emotions

I have to remind myself that this could be—this should be—true when making any decision.

Right? I mean just the thought of making a decision unfettered by financial restraints makes my heart beat faster.
I palpitate all over the place.
Possibilities start to appear.
Were they hiding? Not really. I was just too tangled up in penny counting to see them.

But maybe I can only speak for myself.

The thing is, I’ve talked to several of my friends this week who were also weighing options. Career, geographic relocation, relationships. You know, the stomach-clenching terror-trifecta. They were making lists of pros and cons, calculating risks, and looking for signs. Anything to give them a clue.

I was right there with them, looking to the sky, turning over every rock. Listening for a booming voice inside of a burning bush.

I’m looking at having an elective surgery (nothing major), around the end of the year. The doctor I want to use is out of network (insurance speak), so I will have to dig deep into my own pockets—or be okay with a complete stranger cutting me open.

“What if money wasn’t an issue?” I asked my friend at brunch on Sunday. She’s barreling toward some biggies in the next few months. Good stuff, life changing really. No pressure. She has a lot of options, but sometimes all those choices complicate things. They muddy the water.

“Mmmmmm…” she mused, enjoying a bite of ricotta pancake. “That’s easy.”

“Then that’s the answer!”  I announced, and suddenly, we both had clarity on our respective conundrums. And bacon. We had bacon.

Fuck you money! You are not the boss of us!

I always forget it really IS that easy. Don’t you?
Money is figureoutable. It really is—if we can step out of fear’s grip.

Maybe I can unimagine Edward Scissorhands having his way with me in an operating room because of my belief in lack. And hey, I am most certainly aware that my angst is a result of giving it a face—and way more power than it deserves.

Maybe you’re at a crossroads. Maybe you needed to see this right now. Maybe you need to ask yourself  “What would you do if money wasn’t an issue?”

Carry on,
xox

To my dear men,
I have had the supreme good fortune to have been surrounded by you guys all of my life. How lucky am I?

You are unfailingly decent men.
Good men.
Nice men.
Respectful and kind men.

And as the past few weeks have unfolded with this Trump Tape of Horrors and the ensuing conversation that followed, I have watched you squirm.

Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it.

Although the language wasn’t new to you because hey, come on, you’re all grown-ass men—it was rough. Crude. I saw you cringe or walk out of the room. It embarrassed you and I took note of that.

The conversation about the sexual assault of women has been locked up. Sealed in a stinking Pandora’s Box for decades.
This incident has opened it and unleashed the Kraken, I know, and it’s uncomfortable.

That’s why we haven’t talked about it.

I see you trying to understand why all the women in your life are reacting so strongly to this. Why are we so emotional? Why is our hair on fire?
Finally, after about a week of talking and asking questions—we clued each other in.

During our talks what really surprised me was the genuine—GENUINE—shock you expressed at this sentence:
“I do not know a single woman, regardless of age, race, size, or color who has not had to fend off an unwanted sexual advance in her life. Ask your mother, ask your sister, ask your daughter. NOT A SINGLE ONE.”

After I said that you all sat back in your chairs like you’d been physically pushed. You shook your heads in disgust. One of you put your hand to your mouth to stifle a gasp.

“I didn’t know that… I didn’t know how pervasive it is”,  was the resounding chorus from the decent men I know. I’m going to cut you a break because good and decent men tend to hang out together, so the odds of you seeing bad behavior goes up. And let’s be real—its not on your radar.

Probably because we, the women around you, are not putting it there. So now I will.

Look, you guys lock your doors at night, right? You watch your wallets in a crowd. You don’t talk about fight club. That’s about the extent of your concern for your personal safety.

It’s different for women. Our bodies are what “they” want. The perv, the creep, the rapist or the jerk shoving Tic-Tacs in his mouth, waiting to get off the bus and hug and kiss us on demand. 

You guys have always tried to keep me safe and I love you for that. You have warned me out of certain neighborhoods at night. You have escorted me to my car in dark parking lots. You have walked me protectively past construction sites listening to the cat calls. You have alerted me to the fact that my tires had dangerously worn tread and that you didn’t feel it was safe to drive through the Nevada desert alone at night—but you have no idea what it means to be the object of every creep’s unchecked lust.

It’s such a common occurrence, we don’t talk about it. So common that if women blew a whistle every time there was an impropriety—you’d hear nothing else.

I love you guys, I really do. Good men are the majority in my opinion. But I think you’re innate goodness has left you naive. And it’s time you knew the truth.

Women deal with this shit. Day in and day out. And it’s got to stop.

Not just me. Every woman you know. We just don’t talk about it.
Until now.

And you should too. To each other and to the women in your life.

Thank you so much for listening.
xox

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Hi Loves,
Feeling anxious? Fearful of the dystopian future being predicted by the talking heads on cable TV? Take a deep breath…and feel safe. You are safe. All is well. Well-being abounds. And fear is an invented lie.
I should know. Well, me and Dita my dog.
Carry on,
xox

Late one night last week, our dog, a nine-year-old boxer, startled us all awake…

The puppy heard it before anyone. She brought it to our attention by running around the bed, her nails tapping out a sort of morse code S.O.S. on the wooden floor. She may be young, but she’s resourceful.

It was 3 am. My husband got up and went to look into the old girl’s cubby in the wall, her virtual cave of a bed, to see what was what.

Querida (Dita for short) was thrashing around, on her back, legs in the air, doing the cartoon run for her life. You know, the one that gets you nowhere.

I could hear her wild breathing – the snorts and hoarse panting. It sounded like she was in the fight of her life with an invisible foe. Come to find out she was battling her own demons.

It appeared (as reported by a somewhat reliable source, my husband) that Dita had somehow become wedged between the wall and her down filled, hotel bed quality, better than any dog deserves – cushion. A crevice had opened during the night, and while she lay unaware, peacefully dreaming her sweet doggie dreams, it had swallowed her whole.

He reported that she looked like a bug on it’s back, struggling to right itself, only problem was – she was uncomfortably wedged until he was able to free her.

When he pulled her out of what I’m sure seemed to her to be a deep, dark, Grand Canyon sized chasm, my girl tried to shake it off.
She paced; wandering around our dark house, going in and out of every room, as if searching for her lost car keys. Several minutes later I heard her take herself, in her adrenaline infused stupor, outside to pee, after first tussling with the doggie door. I think she just needed the cool, fresh air.

Her breathing was rapid, she was panting, her little heart running a marathon.

As I watched my dog use the ancient instinct she was born with to navigate the terror inside that dark and twisted place that was her mind – I had a realization.

Through some fluke of nature, some law of weird science, Dita really IS my daughter, because here it is 3 am and she is having a panic attack!

Panic attacks used to be my wheelhouse, I know them well. Boy, could I relate.

Curiously, our attacks were identical, the reactions the same – an instinctive, primal, repetitive dance of self-preservation.

I too have woken up flailing like a bug on my back, my brain convincing me of my imminent demise after falling into an invisible abyss. I too have walked the halls, alone, searching for comfort, my hand feeling its way in the dark, touching old wood in the hopes of grounding; soaking up its familiarity. I have not gone outside to pee, (there but for the grace of God), but I have spent the hours just before dawn shaking in the bathroom; waiting for my heart to stop racing.

And it is ALWAYS, without FAIL, 3 am(ish). WTF?!

Have you ever had an anxiety or panic attack? If you have you know what I’m talking about. I would not wish them on my worst enemy. On those unfortunate souls, I wish a bad perm and severely chapped lips. Anxiety attacks, in my opinion, are somewhere along the lines of emotional waterboarding.

They are torture. Self-imposed torture—but torture just the same.

Mine felt like a cross between a heart attack, losing my mind, and being chased through the streets by a Velociraptor. My heart would beat out of my chest, while an elephant or two pulled up a seat right there and got comfy.
I would obsess on my breathing and start sweating, gasping for air – fight or flight in all it’s glory.
The sky appeared to be hung too low, making me feel like Chicken Little.
My sanity seemed elusive, my thoughts raced like a wild animal escaped from its cage.

I have actually looked at myself in the mirror and not recognized the person behind my own eyes.

Sometimes it would be preceded by a stressful situation, but often times not. Hence waking up in a full panic for no apparent reason; which just added confusion to the already fear infused emotional cocktail that was messing with my head.

These three questions ran on a loop inside my rattled brain: Why me? Why now? When will it end?

So, I watched my poor pork chop of a boxer (she’s not fat, just thick in the middle from age – again like her mother) try to navigate her fear, struggling to maintain her sanity. She had believed the story her mind was telling her, and THAT’S when the terror took hold.

She believed she was trapped ( huge anxiety trigger) and it caused her to hyperventilate (classic step two of panic attacks) which then convinced her she was going to die.

Dita did what you do in that situation. You flee, you run, you take a walk, you look for someplace that holds comfort for you—you do whatever it takes to gather your wits.

Once we figured out what was happening, which took us awhile because we were all so groggy (except for the puppy, who thought being up in the middle of the night warranted popcorn, bad TV and a pillow fight) we brought her up onto the bed with us; disoriented and frantic.

Because isn’t that the final solution you come to after you’ve worn out all the other options? That you must eventually find your way back to bed?

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about just that in Eat, Pray, Love.
After spending hours crying on the bathroom floor, begging for mercy from her emotional pain; a voice in her head answered her prayer for guidance, “Go back to bed Liz” was its simple directive.

Since Dita was too scared to go back to her own bed, ( do you blame her? It had tried to eat her alive!) I knew the next step – she had to come up with us. (I would have crawled in bed with my parents during my attacks—if I’d lived at home and wasn’t 25, 35, 40.)

With one hand on her head, I lay there deep in thought, realizing that her fear had been as baseless as mine all those years ago.
She was fine. It was self-invented.
Easy for me to say from where I sit NOW, but it’s true.

Her mind presented false evidence that appeared real. FEAR.
With hindsight, I could see that mine had been just as ridiculous.

After another fifteen minutes, she took a deep, calming breath, settled down, and fell asleep. My husband and I then took a turn, each taking our own relief-filled deep breath.

I continued to stroke her graying, velvet ears, listening to her softly snore.

I’m happy we could help her.
Because of my (our) familiarity with this kind of behavior, we had kept the lights off and stayed calm, talking to her softly, petting and kissing her face. We hadn’t shadowed her, following her from room to room, asking her what was wrong. That would have made her feel more anxious.

Animals can sense energy, they can feel your fear.

No, we did all the things I’ve learned in order to calm myself when I’m in the midst of an anxiety attack. Slow, deep breaths, remaining calm and finding a place to feel safe. Apparently, that works for people and dogs.

If I can tell you one thing, it’s that she is fortunate to be a dog. With a minimum of baggage and tons of good canine instinct, she was able to calm herself in a little less than an hour. That makes her my hero—I only wish I’d been that adept.

Yep, she’s my fearful, furry daughter and clearly, I’m her mom.

My mom & Poppy lost their beloved cat Calvin Tuesday night. This is for them.

We all know how this story ends, yet death, as inevitable as we try to forget it is, surprises the shit out of us when it takes someone we love.

A pet.
A parent.
A sibling.
A close friend.

Pain is pain—because love is love, is love, is love, is love, is love, is love. (To quote Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliant sonnet.)

But I believe that the risk of a broken heart is far outweighed by the innumerable rewards and blessings that love bestows.

Maybe you needed to hear this today. I did.

Carry on,
xox

“Grief; it covers you with the weight of a wet blanket and smothers all other emotions, most especially joy”

~J. Bertolus

Here I sit, internally pummeled by the ebb and flow of grief.

It was just a dog, I tell myself, as the terribly underutilized rational part of my brain gets its chance to craft a reason and attempt to soothe me.

Doesn’t matter, moans my heart.

I loved her with all I had. I loved her without boundaries, deeper and wider and bigger than I could have ever thought possible.
She was my baby –– That thought just makes me cry longer and louder.

The rational brain, not used to seeing me like this, ups it’s game, taking a different tack—
You knew how this story would end, it reasons. Everybody dies, that’s the exit strategy we all agreed upon.

You’re right, I answer begrudgingly.

She was old and sick and you could sense the end was near… That’s funny, my rational brain doesn’t usually acknowledge intuition. It was clearly pulling out all the stops.

So why the sadness and the tears? It continued. The question actually had an air of sincerity –– my brain searching, seeking a viable answer.

Love…it’s about love. When you love someone or something with ALL your heart and soul…well, the pain of its loss is equal in measure.

I could feel it contemplating, reasoning –– love sounded dangerous.

Then why love at all? When you know it will end this way, with so much pain –– why risk it?

How do I explain?  Deep breath.

Because without that love, without opening your heart that much, each time more, then more, then more again –– life is colorless, black and white, and in my opinion not worth living. The reward is worth the risk.

So…I’ll cry and I’ll feel bad for a while and time will carry me through this; and when I’m on the other side of grief I won’t forget her, I could never do that. It will just start to hurt a little less each day until her memory makes me…smile.

Then I will have forgotten the pain enough to love without borders, ignoring all reason.

All the while knowing how this ends…

xox

I’m writing this as a self-reminder, although I’m sure you guys could use one too.

I cannot control the traffic or the way other people (idiots), drive.

I cannot control the cable person, the electrician, the handyman, the trash picker-uppers, the tree trimmers, the person who’s making my latte, or the air conditioning repair person. I cannot control the time they will arrive (which is never inside the promised window) how well they will perform their task, or what personality traits they possess (too chatty, too pissy, too flirty, too…)

I cannot control anyone or anything about the DMV. Period. End of story.

I cannot control the weather. I can have every app, and alert, but it will seldom cooperate when I hold an event outdoors, and I never have an umbrella or sweater when I need one.

I cannot control my dogs or any animal for that matter. I can guide them and train them, and make suggestions, but they all have minds of their own and there will be slobber on my white walls, water and/or muddy footprints all over my white slip covers and wood floors, and fossilized vomit under the bed. It’s inevitable despite my best intentions. This goes for children as well.

I cannot control my spouse or my family. (See above).

I cannot control the government, the postal system, the medical system or the educational system. But I can vote.

I cannot control bad grammar. Their-there-they’re, its-it’s, I could care less, It’s a mute point, Ugh. Dear God, make it stop.

I cannot control the speed or dependability of my WiFi connection, although I still think if I yell obscenities loud enough it will be shamed into complying.

I cannot control my hair. Where on my body it grows, what color it wants to be, and its texture. It’s time to give up the good fight. While I’m at it, I cannot control eye wrinkles, cellulite, lip lines or dark under eye circles, so I’m done letting Madison Avenue sell me the snake oil.

I cannot control how my garden grows. I can fertilize, weed and trim, but it has plans of its own to which I am not privy.

I cannot control aging. It has a superpower called gravity, and the combination are unbeatable. I surrender…you bitches.

I cannot control what others think of me. It is impossible.
I can carefully cultivate my image; but one false move, one bad outfit, snarky comment, or piece of spinach in my teeth and all that hard work is shot to hell.

I cannot control the bad manners of others. When a man lets a heavy door slam in my face as I exit a building right behind him; instead of jumping on his back like a crazed spider monkey…I send him love.

I cannot control what’s happening on the planet. Too many moving parts. I just have to trust in a Divine Order. (Which is true for all of it – everything in life.)

What I’ve discovered is this: ALL of my sufferings comes from thinking that I can control things. I cannot. And neither can you.

But here’s the one thing I CAN control – my perception and attitude. That’s it.

I can control ONLY my own energy and what I bring to the day, to the table, to every situation I encounter – even to the mirror, and THAT can change it all.

As my mom used to say when we were fighting with each other, as kids, “You just pay attention to yourself – watch where you’re going.

Got anything to add to the list?

Carry on,
Xox

Hello luvs,
This is my latest Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/an-open-letter-to-the-rec_b_12250902.html

It’s about divorce. And life after divorce. And dating. And dating after divorce. And maybe, just maybe the sex as my friend Sandra refers to it.

Please feel free to comment, like and share. I’d love it if you would!

Carry on,
xox

I see you there, under the covers with your swollen eyes and a nose as raw and runny as your recently broken heart. Darling, I can see you because I’ve been you.

I also see dead people. And right now you are a zombie. Numb inside. A card carrying member of the walking dead.

But you will re-join the living—I can promise you that. How do I know? Because I too crawled out from beneath the smoldering rubble of a divorce—and lived to tell about it.

And as your future self, I can assure you that not only will you survive—you will thrive!

Am I an expert? Well, yes. Yes, I am. Even though no two divorces are alike, once you’ve lived through one you are part of a select group who can speak about it with authority. Kind of like plane crash survivors or those unfortunate souls who are born with a third nipple.

Besides, I am your future self. I am older and wiser and I deserve your respect.

Listen, everyone on the planet has had their heart broken at least five times, once, and very few (less than one percent), fail to fall in love again. So it goes without saying that the odds are in your favor. That your dried up raisin of a heart will eventually heal enough to try this love thing again.

You may even get re-married—but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I can assure you that once the initial shock wears off you’ll silence the Adele, stop eating raw chocolate chip cookie dough straight from the roll and get back to wearing pants instead of pajamas bottoms. Your skin will clear up, you’ll get the best haircut of your life, and on a random Thursday night, you’ll finally agree to meet friends for drinks. Once there, you’ll only cry a little when someone brings up the holidays. Later that night, alone in bed, a turning point will be reached. You’ll have the realization that for the first time in like forever—you actually had—what’s the word? Fun.

Now a word of warning. Everyone and their cousin will try to fix you up with someone they know who’s “perfect” for you.

It is the craziest thing! No one can stand to see a divorced person single for more than five minutes. It’s just a fact of life so accept it. Now, this is either going to become a great distraction—or send you to bed for a month. Don’t get discouraged. I’m here to tell you this immediate aftermath is not the phase where anything meaningful happens so don’t worry about it. Take a lot of bubble baths, drink tea, catch up on your reading, watch every Nora Ephron movie, and eventually send out a search party to find your sense of humor—you’re going to need it.

Because here’s the thing. You are going to want to date again! 

I know, right now that sounds about as fun as walking barefoot on hot coals, or picking them up and putting them in your mouth—but hear me out. Eventually, you will meet someone you really like and when that initial rush of excitement hits you, it is going to feel like a combination of Christmas Eve and the Fourth of July. The body has sense memory where this is concerned. Trust it. You may be tempted to go slow, and that’s probably advisable, but after your protracted post-divorce hiatus from fun, laughter and (gulp) sex, this new attraction will feel as like a tall glass of ice water in hell.

We can talk about sex if you want to. I think we should.
I know it’s making you throw up a little in your mouth, but that’s all the more reason you will need to get back in the saddle, so to speak. Probably not right away…but sometime this decade. There’s just no way to get around this so I’m gonna give it to ya straight. Sex for the first time with someone besides your ex is going to feel extremely weird and titillating, and awful, and wonderful, uncomfortable and ridiculous.

A confusing mixed salad of emotions that will be hard to overcome.

There’s no denying that. But you must. And you will. Please, I beg of you, don’t listen to your self-sabotaging brain chatter. It will only fuck things up—in a bad way. I am here to tell you this can be exciting as hell and you will definitely be On. Your. Game—so don’t worry. You will feel present, awake and alive which I’m just guessing is very different than what was happening in your marriage just prior to your split.

Listen, I’m your future self, so I already know what went down. No judgment here. I only want to congratulate you on the progress you’ll make.

Listen, I thought this would be a good time to come talk to you in order to assuage your fears, dry your tears, and at the very least help you to crack a smile because, hey, it’s a start. It means you broke through the numbness and felt something. Something besides sadness, shame and anger.

I also highly recommend breathing and putting one foot in front of the other because that helps too, just keep moving forward.

I can promise you, the more time that goes by, the less you will look behind you at that jackass who doesn’t deserve you, and the more enthusiasm you will start to feel toward the future.

I can promise that because I am you. Only, I’m in the future. I am healed and whole and happy as shit—and I’m waiting for you here.

xox

This is a post from two years ago and I’m sorry to report that I’m still an under-reacting bitch when it comes to diagnosing pain. Please, if you get hurt, NEVER listen to anything I say.
Carry on,
xox

We need to carry this chart around with us at all times, because
most of us have a hard time articulating our level of pain.

My husband goes to the head of the class.
Here’s a classic story that makes us laugh when we’re drunk.

It was back a few years ago, when he discovered (on Web MD in the middle of the night) that he had appendicitis.
I scoffed at his self-diagnosis. Of course, I did. I suggested he had gas and told him to buck up and take a couple of Motrin.
Wife of the Year, I know.

Since he was due to leave on a motorcycle trip to the Sierra’s the next day, unbeknownst to me, he went to the doctor.
THAT should have told me something right there because he’s someone who can have a chainsaw sticking out of his neck and he will sidestep a visit to the doctor.

“Oh, that? Nah, I don’t need a doctor, I’m just going to observe it.”

He called me at work from St John’s, where he had been sent immediately by his doctor for an MRI.

Jeez, I thought. I can’t believe how much they’re overreacting. It’s gas. I’m tellin’ ya.

He got the results while I was on the phone with him. He was told to go directly downstairs to the Emergency Room, where real doctors would admit him for surgery; seems his appendix had a slow leak and I was going to have to give back my medical diploma.

Gas it was not.

I drove like a maniac, in a thunderstorm, in drought-stricken California (in the movie version of this story I’m played by the supremely talented Kate Winslet and this is all VERY, VERY dramatic), to make it across town, at rush hour, to see him before they took him in to operate.

When I got there (late) he was in Emergency, hooked up to antibiotics and pain meds, waiting for his turn in surgery; doing his Sudoku and entertaining the nurses.

“What’s your pain level on a scale of one to ten?” the friendly nurse asked while I was hugging him hello.

“Three or four,” he said, without even a cringe. I’m thinking—gas. It’s a three because the MRI was wrong and he ate a burrito with extra hot sauce.

“Really? What’s a ten to you?” The nurse was curious, since appendicitis is up there on the pain scale—for most mere mortals.

“Being skinned alive or boiled in oil” he responded, completely serious.

“Huh… ” The nurse seemed stunned. “Okay Braveheart, have you felt that? How would you know? I’m asking you as a point of reference.”

Think about it. That’s a great question!
What is a five or an eight or even a ten?

I wondered; have I ever felt a ten? 

We all know those individuals to whom a paper cut is a ten. Are most of us even aware of our pain tolerance scale?

Minutes later his appendix burst. I saw it register on his face like shock. He was fine one moment with his paper-cut three, and then, BAM! It was as if someone had stabbed him and started to skin him alive. He looked very much like #10.

The crazy thing was that if he’d been riding the back country of the Sierra’s—he’d have died.
He hadn’t been accurately portraying his pain because he didn’t know how.
“It’s a ten, it’s a ten, maybe even eleven!” he yelled as she injected morphine straight into his IV, his whole body relaxing, his eyes rolling back into his head.

They rushed him into surgery and he is now happily appendix free.

It appears to me that this list could apply to emotional pain as well.
Will we tolerate three’s and four’s as we “observe” the situation?
What constitutes a ten? The equivalent of emotional stigmata or boiling oil?

Food for thought.

Copy this list and keep it with you – in case someone asks.
I especially love the faces.

Love,
Xox

“We have perfected the attitude of worry. If we don’t have something to worry about, that worries us.”

—Michele Longo O’Donnell

Stress is a thug and a thief. It’s a thug because it has such little regard for our well-being, and a thief because it absconds with BIG chunks our time. It adds up. Stress, that jerk, has looted months, if not years, of accumulated hours from my life. So, I have no problem giving stress the finger, whenever I can. I take great glee in pissing it off.
Here are the Top Ten things that piss stress off. Practice them wisely—and often.

1) Rest. Stress HATES when we’re well rested. We make better decisions, we’re on our game and less likely to muck things up. Naps, long weekends and vacations are its Kryptonite.

2) A Sense of Humor/Laughing. Have you ever tried to laugh while completely stressed out? A real, deep belly laugh? It’s almost impossible. It’s akin to keeping your eyes open when you sneeze. The two CANNOT coexist.

3) Asking for help. Stress can’t stand it when we realize our limitations, delegate and ask for help. It needs a frazzled, overextended, perfectionist, control freak as a host. Calling in the Cavalry BEFORE you’ve reached your wit’s end sends stress the silent Jedi signal: This is not the droid you’re looking for.

4) Believing you have enough. If you believe you have enough time, money, resources, help and happiness, you will be invisible to stress. It will pass your house and go torment your neighbors.

5) Exercise. Yes, it is possible to outrun stress. You can outrun it on the treadmill, or with the dogs at the park. Once that heart rate goes up and those endorphins kick in, stress will NOT be able to keep up. Stress carb loads, always goes for seconds, eats peanut butter out of the jar with a serving spoon, and parks illegally in the handicapped space, so it never has to walk far. Stress hates a fit body and a clear head.

6) Organization. When you’re well organized, meaning, you know where everything is, and can easily find it, stress has a shit fit. How can it fuck with you and mess with your head, if you can immediately come up with your passport, keys, glasses, insurance papers, rent check, stamps, cat nail clipper and both of the same black sandals?

7) Behaving like a grown up. Stress despises adult behavior. Stress is counting on us to NEVER grow up. It adores a good temper tantrum and will do everything in its power to keep us from getting our ducks in a row. As a matter of fact, it is heavily invested in the prospect of us not saving for retirement, avoiding responsibility, making uninformed decisions and never planning for the future.

8) Self-care. THIS pisses off stress almost more than anything. Getting a massage, doing yoga and meditating. Those are three of its mortal enemies. It throws its hands up, shakes its head and walks away in defeat. It can’t take hold of a peaceful mind.

9) Not caring what other people think. Once you drop that bad habit, stress will have to go find another victim. Don’t feel bad for a second. There are millions.

10) Awareness. Stress has a full-on hissy-fit when you call it out. It can’t stand when you know its name or what it looks like. It would rather stay anonymous, in one of its many disguises. As a headache, an ulcer, colitis, hives, over eating, over spending, depression, and anxiety.

I told you, it’s a thug.
It knows, that once you know why it’s there, it’s days are numbered.

Can you think of more ways to piss off stress? Tell me what you do, I’d LOVE to hear some comments!

Carry on,
Xox

*This post is from a couple of years ago, but it is forever intertwined with our wedding anniversary, so I can never forget. I don’t think we should.
xox

It is ridiculously dark in a hotel room with the black-out drapes closed.

It is a trip over stuff because it’s a strange room; blink, blink, blink for your eyes to adjust; bang your shin and stub your toe, kind of dark.

I experienced all of those things on the way to answer my phone which was shoved in my purse, somewhere under piles of room service napkins, magazines, and assorted other crap.

La la la la la la, my phone chimed its little heart out.

Who is calling me? Everyone knows I’m on my honeymoon and judging from how dark it is, (forgetting the drapes) it MUST be the middle of the night. How rude!

Five minutes earlier the ringing had woken me up, and I had stumbled like a drunken sailor, half asleep in the pitch blackness, to the bathroom. ‘Wrong number‘ I thought, still half asleep as I felt my way like a blindfolded mime, back to bed.
I heard it go to message. Now I was awake.
Hmmmmmmmm…that’s weird.

It started to ring again; this time, I could swear it sounded more insistent.
LA LA LA LAAAAAA!
Curious, I quietly slid out of bed and started moving heaven and earth to find it, only to hear it go to message a second time.

Not even a moment later, as I was finally holding it in my hand, it started to ring again.

At that same instant so did my husband’s phone charging next to him on the nightstand.  Then the hotel room phone on my side of the bed. It became a cacophony of three different rings, each one of them trying desperately at that point to get our attention.

I heard my husband’s voice behind me in the bed, “Shit, this CAN’T be good”. He was suddenly wide awake as he grabbed both the room phone and his cell, putting one to each ear.
“Hello!” he announced tersely into both.

I had just flipped mine open only to listen to my best friend Jen, mumbling and weeping. At the same exact moment, we both lunged for the remote as three different people screamed into our ears “TURN ON THE TV!”

We were two days into enjoying our post wedding coma. Ensconced in a room overlooking the Pacific at the Biltmore in Santa Barbara, still feeling giddy from the excitement of such a magical night.
Exhausted, we had given ourselves a couple of days to decompress before we were to fly to a friend’s party in Chicago and then on to Italy to have a motorcycle honeymoon.
None of those plans would come to pass.

My brand new husband pulled open the drapes with one swipe to reveal bright sunshine; it wasn’t the middle of the night, it was after six in the morning. This must be a movie, I thought, as we both slowly sat on the edge of the bed; watching in stunned silence as the second plane hit the tower.

I think I screamed. I know I screamed. A movie scream.

Everyone we loved was calling; apologizing for bothering us, but wanting us to know.
Because that’s what family does. They share bad news.

Just thirty-six hours before, they had all been loopy from too much champagne and wine, laughing, toasting and celebrating love…now they were crying and asking me, Why?

I couldn’t wrap my brain around what was happening. Everything felt surreal, like a slow motion disaster film.

I certainly didn’t have any answers.

My husband is an architect/builder. He knows about steel and fire and in his most serious Bob The Builder voice he didn’t pose a question or wonder aloud—he made a statement:
“I hope everyone’s out of there, that building’s coming down.”

And right on cue, as he finished that sentence…the first tower fell.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he yelled, sitting up straight on his knees.
I was screaming and shaking, “No, No, No…Oh MY GOD!”

Peter Jennings’ solemn voice said something to the effect of, “This has turned from an act of terrorism to an act of war.”

Time stopped. The planet shifted, and in my mind, that was the moment it happened. There will always be the world before 9/11—and after.

It was impossible to look away from the TV and I could not stop crying.

My mom called to tell me that Pam, who is like a big sister to me, and had flown in from San Francisco for the wedding, had to deplane on the tarmac at LAX and run for her life. The pilot had directed them all to run as fast as they could, away from the terminals and the airport.

Really. He told everyone to RUN!

No one knew what was going on, and where the next attack, if there were to be others, was going to take place. Lee and my mom picked her up as she ran east on Century Boulevard with a whole crowd of other panicky and confused thwarted travelers.

Many of the women had ditched their heels along the way, running in bare feet and business attire.

They had no idea where they were going.

How far would they run?

How far was far enough?

Where could you go that day to feel safe? I sure as hell didn’t know.

If you had told me a place—I would have run there with you.

After the second tower collapsed and the news went into that perpetual recap mode, I couldn’t watch another second; so I pulled on some sweats and sunglasses to hide my red swollen eyes and walked like a zombie downstairs to the lobby.

My inner historian/collector had kicked in and I went to see if they had the newspapers in the gift shop without the headline of the event, and the later edition, with it.

The adrenaline of the past few hours had subsided, which had dropped us both into a kind of numb stupor—so we also needed coffee. Bad.

The lobby was a ghost town. Everything was closed. No gift shop, no Starbucks, nothing. There wasn’t a soul in sight…this huge hotel felt deserted.

Back upstairs, I called room service.
It rang for what seemed like an eternity, then the voice that finally answered sounded out of breath and off of hotel protocol. She didn’t say Hello, Mrs. Bertolus, (which I was loving by the way), like they had been doing for the past couple of days.

“Yes? Hello, I mean, room service” she said.

“Um, are you guys open? Is it possible to get a pot of coffee?”

“I’ll try my best, I’m sorry ma’am, but no one has shown up for work this morning.”

“Oh my gosh, I completely understand—it’s just so terrible…”

“Yes ma’am,” she said, “it’s so sad.”
She started to cry, which set me off.

“Don’t worry about the coffee” I sobbed, feeling like an ass. “Just forget it, I’m sorry to bother you.”

“No ma’am, don’t be silly” she had composed herself, now the epitome of professionalism, “Your coffee will be right up Mrs. Bertolus.”

Ten minutes later a young man brought up a pot of coffee and some croissants, and after some caffeine and food, the shaking stopped and I started to feel a little better.

The government had halted all air travel until further notice. Planes were finding a safe place to land and staying put. It was unprecedented and I was relieved.

The absolute LAST thing I wanted to do was get on a plane.
We had a lot of phone calls to make and rescheduling to do.

Against my better judgment we kept our reservations that night for a seaside dinner. The place was beautiful… and depressing as hell. Everyone seemed to just be going through the motions. I sobbed like a three-year-old through the entire dinner, having a hard time forgetting those faces we’d seen all day of the people who were missing.

“How can I enjoy any of this? People lost husbands and fathers, brothers and wives and sisters. So many people died today!” I put my head in my hands, I couldn’t eat.

“How can you not?” my husband whispered, resting his hand on mine.

“Those people would give anything to be here, where we are right now, enjoying life. We don’t join them in death, that’s an even greater waste. We enjoy our lives. Every minute. Every day to the fullest. I think that’s what they would want. That’s what I would want.”

Damn, he’s good.

Just writing these memories makes me cry. It instantly brings me right back.

I think it’s important to tell the story. To never forget what happened.
Everything before 911 feels different, simpler somehow, like as a country we lost our innocence.

It just happens to coincide with my wedding. I can never think of one without the other. I celebrate the ninth of September, and I light a candle on the eleventh.
In my life, they are forever intertwined.

Just like our parents had the Kennedy assassination, this is our generation’s “where were you?” moment.

Do you have a 911 story? Tell us.

much love,
xox

This is a shit story. It broke me. It shattered me into a thousand little pieces. But it was the catalyst for my complete reinvention—so… thank you.

This is the best part of the story. The part I love to tell. The “miracle in the mess” so to speak. And it happened seven years ago today!

I’d love to say I stayed in the energy of that miracle and was able to ride the wave of hope, but I didn’t. I fell apart. It was ugly.
This was a sign. But I couldn’t see my way clear of the disaster.
Oh, well, lesson learned. Lessons learned. Many, many, lessons and I’m so much the better for them. Actually, I’m a completely different person. Ask my husband.
Anyhow, enjoy this flashback and appreciate all of the miracles that show up in your darkest hours. I do. Now.
Carry on,
xox

The second miracle occurred during cleanup.
We were about four days in.
The mud had been cleaned up, but the floors, walls, windows and merchandise were still covered with a layer of toxic, smelly slime.

We covered our faces with those cloth masks and plugged on.
Oh yeah, did I mention it was over 100 degrees!

This was the day I was told that the walls of the building had to be cut open up to 5 feet in order to air them out and avoid the dreaded black mold. I don’t know why that hit me so hard, but it did. I walked outside, sat on some steps across the parking lot, and cried while a Sawzall proceeded to systematically carve up my beautiful little store.

This felt serious…and profoundly sad.

Gary (my insurance advocate), came outside and put his arm around me as we sat silently watching the carnage. When he finally spoke, he asked me if I wanted to go in and box things up, the things that hadn’t gotten wet in the bathroom storage closets. Since the walls would be wide open, someone could potentially get inside and help themselves to whatever was left behind, so he gently suggested I go take a look.

I declined. He insisted. (I think about this all the time, you’ll see why in a minute.)

I think he also just wanted to keep me busy so he didn’t have to look at my big, sad and soggy face.

Since the electricity had been turned off, the bathroom was pitch dark as I poked around in the back closets with a garbage bag, waiting for my eyes to adjust. A generator and the Sawzall wailed away.  It felt weird to me to be salvaging Windex, paper towels, and toilet cleaner.

It occurred to me I could just leave it for the salvage crew. What difference did any of this stuff make now?
I was numb, just going through the motions, trying not to feel too much.

Tucked in the back of a shelf was a box of Tampons with the top torn off. All my good customers knew it was there. Periodically, I would bring a handful from home to refill it. (All you women reading this know what I’m talking about.)
There were several left in the box, so I tucked them into my pocket tossing the empty box in the large, green garbage bag.
But as it flew on its way into the bag, I could HEAR that it wasn’t empty.

There was something heavy sliding around the bottom of the box as it hurtled toward the trash.

Blindly, I reached inside, felt something cool and smooth, and pulled out the expensive diamond watch my husband had given me for our 5th anniversary! Was this some kind of a joke?

The hair stood up on the back of my neck as I stared at my missing watch, there alone in the dark. I started to shake. Violently. Then I started to scream. Loudly!

“Myyyyyy Waaaaaatch!” I screamed as I scrambled towards daylight.  All the workers stopped and stared at the screaming woman. “Ohhhh myyyy gawwwwwd! Are you fucking kidding me?!” I was screaming at the top of my lungs, sweating profusely in the heat. My hair was flying out of its rubber band and I had a mask over my face which muffled my words. The entire get-up morphed me into some kind of crazed, incoherent germaphobe. Gary looked at me, horrified.

Here’s the thing you guys. That watch had been “missing” for over 2 years. My husband had just recently mentioned how disappointed he was that I hadn’t found it yet. I felt terrible. We both knew I wasn’t someone who lost my jewelry. In my previous life as a jeweler, I had worn the watch a lot but since opening the store, it seemed too fancy, and I only took it out of the safe for special occasions.

I NEVER wore it to the store. EVER.
One day I had gone into the safe to get it…and it was gone.

Okay. Did I mention I found the watch on September 9th?
Our anniversary is September 9th.

The missing watch had mysteriously appeared after 2 years on a sad but significant day—in the MOST impossible place imaginable.
It was a sign.
Don’t lose hope.
Miracles occur.

I finally stopped screaming long enough to dial my phone. I couldn’t call my husband fast enough.

XoxJanet