and running and laughing and drums.
And so has my sleep.
When my eyes opened this morning, BAM! I was awake. Wide awake.
No sluggish slugginess, no urge to meditate or ask questions.
Just BAM! Up and Adam. Protein shake, here I come!

It’s now 9 a.m. and I’m going out to run all my errands. Too Da Loo!

It is now after three and I ran every errand with the speed and efficiency of a woman in labor on a scavenger hunt.
Then I came home and chopped up some shit, made my mom’s sweet potato soufflé and baked a pie.
I also garlanded a wreath within an inch of its life and planted some white poinsettias while the pie was in the oven. I even found my smile—it was hiding in the kitchen junk drawer.

Who am I? I don’t even recognize me.

So clarity…

It is clear I have waaaaay more energy That is for sure.
And I’m not hungry anymore.
And I may be taking this whole thing a tad too far. I accidentally licked some baked sweet potato off the spoon and promptly spit it into the sink. Crazy, right?

It’s a Decathlon people, not a sprint, and I must not cheat—tomorrow is the home stretch.

Okay, enough chit-chat, it’s time for tea.

Lots of love from your gaunt and boney, seriously delusional, green drinking, whirling dervish, pie bakin’ friend—me.

Carry on,

xox

*This is a post from early last year, you know, when we were all dreaming the things that have come to pass. Keep it up you guys!
Carry on,
xox

Do you have lists, folders or a bulletin board full of things you desire?
I do. At my store I had an entire wall of cork behind the desk. It was 11 feet high. The entire surface covered with pictures, cards, swatches, anything and everything I loved. Except for the very tippy top, because if I could reach it standing on my chair, so be it. If I had to get the ladder it didn’t make the cut. Too lazy.

I dream big. Always have, always will.
I believe EVERYTHING is obtainable.
The extraordinary things I covet and the pictures I collect are just reminders for me.
I want it all!

Then reality lands on my head, and while he messes my hair, he whispers in my ear this loaded question:
Are you willing to do what it takes?

We all know deep down what’s required to achieve our dreams.
What changes, course corrections, sacrifices, hard work and amount of commitment will deliver them to us.

But will we only reach as high as the chair will take us or will we get off of our asses and get the ladder?

Are you willing to do what it takes?
We can ask ourselves that question of ANY situation. If we do, often the answer will be: not now, or I’m not ready, or flat-out NO.
Then we have no one to blame but ourselves when something slips through our fingers and that’s no fun.

Sometimes you think you know what you’re willing to do, but if you’d really known what it would take, you’d have packed your bags and moved to Siberia.

When I decided to buy a house I knew I had to put an end to my frivolous spending.
I was making good money and buying everything that wasn’t nailed down. I was a hoarder of all the finest things in life. But I could not continue to be that girl AND own a home. Not unless I learned how to turn shoes into gold.
I was sick and tired of greasing Uncle Sam’s palm with my tax money, and listening to my upstairs neighbor’s terrible music and bad headboard rhythm during sex.

I wanted a house, and I wanted it in a year.
I was 39 years old. Time was a wastin’.
But…Was I willing to do what it would take?

It had to be drastic. It has to be quick. I needed to save $40,000 in twelve months. I formulated a plan, and jumped. Are you seeing a pattern in my life? I am.

I moved out of my 3000 square foot rented duplex, and put everything in storage. Then my two Siamese cats, their giant cat tree, and 1/3 of my clothes, moved into a 10 x 10ft. bedroom at my sister’s with her husband and my two-year old nephew.

It was a toddler/cat free-for-all for this childless, terminally single girl.

Did I also mention that my 7 minute commute turned into one hour each way?
Oh yeah, now THAT’S commitment.
All the sacrifice, all fur balls and midnight cat fights paid off. I did manage to move out after exactly one year. It was a good thing too. My sister was four months pregnant with my niece by then and was going to need MY room.

As I write this I’m sitting in that very house, which I LOVE.
I’m proud of myself for buckling down, behaving like grown up, and going after my dream.
Parts of it were fun, but I can’t imagine doing it again. Not in a million years.

I’ve worked two jobs, logged thousands of overtime hours, and passed on great vacation trips, as I’m sure a lot of you guys have—to get what I wanted.

I’ve learned how to be soft and vulnerable, while getting my heart-broken, in order to be ready for my husband.

Some jumps I’ve taken have failed.
A lot of what I’ve done, I’d never do again.
If I’d REALLY known what it would take, I may not have been so willing.
I think as time goes on you develop a kind of amnesia to the pain. It keeps you in the game.

Regardless, it couldn’t have been THAT bad.
It has all brought me here, and here, is pretty damn good.
So I say: Go for it.

Xox

Hi you guys,
This is a subject I struggle with A LOT.

I’m tenacious to a fault, and some of my greasy (I wrote greatest but auto correct changed it to greasy and who am I to challenge auto correct? Truth be told — they were greasy!) Mistakes happened when I didn’t know when to throw in the towel — cut my losses.

Other people fold the minute things get tough. Wait, what am I sayin’ I’ve wanted to do that too!

I love me some Marie Forleo. I want to be her when I grow up and I love this graphic by Deborah LeFrank, cause I’m visual, I love seeing Marie’s insights all written out.

The ten-year test is genius.

Asking for guidance…learning curve.
..listening when it’s offered…pricless.

Quitters DO win…game changer!

So, is this something you battle with as well?

Which one are you? Do you get dragged or do you let go too soon?

Or both – like me?

Do you have any stories, what did you learn?

Carry on,
Xox

When you get married, you say the words For better or for worse, and you mean them.

I know I did. At least as much as you can grasp the true meaning of for worse –– as it seems so remote in that moment, just a phrase inside of a vow -– especially after a flute of champagne -–  or four.

I took it to mean someone who is legally obligated by the State of California to share with me the good times as well as the bad. I felt reassured by that.

But what if you discover that when a for worse happens, like a death, the two of you process and handle the situation COMPLETELY differently.
How could you have known that?
And now what?

Especially when the deceased was loved equally by the both of you, how do you cope?

When something bad happens you want me on your team.
You see, I have what I call Delayed Reaction Syndrome. I immediately go into a hyper focused state – cool, calm and collected. I’m the one that makes the calls, orders the food, hands out the Kleenex, writes the eulogy, and is clear-headed enough to make all the uncomfortable decisions. I’m the furthest thing from emotional.
I’m …robotically rational. That is, until it what I call Phase Two kicks in.

My husband on the other hand wears his emotions on his sleeve. Actually they cover the entire outside of his body -– most especially his face.

He is incapable of holding back tears or masking sadness, and his reaction to death is appropriate and immediate.
There is no ambiguity. He’s profoundly sad and you know it.
In that respect we are a perfectly balanced match.

He grieves in the moment, while I get shit done.

There are cultures in the Mid East and Africa where they wail when someone dies, loudly and with great emotion, their bodies and faces contorted by grief. They even have professional wailers, I guess to help the family (and us Delayed Reaction types) along their emotional path.

I envy that. I really do. It appears to be an amazing release.

Two to three hours later is when Phase Two starts.

That’s about the time the tidal wave of sadness and grief comes ashore, washing me out to sea. Now I’m the one who needs comfort, I become numb, my mind unable to focus, and I want to talk and hug…a lot.

But by that time my husband is finished with his outward displays of emotion. He’s all cried out. He has now retreated deep inside, into his cave, and had moved a huge boulder over the entrance.

There’s no reaching him now.

I need to be held and reassured. That is uncharacteristically physically uncomfortable for him.
I need to cry…with someone. My tears are too much for him to handle. He’s reached sadness saturation. He is not available to me in any way, shape or form.

Moving through grief is a very solitary process, and it looks different for everyone.
I get it, I do.
But I don’t like it.

Come to find out we are just as incompatible in Phase Three.

His looks like this: Stay busy. Busy is good. Plan as many meetings and work related things as you can. Book yourself solid for twelve hours straight – then come home and pass out. Try to forget. Want all signs of the deceased erased from the house (I couldn’t do it) and no talking or tears please, too raw.

Mine looks like this: Stay in pj’s on the couch. Cancel meetings, walk neighborhood aimlessly while crying, with Kleenex stuffed up both nostrils, and don’t eat. Isolate and wish for company all at the same time. Bore strangers with your stories. Wish alcohol made you feel better or even helped you to sleep for that matter. Wash all the blankets and beds and then suffer huge regret, searching for her smell. Curl up with favorite stuffed animal for waaaaayyy too long. Forget to wash hair for three days.

Like I said, grief is an extremely solitary emotion that no amount of hugs, or kind words can help. Only time.

And just when you need it the least, it drives a wedge between two people who deal with death differently.

Even two people who love each other to bits just can’t manage to show up to soothe the other person. It was the first time I couldn’t help him. And it just goes to show that even when someone is legally bound to be there for you, sometimes they just can’t…and that came as a complete surprise –– and a crushing disappointment.

Phase Four:

You’ve got to find your solace inside yourself and that’s excruciatingly hard.

Even though he was required by law, when he promised, “I do” –– to be there for worse –– for me –– he had to find his own way first, and while he did that, I searched for my own.

Then we met, after a week, somewhere in the middle –– with open wounds and tears and stories of our journey, and in the process of finding our way back; we’ve grown and changed.

We’re different, and I think in the end we’ll be the better for it.

Carry on,
Xox

I wailed woefully at the top of my lungs and launched into a violent series of rapid fire kicks to the defenseless cabinetry that had the misfortune of being in line with my right foot.

Huge crocodile tears fell from my eyes into the batter, adding more salt than the recipe called for.

With one fluid motion fueled by rage and befitting a segment of one of those dumbass reality shows where the woman have major public meltdowns, I swept my right forearm along the cutting board which held the two bundt cake pans; their recently mixed, liquid contents coating the entire kitchen in one swipe; like a chocolate-chip Jackson Pollack masterpiece.

Fraidy and Teddy, my two Siamese cats who were the ever present, blue eyed witnesses to the hijinks that was my life, had been watching the whole debacle from the other side of the kitchen, atop the microwave. As they jumped down to sample the brown goodness that literally dripped from every surface, I shooed them away, remembering chocolate is bad for animals, and bemoaning that fact because I needed the help.
I had a long night of clean up ahead of me.

All the while the catalyst for the onslaught of my melt down with judo moves, the melancholy, molasses voice of Karen Carpenter played on speakers from the den nearby.

“I am dreaming tonight of a place I love
Even more than I usually do
And although I know it’s a long road back
I promise you

If only in my dreams”

If you know me at all, you know that the day after Thanksgiving, the Christmas music goes into heavy rotation – and I start baking.

Always have – always will.

It usually makes me stupid happy.
That year, 1999, it mad me sad, with a side of mad.

It had all started when I bought my house the previous April. I should have felt such a sense of accomplishment for having the courage to put my whole life in storage, save my ass off and find the perfect little house to purchase 

On. My. Own.

Just me, and my two cats.
But THAT ended up being the problem.
Huh, didn’t see THAT coming.

The day I moved in, when the last friend and family member said their goodbyes, and I stood amid the contents of my life stacked around me, along with all the empty pizza boxes; I had never felt so ALONE.

Wasn’t this a milestone you were supposed to share with that special someone?

Wasn’t there supposed to be that moment where you realize you’ve done something monumental, and you and your guy dance in candlelight with your nauseatingly cute matching pajamas (him, just the bottoms, you, just the tops) to music from a portable radio?
Then don’t you drink champagne from paper cups, toasting your good fortune, christening the house by making love on a mattress on the floor surrounded by boxes, books, bicycles and skis, while your cats have the good manners to look away?

Hey, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I wanted that.

All of the sudden at forty one, after being divorced for fifteen years, I wanted a significant other, a partner, a mate, a beloved.

I wanted a (gasp) husband with whom to share my life.

I’d often wished, late at night, for a shoulder to cry on when things were going down the toilet, but this was different, I wanted someone with which to share my – joy.
My accomplishments, the good things in life.

Oh great.

That was a completely unexpected side effect that must have been written in the small print the came with the mountains of paperwork that made up my mortgage and homeowners insurance.

Damn it, it shocked me.

My house echoed back it’s emptiness to me.
It was just me and the cats.
No matter what I did cosmetically it didn’t feel like a home.
.
Backyard lawns are there to run on, screen doors are made to be slammed, big kitchens should be hot and messy with sticky floors and the constant smell of something burning.

My friends referred to my house as “the museum.”
No noise, no chaos, no dirt. Nothing out of place.
Ugh. I didn’t want to live in no freaking museum – I wanted a home.

One week that June I went to Vegas for an annual jewelry trade show. I got a call about 9pm one night from one of my neighbors, the husband half of the lovely couple next door with two kids.
Steve was yelling into the phone over a loud siren. It was my house alarm, which had been going off for fifteen minutes.
It sounded like someone had escaped from Alcatraz.
Did I have a hide a key and code for him to go in and disarm it?
Another male voice yelled loudly in the background, “Maybe we can call her husband, do you have his number?” It was the police who had been sent by the alarm company.

“She doesn’t have a husband – she has cats.”

Steve’s voice suddenly sounded hugely amplified, as if he was yelling through a megaphone, announcing my sad predicament to everyone in earshot.
The alarm had gone silent.

Thanks Steve. I don’t think they heard you in Malibu.

I wanted to die. Kill me now. I’m the cat lady of Studio City.

This sudden urge to marry is not a strictly female affliction. I know several men who have succumbed. It is the taxi cab analogy. Men are like taxi cabs, roaming the dark streets of the big city, light off, ignoring a real fare, looking for action.

Then suddenly one day, their light goes on. Just like that.

These rogue cabs are ready to go legit. A man’s light has to go on, then he’ll settle down, until then….good luck.
Once a man’s light goes on, he usually marries the next girl he meets.

It’s all timing.

That was me. Suddenly, my light was on.

I wanted a husband and whatever that meant at that age.

I yearned for complicated, noisy and messy. No more order and no more museum. So hearing that song about love and home and Christmas had sent this Spinster Auntie (as I jokingly referred to myself) over the edge.

Isnt life crazy? Just when you think you have things all figured out…..

Sometimes you don’t know until you know.
Oh brother, we’re back to that again.

But it’s true, some seemingly innocent accomplishment, tragedy or happenstance can suddenly become the catalyst for change in your life. It happens quite by surprise, when you’re not even looking.

It’s all about timing.
BAM!
Your light goes on and changes EVERYTHING.

Tell me about the time that this has happened to you because I KNOW it has!
I’d love to hear your stories too!

Love you,
Xox

This small but mighty book is one of my most treasured, dog eared, highlighted, tear stained “nightstand nuggets.”

I can ALWAYS use a reminder.

Many blessings on this beautiful summer Sunday.

Much love,
xox