Disappointment

This post has been languishing in my drafts folder for over a week. It felt too negative to press send. Too raw and ragged. Not so much like me. I live to laugh, and this wasn’t funny. 

You see, we ignored all the stories, signs, and butt clenches that should have warned us away from foreign travel this summer—so I’m here to reinforce any trepidation you may be feeling about going abroad. Listen to it. And if you must travel, temper your expectations, pack your patience (in your carry on with an air tag) and steal yourself against disappointment, because if you’re at all like me—it will be your constant companion. XOX

In her novel Eat, Pray, Love, Liz Gilbert immerses us in her love of all things Italian, including the language and how gorgeous the words are in their full expression. At the end of her year-long journey of self-discovery, Liz chooses her favorite Italian word, attraversiamo—at that point a word dripping with nuance, (the literal definition being, to cross over)—as the word that best defines her. 

That being said, while I’d love nothing more than to brag to y’all that we are one millimeter as deep, insightful, and self-realized as Liz—we are not. Still, there are a couple of more pedestrian things my husband and I do share with Liz— her love of Italy, and the act of defining ourselves with a single Italian word. Ours is scarpetta. 

Now, by no stretch of the imagination is scarpetta as gorgeous, sexy, or fraught with hidden meaning as attraversiamo.

Nope, the Urban dictionary considers scarpetta Italian ‘street slang’.  In Italian, it means sopping up all the sauce left on your plate (or in the pot) with bread. Italian waiters love the word. Basically, anyone who feeds us in Italy (oh, who are we kidding, anywhere in the world), takes one look at us, hand us a basket of freshly baked bread, and whispers, “scarpetta” to us like a prayer. They identify us as kindred spirits. People who love to eat. Foodies. We are their kind of people—and believe me when I say—we do not disappoint. And while I am simultaneously humiliated and proud to admit that no plate has ever left our table that we haven’t scarpetta’d so clean they didn’t have to wash it—upon refection I like to think it says more about us and our quest to savor “everything good in life”, than gluttony, so please humor me.

Normally I would just leave us here, fat and happy, reminiscing about savory sauces, clean plates, warm bread, and everything wonderful about Italy. 

But we just returned from a short visit, and while we happily scarpetta’d our faces off all through Tuscany, I could not help but notice that just like the rest of the world, post-pandemic Italy is different. Travel sucks. Service sucks. The infrastructure is a gazillion times more broken than it normally is. Covid is everywhere, our luggage was missing for three days, and the locals, who are normally delightful, were all out of shits to give. Oh, and it was hotter than the any place without air conditioning has any right being.

I honestly don’t know what I was expecting, but I gotta tell ya, it hit me hard. 

Hidden just below the surface was so. much. shit. 

Chaos, turmoil, anger, and grief. 

And Italy reflected mine back to me in spades. 

I have a bestie, Steph, who is obsessed with the etymology of words, their origin, and how their meanings have changed throughout the years. Normally I leave that up to her, but she’s rubbed off on me enough that I remembered that the literal meaning of scarpetta is, “little shoe, or child’s shoe” which comes from thinking that just like dragging bread across a plate will sop up every scrap, a shoe will pick up whatever is on the ground. 

You know, the dregs, garbage…dirt…shit. And since that sounds awful, I’d always ignored that definition.

That, and the one that says, ‘scarpetta was born from scarcity. That the poor were only allowed the scraps’. Gahhhhhhh! 

Those just didn’t jive with the “savoring the good” parts of my narrative—until last week. And now, in this year of our Lord 2022, I regret to inform you that I must add the word scarpetta to my list of things that have turned more bitter than sweet.

The world is nothing like it was in the before-times. Not yet. And maybe,(gasp) it never will be. Don’t get me wrong, everybody’s pretending it is, they’re wearing their best Mona Lisa smiles,(possibly obscured by a mask) but it’s all smoke and mirrors with a cauldron of I’m-not-sure-what-the-fuck-is-happening roiling just below the surface.

Sometimes it smells like fear, other times rage, mostly it reeks of disappointment. 

But you know me, I’m the eternal optimist, the perennial Pollyanna, so I’ll be giving the world like, a hundred more tries to get it right. And I suppose that after a shit-ton of trials and errors, I’ll know right when I feel it. Until then, I’m determined to stay closer to home, manage my expectations, and hold out hope for the best.

Who knows, we have a wedding to attend next year in Positano. Maybe by that time, Italy, and the world, will be more warm bread than shit-shoe to me again.

Carry on, 
Xox Janet

STORY OF THE TAOIST FARMER

“There was once a farmer in ancient China who owned a horse. “You are so lucky!” his neighbors told him, “to have a horse to pull the cart for you.” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

One day he didn’t latch the gate properly and the horse ran away. “Oh no! That is terrible news!” his neighbors cried. “Such bad luck!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

A few days later the horse returned, bringing with it six wild horses. “How fantastic! You are so lucky,” his neighbors told him. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The following week the farmer’s son was breaking-in one of the wild horses when it threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. “Oh no!” the neighbors cried. “Such bad luck, all over again!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next day soldiers came and took away all the young men to fight in the army. The farmer’s son was left behind. “You are so lucky!” his neighbors cried. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

When we interpret a situation as an ‘opportunity’ or a ‘disaster’ it shapes the way that we respond.

But the Taoist Farmer shows that we can never truly know how a situation is going to turn out. There are no intrinsic ‘opportunities’ or ‘threats’ — there is only what happens and how we choose to respond.

In which case, doesn’t it make sense to look for the opportunities in every situation?

Are you facing a crisis at the moment? How might you turn it into an opportunity?

SO much has happened in the past year.

Some good, some just so-so, and a lot of it bad. Life had been a veritable roller coaster of disappointments.

“So much fuckery!” I am fond of saying. But,(and I’m asking you to bear with me here) what if there’s magic in the mess?

Inspirational speaker Rob Bell cautions us against judging a situation before we let it “play out”.
“Disappointment is taking score too soon,” he warns.

THAT has become my North Star and THAT is what has been playing out around me over and over and over again recently, so much so that I just had to write about it!

Imagine if you will, a non-believer in all of this hooey. We will call him, Husband.

A lovely curmudgeon of a man who, when confronted, refers to himself as a “realist”. Now imagine that as a cosmic joke perpetrated by the universe’s wicked sense of irony, this man lives with yours truly!

Now, take another leap and imagine that some of my woo, through acts of osmosis over twenty years together, has rubbed off on him.

Case in point: In the middle of the 2020 lockdown, he got kicked out of his “man cave” a place that smells of gasoline and beer, where he and his friends have hung out, tinkering with their various internal combustion gizmos while scratching their balls and watching car porn for over seven years.

“It’s the end of the world!” he howled into the wind.
“Maybe,” I responded from a safe distance away.

“I guess I could call my friend and see if he wants to split a place,” he posed one day after the crying had ceased.
“Sounds good,” I said, exercising a surprising economy with words.

“OMG! We found the PERFECT place but the landlord is a dick!” Husband complained one morning. “He wants to see every bank statement, five years of tax returns, social security, baptismal, confirmation, divorce and marriage certificates, AND a fifty-bajillion dollar deposit!”

“Feels to me like there might be a better place. I’d keep looking.”

“Noooooooooooo!!!!”

But there was. A better place.
The perfect place. Closer, cheaper, with a terrific landlord who basically agreed to the deal the day he met them—with a handshake.

And this has led to the man cave of all man caves and a side business that puts a sustained smile on that curmudgeon’s face the likes of which I’ve rarely (if ever) seen.

“What we need is an orange, rolling metal ladder!” Husband announced one day after breaking and building shit at the new lair.

And that is why god in her infinite wisdom invented the internet.

A couple of days later he received an email alerting him of the delivery time. You must be there tomorrow at 9am to unlock the gate to the parking lot and take delivery, it read.
“Yippee!” Husband exclaimed because this new 2.0 version of the curmudgeon is given to sudden outbursts of joy (but that’s a story for another day). He was about to receive the ladder of his dreams—only it wasn’t orange. “No worries, that’s just paint,” he assured me when I asked. This new guy was starting to freak me out 

Later the next day he returned home deflated, pissed, and ready to rumble—in other words, his old self.

As he tells it, he arrived for the delivery fifteen minutes early only to find the giant metal ladder crumpled into an origami swan inside the locked gate. Not only that, their brand new fence had been damaged in the process. Later, according to the footage from their security cameras, he watched the two delivery guys arrive really early, back their truck up to the fence, and after several failed attempts (and lots of fence bashing) they chucked the ladder in its box (which exploded) up over their heads and into the parking lot.

“This really sucks!” Husband hollered as he navigated the Amazon third-party refund labyrinth.
“Maybe,” I texted from the bedroom.

It turns out that damning security footage is just the evidence you need to get a full refund AND money for gate repair.
And in the meantime, he found an even more perfect ladder (if you can imagine that).

Taller, wheelier, cheaper…and orange.

“Wow! You’re so lucky!” I exclaimed.
“Maybe,” he replied with a wink.

If Husband can change his tune—we all can. Who’s still taking score? Not me!

Carry on,
xoxJ

Exhibit A ^

What’s the deal with Hydrangea?
I’ve learned to live with disappointment but this is too much!

When I cut them to place them in a vases around my house, it turns into a game of Russian Roulette. Some blooms will live a couple of days while a couple of the fucking, pom-pom devils my favoite flowers, will wither and die within minutes. 

There is no rhyme, there is no reason. 

I’ve tried every anecdotal cure to stave off their rapid demise (so don’t text or email them to me) but to no avail.

A squirrel and a hummingbird walk into a bar, look cross-eyed at a hydrangea—and it dies.
~ Ancient proverb.

I only mention those two critters because they were the only living witnesses to the hydrangea-hissy-fit I had this morning.

Question: Do you always express the appropriate emotion at the appropriate time? I’m asking for a friend. Anyway, I digress.

Our extreme temperatures have literally fried every flower and most of the leaves on my previously prolifically blooming bushes to a crisp—and I’m ashamed to report that THIS has ruined my summer. I read somewhere that you can hose them down at mid-day, when the heat reaches surface-of-the-sun degrees, but when I do that (and make no mistake—I do that) I get so overheated, so foamy at the mouth, drenched in sweat overheated, that I need someone to hose me down. My dog Ruby would probably do the honors except I can tell by the look in her eyes that she’d rather waterboard me.

What can I say? She’s going through a phase. 

Anyway, the squirrels are used to my antics but the hummingbird was caught completely by surprise.
It hovered around my face for an inordinate amount of time, sizing me up as I waved the hose around like an out-of-control maniac. (Wait, isn’t that redundant?) Perhaps it was thirsty or it mistook the droplets of sunscreen dripping off my nose for nectar? Maybe it was raised in a less dramatic environment?

Or maybe it was feeling the same level of disappointment that I was? I can’t be sure.

I know what you’re thinking, Get a life! Listen, the hummingbird was way ahead of you with her judgy-as-fuck resting bitch face.

And that’s when it hit me! This feeling goes much deeper than mere disappointment. This boarders on fury.
That’s exactly what it is! Misplaced fury!

I have to come to terms with the fact that my brain has become an addled bowl of green jello due to the sheer volume of shit to be furious about this summer. Take for instance, our fucked-up political system, the fact that our votes in the fall may be hacked, a (how can I say this without my head exploding) “questionable” SECOND Supreme Court pick, the White Supremacists who are crawling out from under their rocks and have the audacity to march—in the streets—in broad daylight, and who can forget the babies in cages at the border! It is killing me to see the effect that losing her mother to Alzheimer’s is having on my BFF, the cancer causing pesticides in our food, a new category at the Academy Awards, or the fact that people still care about what happens on The Bachelor. The Bachelor!

But I only have so much emotional bandwidth. I can only misplace so much emotion at a time. So, today, it’s hydrangeas who have disappointed me and I plan on Edward Scissorhanding them into submission. Today, they will take one for the team.

Tomorrow may be different; stay tuned. (Billy, watch your pony.)

Carry on,
xox

Happier times 🙁

This childhood memory came flooding back to me the other day and I felt compelled to share it. I’m curious to see what you hink.

I have a thing about promises. They make me uncomfortable mostly because they’re seldom kept.
I have a bad history with them so I try not to make them and I’m wary of the people who do.

I will never understand how someone can look you in the eye and make a promise they never intend to keep.
It’s a character flaw disguised as a talent. One that I’ve seen come in handy in politics, poker and adultery.

I can trace it back to my first broken promise which was one summer when my me, and my little sister and brother were kids.

The summers seemed hotter as a kid in the early 1960’s and although we were fortunate enough to have a house with central air which I realize as an adult was like being born with not only a silver spoon but the entire set of sterling silver flatware in your mouth; but…to balance that out we also had a frazzled mother who was perpetually locking us outside.

And not in a neglectful, call Child’s Services kind of way—more like the “get out of my hair—go outside and play” way.

But that wasn’t us. We weren’t cut out for suffering. God’s smart. He puts the altruistic, brave kids with tons of stamina in Africa. He sends all the weak sucks to Los Angeles, California.

So, needless to say, if anyone owned or had access to a real built-in swimming pool, well, we were on them like white on rice.

My dad, (who, as it turns out also had a very loose and one-sided relationship with promise keeping) had these two friends/employees, a set of identical twins named Bob and Ray. They were single young men in their early twenties who were young and ambitious. They had that “we’re good with kids” quality that was like catnip to the three of us.

So, they played with me, and rough-housed with my little brother and held my baby sister in their laps and just basically sucked up to their boss by paying attention to us when they came over for beer and a bar-b-que.

I’m sure they were exhausted when they left. I’ve been them. The single person at a family home who gets to entertain the young kids while the parents take advantage of that time to suck down a couple of cocktails and do the unthinkable—speak in full sentences to each other.

On one such occasion Bob or Ray, I can’t remember which (I hadn’t quite mastered telling them apart), mentioned something about a swimming pool. I think they were staying somewhere that had a pool or they knew someone who did. Anyway, if anyone says the words “swimming pool” in front of little kids (who are only several years removed from being fish) it triggers them like the secret code word in a bad spy movie. We kind of froze and our eyes spun around, and then the begging began.

“Can we come over and swim? Pleeeeeeease? Pretty pleeeeeease? With sugar on top?”

Completely unashamed, we crawled all over them like a couple of spider monkeys and begged until our throats were sore and no more sound came out. Looking back I’m sure that was fun for them.

Knowing the begging would only cease when my mom (who I’m certain secretly wore earplugs) would shoo us off to bed and in order to shut us up and gain back control of their adult evening, one of them, ( I think it was Bob. No. Maybe it was Ray) anyway, he caved and invited us to come and swim.

“You guys want to swim? Sure. Maybe on Monday.”

Well, we were little kids—we took this to. The. Bank.

This is the point in the story when I grab you by the chin and make you look me in the eye, and I say to you with all the sincerity I can muster, “Please do not EVER promise little kids that you will do anything—let alone take them swimming—if you have no intention of doing so. Because kids take you at your word. They take you seriously. We most certainly did.”

Monday! Monday! We were going to a real swimming pool. To swim. On Monday!! Yeah!!! Was our chant.

Finally, (in dog years time) Monday arrived and a miracle occurred. Our mom didn’t even have to encourage us to brush our teeth and get dressed because my brother, my little sister and I were in our bathing suits and ready to go by 8 am. But by mid-morning things turned vague. I remember it distinctly. That weird sinking feeling in my belly. Suddenly, my mom wasn’t really sure the swimming was happening THIS Monday.

“Wait. What?”

I can’t remember exactly how this next part came to pass but somehow we got Bob and Ray’s telephone number and before you could say Cannon Ball—I called them. Me. Little seven or eight-year-old me. And one of them answered. I think it was Ray but it was probably Bob saying he was Ray because he was about to break the hearts of three little kids.

“Oh not today, sweetie”, he said, “We’ll do it soon”, he promised. I could barely breathe, a wave of something I later learned to identify as disappointment washed over me.

“Okay”, I said, trying not to cry. “But when?”
“Soon”, he said and hung up.

Dial tone. Remember dial tone? It’s the soundtrack behind both a beginning and an end. Anticipation and sorrow.

That day is still so vivid to me. I was changed after that. Maybe some innocence was lost.
I know. Boo hoo, Some children know REAL disappointment. In Africa.
But this felt huge to us.

After lunch, we went outside to play and run through the sprinklers. I remember my mom, sensing our disappointment, giving us fudgesicles as a treat.

Chocolate and disappointment. Now I can trace the birth of this unbreakable partnership to that very day.

Carry on,
xox

“They say that anger is just love disappointed.” ~ Lyrics from “A Hole In the World” by The Eagles

You know its funny; and not in the haha way, more the ironic variety, that the times when I’m in emotional pain, when I should be writing—I can’t.

My friend the Book Mama says: write when you’re bleeding.
I find myself too busy at triage, what with the tourniquets and numbing agents to have anything at all coherent, let alone pithy to say and I know you all expect yourselves some pith from me.

How do these other folks do it?

Some people are great at it. Brilliant really.

Liz phucking Gilbert got rich off of it for chrissakes.
Glennon Doyle Melton, hello?
Hemingway was in constant emotional turmoil while he crafted his gorgeous prose.
Nora Ephron cried the entire time she wrote the hysterically funny book about her cheating husband who fell in love with her friend—while she was pregnant.

My trials and tribulations are not nearly as epic as any of theirs — yet I find myself uncharacteristically silent.

December was the cruelest of bitches as months go and like any good bitch she pulled at my hair and held my face underwater during our wet t-shirt catfight.

All bets were off. Nothing was fair. I was caught off guard—blindsided. And just to make matters worse the timing sucked because, well, you know, Christmas…

I hate feeling bad at Christmas and will do almost anything to fa la la my way out of it. This year there weren’t enough fa la la’s on the planet to keep my head above water.

I know many of you guys felt the same.

I’ve talked to a few of my friends, the ones who have a high tolerance for uncontrolled sobbing, and they’ve shared their stories of various friends and family members who seem to have been possessed by an intolerant, angry, asshole who blamed them for all of their angst. Lots and lots of disappointed love.

Did any of you experience this phenomenon?

This December I lost my shine. Someone I love held me solely responsible for everything that went wrong for them in 2016.—and in a fit of rage they became my judge, jury and executioner.

Oh yeah, and Happy Holidays!

My friend Kim suffered the same fate. Her best friend stopped speaking to her for no apparent reason and then that friend’s husband publicly shamed Kim on social media where, at the end of a Facebook diatribe, he actually said Happy Holidays. Can you even believe that? “We are morbidly disgusted and disappointed in you and we can no longer bring ourselves to speak to you. Happy Holidays!”

WTF people?

I don’t know about you all but I have my own fallen expectations and disappointments I don’t need anybody to pile theirs on top—thank you very much. Besides that, I think there should be ground rules for raging. Stick with the “I feels” and stay away from the “You ares” because later on, when the dust has settled, no matter how much you try to walk back the things you said—they cannot be unheard or unfelt.

Words are powerful things. They are the first weapons drawn in a battle. And if they’re aimed just right (and they always are by the people who know us the best), they find all of the tender spots and in the process—they kill love.

I felt sliced and diced in December which left me at a loss for words. Maybe they seeped out of all the little holes left behind. Maybe I’ll still be sweeping up consonants and vowels from the cracks of my floor in July. I don’t know. What I DO know is that I will do what I always do—what WE always do—right ladies?

I’ll lick my wounds, pull up my big-girl panties, find my words, and eventually look for the miracle in the mess. A big juicy one lives there I’m sure.

Until then you can find me scarfing down anything chocolate that isn’t nailed down and plotting my revenge (kidding. Maybe…).

Here’s hoping this finds you all happily eating salad.

Carry on,
xox

That’s it! I’ve had it! I’m breaking up with you, politics.

I simply cannot handle the disappointment.

I feel mislead and bamboozled and I can no longer participate in your dysfunctional behavior.

Even though you told me who you were, in every moment, I held out hope that your higher nature would prevail.

I’m embarrassed to admit that instead of making me a better person, you often unleashed my inner she-devil, scum-bag asshole. You never wanted to spend time with my friends and I up on the high ground, so, in order to spend time with you, I went down into the swamp.

I had trouble Ommmm-ing my way out of the muck—and the toxic yuck you surround yourself with got harder and harder to wash off.

So consider this the end, politics.

Stop calling.

Loose my number.

I need my space.

I’ve deleted your emails, unfriended you, and changed my status to disillusioned.

I know you won’t miss me one little bit. That’s okay, I have my own happiness to focus on right now.

My wits are scattered and badly need to be gathered.

So, it is with a broken heart that I say…

Carry on,
xox

So…I’m back on the killer hill. Hiking. Or otherwise known as putting my life in jeopardy (maybe a touch melodramatic), to walk on dirt, uphill—in black stretch pants—with the camel toe to end all camel toes—at 8 am—for no good reason.

I’m still fucking around with my little WiFi experiment, but interestingly enough, the signal has been uncooperative since those two miraculous days last week when all the stars aligned to give me my NPR.

But I’m still at it. My middle name is tenacious. Janet Tenacious Bertolus.

There may have been some begging even though I know that begging is the surest way to silence.

Through the years, I’ve been told by pretty reliable sources that The Universe doesn’t keep score, or prioritize, and I know for a fact that The Universe can’t be bothered with begging.

Asking? Sure.

Prayers? Absolutely!

Begging? Not so much.

Especially begging for something as ridiculous as WiFi to distract from the excruciating “discomfort” I put myself through trudging up that freakin’ hill every morning.

It sticks its fingers into its ears and LA, LA, La’s until I stop.

Anyway…no begging this morning, just resigned acceptance when the signal cuts out.
Shitfuck.
Then I laughed because it’s starting to get funny.
Not really.

Have I mentioned what an opportunist the Universe can be? Oh, yeah.
Just at the point where I am at my most vulnerable; hands on my hips, bent into the hill, drenched in sweat and gasping for air like a sherpa about to summit Everest; the WiFi kicks in and Abraham on YouTube comes back on.

The Universe decides that this is the perfect time for a teaching moment.

I am elated.
This will help me summit my own humiliating, Studio City version of Everest. Except for one thing. I’ve already listened to this part. It didn’t pick up where it left off, it went all the way back to the beginning. Back to what I’ve already heard for the last forty minutes.
Shitfuck.

A not-so-mild wave of disappointment washes over me as the smile leaves my face.

Immediately the signal cuts out. Silence returns.

Awwww, come on! I actually shout out loud. What the hell?!

I stop and fiddle with my phone for a minute. Nope. Nothing. It’s no use. Resignation sets back in as I pull up my big girl stretch pants and soldier on.

It’s then that the Universe decides to give a lecture series entitled: Split Energy (Will Fuck You Every Time).

“You split your energy. You do it all the time and you needed to see an example of how it can stop the momentum of a desire faster than a concrete wall stops a speeding bullet.”

Nice visual.

“Thank you.”

But I need you to clarify, please. I barely have enough oxygen to keep me upright let alone fire the synapses’ in my brain that are needed for me to understand what the hell you’re trying to tell me.

“You desired WiFi. We gave you WiFi. And may we point out, in a place where WiFi doesn’t exist, so there’s that…”

I know! And I was so happy about that!

“For a minute. Not even. Then you were disappointed by the specifics. That’s split energy and it will stall a desire faster than anything else.”

So what should I have done?

“Really? You can’t stay grateful for a miracle for like, five minutes?…What do we always say?”

I don’t know…be kind to others and don’t say fuck so much?

“Besides that. We remind you that disappointment is taking score too soon. When you ask for something and it arrives don’t say, Oh, not THAT! it seems ungrateful and a tad rude. Wait awhile before you take score.”

I suppose you’re right.

“We’re always right! We’re the Universe! Whatever we deliver to you is ALWAYS perfect.”

Always?

“Always.”

What if…

“Always.”

What about that…

“Always.”

But…

“What part of ALWAYS are you not understanding?”

Point taken.
I’m at the parking lot and I have to pee so arrivederci and thanks for the chat.

Listen you guys, who among us hasn’t questioned a wish fulfilled because it didn’t look exactly like we expected it to look?
We’ve gotta cut that shit out. I’ll go first!

Carry on,
xox

So…I’m back on the killer hill. Hiking. Or otherwise known as taking my life in my hands to walk on dirt, uphill, in black stretch pants at 8 am for no good reason.

I’m still fucking around with my little WiFi experiment, but interestingly enough, the signal has been uncooperative since those two miraculous days last week when all the stars aligned to give me my NPR.

But I’m still at it. My middle name is tenacious. Janet Tenacious Bertolus.

There may have been some begging even though I know that begging is the surest way to silence.

Through the years, I’ve been told by pretty reliable sources that The Universe doesn’t keep score, or prioritize, and I know for a fact that The Universe can’t be bothered with begging.

Asking? Sure. Prayers? Absolutely! Begging? Not so much.

Especially begging for something as ridiculous as WiFi to distract from the excruciating “discomfort” I put myself through trudging up that freakin’ hill every morning.
It sticks its fingers into its ears and LA, LA, La’s until I stop.

Anyway…no begging this morning, just resigned acceptance when the signal cuts out.
Shit.
Then I laughed because it’s getting funny.
Not.

Have I mentioned what an opportunist the Universe can be? Oh, yeah.
Just at the point where I am my most vulnerable; hands on my hips, bent into the hill, drenched in sweat and gasping for air like a sherpa about to summit Everest; the WiFi kicks in and Abraham on YouTube comes back on.

The Universe decides that this is the perfect time for a teaching moment.

I am elated.
This will help me summit my own humiliating, Studio City version of Everest. Except for one thing. I’ve already listened to this part. It didn’t pick up where it left off, it went all the way back to the beginning. Back to what I’ve already heard for the last forty minutes.
Shit.
A mild wave of disappointment washes over me as the smile leaves my face.

Immediately the signal cuts out. Silence returns.

Awwww come on! I actually shout out loud. What the hell?!

I stop and fiddle with my phone for a minute. Nope. Nothing. It’s no use. Resignation sets back in as I pull up my big girl stretch pants and soldier on.

It’s then that the Universe decides to give a lecture series entitled: Split Energy (Will Fuck You Every Time).

‘You split your energy. You do it all the time and you needed to see an example of how it can stop the momentum of a desire in it’s tracks.’

Clarify please, I barely have enough oxygen to keep me upright let alone understand what the hell you’re trying to tell me.

‘You desired WiFi. We gave you WiFi. And may we point out, in a place where WiFi doesn’t exist, so there’s that…’

I know! And I was so happy about that!

‘For a minute. Not even. Then you were disappointed by the specifics. That’s split energy and it will stall a desire faster than anything else.’

‘So what should I have done?’

‘You can’t stay grateful for a miracle for like five minutes?…What do we always say?’

‘I don’t know…be kind to others and don’t say fuck so much?’

‘Besides that. We remind you that disappointment is taking score too soon. When you ask for something and it arrives, don’t say, Oh, not THAT! it seems ungrateful and it hurts our feelings. Wait awhile before you take score.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘Of course, we are! We’re the Universe! Whatever we deliver to you is ALWAYS perfect.’

Always?
Always.
What if…
Always.
What about that…
Always.
But…
What part of ALWAYS are you not understanding?

Point taken.

‘I’m at the parking lot and I have to pee so arrivederci and thanks for the chat.’

Listen you guys, who among us hasn’t questioned a wish fulfilled because it didn’t look exactly like we expected it to look?
We’ve gotta cut that out. Me included.

Carry on,
xox

Happy Sunday you guys!

I advise you, this wonderful Sunday morning, to take the time to read this.

I’ve written about this subject numerous times, I’m a fucking pro at NOT THIS. But as usual, Liz Gilbert manages to hit a home run with this essay.

I know about fifty gazillion people who are in the midst of their NOT THIS moment right NOW—myself included.

(Any two cents in parenthesis is mine, just so you know.)

I think you’ll feel a little bit better after reading this. At the very least, better understood.
I did.

Carry on,
xox

Dear Ones –
Most of us, at some point in our lives (unless we have done everything perfectly…which is: nobody) will have to face a terrible moment in which we realize that we have somehow ended up in the wrong place — or at least, in a very bad place.

Maybe we will have to admit that we are in the wrong job. Or the wrong relationship. (I’ve left both. You?)
With the wrong people around us. Living in the wrong neighborhood. Acting out on the wrong behaviors. Using the wrong substances. Pretending to believe things that we no longer believe. Pretending to be something we were never meant to be. (yes, yep, uh huh and yep.)

This moment of realization is seldom fun. In fact, it’s usually terrifying.
I call this moment of realization: NOT THIS.

Because sometimes that’s all you know, at such a moment.
All you know is: NOT THIS.

Sometimes that’s all you CAN know.

All you know is that some deep life force within you is saying, NOT THIS, and it won’t be silenced.

Your body is saying: “NOT THIS.”

Your heart is saying: “NOT THIS.”

Your soul is saying: “NOT THIS.”

But your brain can’t bring itself to say “NOT THIS”, because that would cause a serious problem. The problem is: You don’t have a Plan B in place. This is the only life you have. This is the only job you have. This is the only spouse you have. This is the only house you have. Your brain says, “It may not be great, but we have to put up with it, because there are no other options.” You’re not sure how you got here — to this place of THIS — but you sure as hell don’t know how to get out…
So your brain says: “WE NEED TO KEEP PUTTING UP WITH THIS, BECAUSE THIS IS ALL WE HAVE.”
But still, beating like a quiet drum, your body and your heart and your soul keep saying: NOT THIS…NOT THIS…NOT THIS.

I think some of the bravest people I have ever met were people who had the courage to say the words, “NOT THIS” out loud — even before they had an alternative plan. (On the GPS map of life, the blinking red dot shows that I’m “currently here”).
People who walked out of bad situations without knowing if there was a better situation on the horizon.
People who looked at the life they were in, and they said, “I don’t know what my life is supposed to be…but it’s NOT THIS.” And then they just…left.(Did you see the word BRAVE? You know who?)

I think my friend who walked out of a marriage after less than a year, and had to move back in with her mother (back into her childhood bedroom), and face the condemnation of the entire community while she slowly created a new life for herself. Everyone said, “If he’s not good enough for you, who will be?” She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything about what her life would look like now. But it started with her saying: NOT THIS. (Are you getting this cryptic message Liz and I are sending you? You know who you are.)

I think of my friend who took her three young children away from a toxic marriage, despite that fact that her husband supported her and the kids financially…and the four of them (this woman and her three children) all slept in one bed together in a tiny studio apartment for a few years, while she struggled to build a new life. She was poor, she was scared, she was alone. But she had to listen to the voices within her that said, NOT THIS.

I think of friends who walked out of jobs — with no job waiting for them. Because they said NOT THIS.
I think of friends who quit school, rather than keep pretending that they cared about this field of study anymore. And yes, they lost the scholarship. And yes, they ended up working at a fast food restaurant, while everyone else was getting degrees. And yes, it took them a while to figure out where to go next. But there was a relief at last in just surrendering to the holy, non-negotiable truth of NOT THIS.

I think of friends who bravely walked into AA meetings and just fell apart in front of a room full of total strangers, and said, NOT THIS.

I think of a friend who pulled her children out of Sunday School in the middle of church one Sunday because she’d had it with the judgment and self-righteousness of this particular church. Yes, it was her community. Yes, it was her tribe. But she physically couldn’t be in that building anymore without feeling that she would explode. She didn’t know where she was going, spiritually or within her community, but she said, NOT THIS. And walked out.

Rationally, it’s crazy to abandon a perfectly good life (or at least a familiar life) in order to jump into a mystery. No sane person would advise you to make such a leap, with no Plan B in place. We are supposed to be careful. We are supposed to be prudent. (Uh, Steph?)
And yet….
And yet.

If you keep ignoring the voices within you that say NOT THIS, just because you don’t know what to do, instead…you may end up stuck in NOT THIS forever.(We know these people. They live in a state of quiet disappointment.)

You don’t need to know where you are going to admit that where you are standing right now is wrong.
The bravest thing to say can be these two words.
What comes next? (My mantra is: What Now?)

I don’t know. You don’t know. Nobody knows. It might be worse. It might be better. But whatever it is…? It’s NOT THIS.
ONWARD,
LG

It’s noon on Monday the 21st and I should be on my way to the airport as I write this. Instead, I’m eating a peach (which looks and tastes suspiciously like a cookie), and pondering the fact that we postponed, (a much more accurate and less sad-sacky word than cancelled) our motorcycle trip to Italy last week.

As I think back on the last seven days, it’s hard to deny—many, many miracles have occurred.

By Wed—Thurs of last week, almost as if by magic, reports came back from various friends and family members; “I’m feeling SO much better!” they all enthused with great…enthusiasm.

Whew, that came as such a relief.

Because they had no idea how much their health and wellbeing had been weighing on me, and the fact that I was about to go off the grid for two glorious weeks (oh, did I write that? I meant to just think it), had tied me up in knots.

So of course when we canceled, postponed the trip—everyone miraculously recovered.

Emotional shitshow on Friday—postpone trip on Saturday—Wednesday—Miraculous recoveries all around! Yeah.

By golly, isn’t that just so..so..

The same was true on hubby’s job front.
Inspectors who swore on their mother’s grave that they could not possibly show up before he left—did. These same stone-hearted men who were impervious to bribes and copious amounts of tears and shameless begging; called out of the blue—all chipper and accommodating—showed up on time the next day (gasp) and passed not only the rough electrical—but the framing as well. (You have no idea what a big, hairy deal this is. I called the Vatican to have this miracle sanctioned, only to be told the Pope is really busy right now—something about Cuba).

Anyhow, refunded vacation money started to show up in our accounts.
Wait.
What?
Refunded money you say?
I know! We even got $1000 of our motorcycle deposit back. From Italians. All the way in Italy.
Miracles #2, 3 & 4.

Long suffering lumber showed up. Drywalling commenced. Lions and lambs lay down together and I lost three pounds!
Tuesday it even rained a big, sloppy, tropical rain—in California.
Well, now you’re just showing off.
More miracles?
Will it never end?

Laughter even made a brief appearance in our home over the weekend. (Don’t get excited, it was a guffaw really—we’re not out of the woods yet).

But it sure started to feel like it.
How about this unexpected side effect? So many things started to right themselves that it made it hard for disappointment to enter the picture.

Here’s the thing you guys, we made one really hard decision.
We stopped the bleeding that was killing the lead-up to our trip.

We called it. (I’m big on doing this now when something ends because I think attention must be paid)

Our Splendid Italian Vacation. Time of Death: 8 a.m. Saturday September 12, 2015.

Another miracle? Did it resurrect in three days? Nope—The vacation will have to wait—But our life did.

It turned its badass self around and starting behaving more like our wondrous, well oiled, things-always-work-out-for-us life again.

“Things are going so well, maybe we shouldn’t have cancelled”, hubby announced over lunch on Saturday.

Is he fucking kidding?

If we hadn’t called it quits I’m convinced the shitshow would still be in town.
And if we were still flying out today—I can guarantee you that the wings would fall off the plane.

Carry on,
xox