Life

I’m ashamed to say that I went into Friday’s AMG Driving Academy bellowing like a blustery fool. The second biggest one in the country.

I declared that I would “kill it!.” That I would “shred that racetrack, drive like a bat-of-of hell, and win!” If God has gifted me with any two things in this life it would be audacity—and conviction. Which, if you think about it is horrifying. There is no balance because sadly, I was getting a second helping of pie when common sense and humility were being passed out.

You see, I believe in the alchemy of osmosis. That the very act of living with, and sleeping next to my husband, the motorcycle and car, track-day speed demon, would make me fearless…and faaaaaaast. After fifteen years SOMETHING cool has to rub off, right? (I’m still waiting for the French accent.)

But I was missing the most important ingredient. SKILL.

Maybe you’re like me and you have no idea how this shit happens. Here’s how a track day works:
They vomit three day’s worth of facts, rules, statistics, and blah, blah, blah at you before you’ve had your coffee. It isn’t civil. After about thirty minutes, they see your eyes glaze over and they’ve bored themselves to the point where they announce, “fuck it, let’s go drive!”, and proceed to lead you to a fleet of very expensive, high-performance cars.

Then they start the day with an exercise. An ice breaker to get you acquainted with the power of the vehicle at your disposal.

Imagine this being yelled at you by an auctioneer.

“Getinyourcars! Adjust the seat and mirrors,go to the line,push the gas pedal TOTHEFLOOR! get the car up to 60 mph in like five seconds (not 58 mph, not 63 mph!), when you see the blue cones slam the brakes TOTHEFLOOR! You have an obstacle right in front of you,(an imaginary gas truck), control the skid while turning the vehicle to the left to avoid becoming a charcoal briquette, then steer immediately to your right to get back into your lane and come back! Go!Go!Go!Go!”

As Raphael and I  ran to our car I started to shake. Violently. “I have NO idea what he wants us to do!” I shrieked. The guttural sounds of four-hundred horses X6 being held back drown out our voices. It was deafening. FUCK! I needed more classroom time! I have questions! “Just watch what I do” he yelled as we hurriedly buckled in. Luckily, that was going to be unavoidable.

What I learned about myself:
1. You need to say “Pay attention to this, it’s going to be on the test, come in handy, save your life later” when you’re disseminating information to me. I like to be informed and clear on what exactly I’m supposed to do—before I’m expected to do it. Also, I like a little foreplay before the main event. I like training wheels and water wings before I venture into the deep end. Huh. Go figure.

2. I’m always the calm one in a crisis. Not here. Turns out I shake violently when in a high adrenaline situation. Or flooded with survival hormones. That does not bode well for deftly steering yourself around a pretend fiery hazard.

3. Eventually, I needed my own car. I wasn’t enjoying the passenger part. It was literally making me sick.

Next was the Skid Pad which is exactly like it sounds. They wet the pavement and you go in a circle, pushing the gas to the floor, causing the car to spin like a bad-ass ice-skater, (all the people who grew up driving on ice did extremely well). Then using some skill you were supposed to have picked up (I was busy getting a muffin), you steer yourself out of an “uncontrolled skid” which is just another way of saying a squealing hot-mess of spinning metal and smoking tires. Basically, you’re drifting (car term). To me, it felt like I spent an hour in a high-speed blender.

What I learned about myself:
3. Even though I took a pill for it, I get queasy when you spin me in circles at a high rate of speed.

4. Because it was so hard, it was a rush watching other people do it well.

5. Even though I grew up in So Cal—I didn’t suck.

This next exercise I LOVED. It is called Auto-Cross and basically, it’s a course of cones consisting of straightaways where you accelerate as fast as you can and then attempt corkscrew and hairpin turns all done at high speed—without knocking over any cones. It is unbelievably fast and furious. And it is timed. A best personal time…and a team time. The pro time was 22 seconds. Seconds! Gulp.

What I learned about myself:
6. Once I calm down and realize the stakes are…nonexistent, I have fun.

7. When I’m on a team— I am competitive as fuck.

8. I really DO like to go fast.

Then, when you’re as dizzy as a drunken sailor they feed you lunch. Lunch is where you confer with the others to figure out just how bad you’re actually doing as opposed to how bad you think you’re doing. I also was curious to see if Raph was off sitting with the cool kids. Had I brought shame to the family? Or had I done well enough to sit next to him—to make him proud. (I was happy to see that he had saved me the seat next to him.)

9. I learned that where racing is concerned (and probably a thousand other things I never think about), I want to make him proud. (Head slap).

After the food and all of our new-found knowledge had settled, they led us onto the world-famous Laguna Seca racetrack and that is where I have to say, I learned the most.

Follow the lines. There are cones placed at various places along the track that you are supposed to focus and aim for. It helps you to place your turns and to use the entire track. It hastens the sense of flow.

Speaking of flow, there is no chance in hell of over thinking while you race. None. Everything happens too fast to think about it. I found myself driving with some kind of weird supernatural, mindless-instinct. 

Use the whole track. In my newbie-ness, I was tempted to drive in a straight line or hug the edges. Using the entire track felt FAST. But after I got the hang of it—also really skillful and empowering.

Don’t forget to breathe. I had to be reminded. Constantly. By my husband. Who likes me to be conscious while I race expensive, fast cars.

Follow the instructor’s lines. VERY important to learn the track behind an expert. I suck at follow-the-leader. I hate it. Until I wanted to survive more than I wanted to blaze my own trail—then I learned to love it.

Focus. Focus. Focus. It is exhausting. But just like in life, a lazy, distracted mind can lead you into the weeds.

Look way ahead to where you want to go. Not to what is directly in front of you. If that’s where you focus—that’s where the car will go. Even if that means you’re looking out the side window—in the middle of a sharp turn—at high speed. Look where you’re headed. Not out in front. Counterintuitive, I know. But when you’re spinning on ice that’s what controls the skid. That’s what gets you around the fiery obstacle.

So now you’re thinking this is where she ties spirituality in with all of this racing stuff  and you’re right. I truly believe these exact same skills are the ones I’ve had to remember—and utilize—to get myself through this crazy life. How about you?

Carry on,
xox

Since I wrote this piece last year, a book by the same name has come out. How about that? An entire book filled with stories about this crazy, enigmatic, whimsical guy who lives life strictly on his own terms.

“The legend, in case you haven’t heard it before, usually goes something like this: “My [brother/buddy/cousin] was in [Chicago/New York/Los Angeles] a couple of years ago, just walking around, when all of a sudden some guy runs up from behind him and [gives him a bear hug/puts his hands over his eyes/puts him in a headlock and gives him a noogie]. So he spins around and it’s freaking Bill Murray, man. Bill Murray! From Ghostbusters, man! No, no—the tall one. You know, he was in Caddyshack? Anyway, Murray looks at my [brother/buddy/cousin] right in the eye, and says, ‘No one will ever believe you.’ And then he just walks away! How nuts is that, dude?!”
~GQ Magazine

https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Bill-Murray-Real-Life-Enlightenment/dp/0812998707

“I live a little bit on the seat of my pants, I try to be alert and available. I try to be available for life to happen to me. We’re in this life, and if you’re not available, the sort of ordinary time goes past and you didn’t live it. But if you’re available, life gets huge. You’re really living it.”
Bill Murray to Charlie Rose, 2014]

I heard once that when we die the first question we ask when we get to the other side is: How did I do?

Can you imagine? How did I do?

Not, “where’s the big guy or which way is the the buffet?”  We ask, How did I do?

So, if that is indeed the case, what do you want to hear back?

“You did okay. You played it a little safe, though.”

“You forgot to have fun!”

“Better luck next time.”

Or the worst one of all: “You completely missed the point.”

Wouldn’t that just suck?

Sooooooo…..

Let’s let life get huge.

Let’s add value and leave a wake of shattered rules behind us.

Let’s all let our light shine bright, replacing our earthly halo’s with the real deal.

Why not? Isn’t that the point?

Carry on,
xox

That one hit’s home…doesn’t it?

When I think of all the hours, days, weeks and years I’ve wasted “overthinking” things. It makes me want to scream…and eat every Kit Kat bar I can find. And I’m not even that bad. I’m SOOOO much better than I used to be. I know a few people who have reached professional status as far as “overthinking” goes.

I think things turned around for me when I stopped giving all those fucks.

So, I guess that’s my advice. Chill. Have a cocktail. Eat a carbohydrate. Leave things up to a greater power than yourself, one that has an overview of your life and may just give you a clue IF it can wedge a thought in that crowded head of yours edgewise.

And stop giving so many fucks.

Carry on,
xox

I have a tribe. A writing tribe of women.
Mel is a part of that tribe.

Mel writes in a way that her words paint pictures inside your imagination.
Mel’s writing transports you to the very place she intends to take you.
And while you’re there…she steals your heart.
She does it to me every fucking time.

My editor says I make her snort laugh coffee out her nose.
Mel made her editor cry.
She wins. Because everyone knows editors have their tear ducts removed. They never cry.

Her editor at Elephant Journal also told her “This is, hands down, one of my favorite elephant articles to date.”

Well…That…a compliment…That is an occurrence so rare it’s up there with editor tears and portraits of Jesus on burnt pieces of toast.

Now that I’ve thoroughly embarrassed her with all the gushing I’ll let you see for yourself. I’m posting the link only so you will go over and tweet and comment.

Ladies and gentleman, my friend, Mel Maure:

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/10/stop-ignoring-these-connections-they-can-turn-your-day-or-life-around/

*Melanie Maure is a forest-dwelling kind of gal who splits her time between writing and private practice as a psychotherapist and she teaches a little yoga on the side. One of the strongest influences on her writing is the twenty years experience she possesses helping people navigate PTSD, injuries and the effects of physical, mental and emotional trauma.

As a woman, therapist and writer Melanie believes humor is a key ingredient for recovery and growth, and her writing often reflects this belief. She is currently in the third round of revisions on her debut novel, which recently received agency representation with RO Literary. Mel did an extremely awkward happy dance on that day.

Melanie lives works and plays in Peachland, British Columbia with her husband Jason and her fur-child Slim Jim.

Melanie can be found in the woods or at these more convenient locations: email, Instagram, Facebook.

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

There once was a man, running for the highest elected office in the land, who considered himself to be perfect in every way.

We can all agree, that’s absurd, right?

I mean a certain amount of self-esteem is terrific, don’t get me wrong. But I also think it’s a helpful practice to be somewhat self-aware. To know your strengths and your weaknesses. That way you can surround yourself with people who compliment you.

Folks who are great at ALL the things that you suck at—and vice-versa.
So, that got me to thinking…here’s the short list of what I totally suck at:

1. Sports. I am athletically challenged. I do, however, have amazing eye-hand coordination that I have yet to capitalize on.

2. Staying on my side of the bed at night. I possess an unconscious desire to spread out. My husband’s nickname for me is starfish.

3. Backing up. In the car. I had a series of unfortunate metal-on-metal incidents while in reverse a few years back and so now I suffer from a form of Reverse PTSD.

4. Returning phone calls. I’m the worst. I remind myself so often to call someone back that after a while I mistakenly think I already have. That’s crazy, I know.

5. Wearing shoes. I have a passion for shoes and I own way too many pairs. Especially for someone who spends 99.9% of her time barefoot. I have driven all the way to the gym or worse yet, up the mountain to my hike only to discover once I’m there that I’m barefoot!

6. Making a soft-boiled (runny) egg. I am the world’s leading over-cooker of eggs. Sorry. Can’t do it. The end.

7. Reading. I know that doesn’t make sense. I read a lot. But a book has to really catch me by the end of the first page or I’ll put to down—and forget about it. I currently have, no lie, seven or eight partially read books lying around the house. Shame on me.

8. Making a decent vinaigrette. My husbands are to die for. Mine? Meh. It always tastes how I imagine motor oil does. Motor oil with a splash of lemon and too much pepper.

9. Sneezing quietly. You know those people who can silence their sneeze? I am not one of them. Mine is so loud—like a gunshot. I can’t help it. They sneak up on me and startle those around me. They can actually scare my husband to the point anger.

10. Tolerating lying. I simply cannot. I can smell a lie. I should work for the FBI. So… this Presidential campaign?  You cannot even imagine how many times my head has spun around in the eighteen months since this madness started.

11. I know I said ten but I suck at spelling and it needs to be mentioned. I used to excel at it. I won spelling contests in grade school. I used to correct other people’s spelling mistakes for shit’s sake! Now, I absolutely SUCK at it! I misspell my own name. I blame technology. Spellcheck. Auto correct. And laziness.

12. I suck at gambling and dancing and I don’t follow directions either. so…twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

Care to share a few of yours?

Carry on,
xox

Okay…these are good!

“When are you going to start a family?”
Really? The ink wasn’t even dry on the marriage license, I still had rice in my hair, for cryin’ out loud.

How the hell did I know? I was barely twenty, my husband twenty-three. WE were the babies in the room.

It’s the rare individual who is introspective enough to ask themselves at a young age: What kind of life do I see for myself? Do I want to be a parent? Will I have children?

Some people just KNOW. The rest of us? We go along with the proverbial flow.
We date, fall in love, have the wedding, the picket fence and….screech! (sound of a needle being dragged across a record) hey! Not so fast!

Your early twenties are a time of impetuous, risk-taking behavior. NOT the picket fence and most definitely not parenthood—at least not for me.

I could back it up with SCIENCE:
There have been recent studies and in fact, research from the National Institutes of Health have shown, the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain associated with inhibition of risky behavior, and decision-making, doesn’t get fully developed until age 25.
Being a late bloomer, I am certain my prefrontal cortex finally matured at around thirty-five, and sadly, it still wasn’t screaming “make a baby!”

What was wrong with me? All my friends were doing it. Even my little sister.
Hello?! Where was my maternal gene?
At the time it felt like it had been replaced by the much more irresponsible (red hair dye, wine drinking, spend every dime on shoes, travel around Europe), happy-go-lucky gene.

It wasn’t a calling for me. I know a calling. I move heaven and earth when something calls me. Motherhood? Meh, not so much. It’s not that I don’t love kids, I do. Just never enough to make any of my own.

There was also the fact that the stars just never aligned.
It didn’t occur to me to start a family when I was married, it always felt like a decision for another day; and when it finally did cross my mind I was epically, tragically, single. Not a man in sight, let alone “father material.” By the time I married my second husband, as fate would have it, my eggs were all dried up.

Sooooo, I gave single motherhood some serious thought, only to be discouraged by a very wise, older woman friend, a “crone” who asked me, “the maiden”, why I wanted to have a child?
I stammered on for a good five minutes, never coming up with anything better than
“Everyone else is doing it.”

“It is the MOST important job, being a mama. Come talk to me when you have a better reason.”

Unfortunately, this maiden could never come up with one.

“To make the decision to have a child – is momentous.
It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body”
~Elizabeth Stone

By my mid-thirties, when I answered “no” to the kid inquiry, a sad, concerned look would wash over women’s faces; until I assured them that I was biologically able—but not interested in doing so. Well…

UNLEASH THE KRAKEN! 

Many women got angry, really, really angry. Especially at baby showers. And in my thirties, there was a baby shower EVERY weekend. You know the ones where you bring your babies? THOSE were the worst.
There was even some name calling.

Selfish.
I’ve been called that many times in my life.
It’s code for: why aren’t you doing what I’m doing?
It has been hurled my way in anger, hitting me like a dagger in the back.
It has happened so many times, I have a large callous there—these days the dagger just bounces off.

Is it selfish not to have children? Probably. Can selfish be a good thing? Yes, yes it can.

Call it what you want. I just knew I wasn’t wired for that level of self-sacrifice, and my unborn children are better off because of that.

Up until then, my life had not been premeditated in any way. It had all happened like a series of accidental decisions if there’s such a thing. Eventually, I recognized that I had actually made a conscious choice. I had decided “my supreme and risky fate”.

I didn’t need to hide in a cave or skulk away ashamed with my decision. Then, and only then, did the name calling stop.
Isn’t that always the way?

Now I’m over fifty, and the question is: How many grandchildren do you have?

What I know for sure is this: I’m so incredibly grateful to be born at a time in history when we’re not put in stockades in the town square, with villagers throwing eggs at our childless faces.
We decided it wasn’t for us…and that’s okay.

Luckily, times have changed since I was young and women are so much more accepting and supportive of different life choices. These days I feel anything but ostracized, some woman actually applaud my decision.

Childless women.
As Liz Gilbert and Oprah mentioned about on Sunday, we get to be the spectacular aunties.
Mama’s need the aunties.
We play a very important supporting role, we get to teach the children selfishness—which is thankfully something most mamas know NOTHING about.

Tell me about you. I’d love to hear YOUR story. Did you decide not to have children?

much love,
xox