relationships

From the Archives:
This is making the rounds on social media and I adore it! So, of course, I had to share it just in case you haven’t seen it yet.
Big candy cane kisses,
xox

There are some compromises we make in a marriage that keep the wheels from gumming up and sticking. 
I turn a blind eye to the dirty dishes that sit overnight, while he helps me make the bed every day.

I have a thing about making the bed. I suppose you could say I’m anal about it. What can I say? I like to get into a freshly made bed every night. I even make the bed in hotel rooms. It stems from my childhood as an obedient, little Catholic saint-in-training, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I know, I know! It’s a habit, but I don’t think it’s one that warrants an apology.

His aversion to a “made” bed is the result of spending his formative years in boarding school, under the Draconian rule of a bunch of Jesuit’s who had nothing better to do than to teach boys how to fold corners of sheets with military precision.

By the time he left, at fifteen, he swore he’d never make another bed. He seriously couldn’t care less if he climbs into a tangle of crumpled blankets and sheets. (Just writing that makes me squirm.)

Then he met me. The bed making nazi.

I’m sensing a pattern here. Something to do with religion and rules and something-or-other.
Never mind…

I also put my dirty dishes directly into the dishwasher when I’m finished with a meal.
Not him. He piles them on the side of the sink and leaves them for the morning. He likes to wash and load while the coffee is brewing.

The thought of waking up to dirty dishes gives me hives.
I tell him that while I try to sneak them into the dishwasher every night. It’s like a dance. By the dim light over the stove (I don’t alert him to the fact by turning on the lights) I soap up the sponge and start to wash. He sneaks up behind me, grabs my soapy hands while suds fly around all willy-nilly, and insists, “I’ll do them in the morning.”
Then we kiss. Like you do at the end of a lovely waltz.
As I eyeball the pots and pans on my way to bed, all I can think is “Just kill me now.”

I know he feels obligated to help me make the bed because he tells me so. “It’s my bed too,” he says while he fluffs and karate chops each of the decorative pillows (there are six) just like I taught him to do when we first met. 

Recently, after almost seventeen years together, I’ve decide that Sunday can be free-the-bed day. It takes every ounce of willpower I possess, but it remains purposely disheveled, frozen at the exact moment we got out of it…for the entire day. 

Once he noticed, he declared, “I love it!”

“It looks inviting, doesn’t it?” He said, grinning broadly as he flopped down backward onto the sheets. The white sheets which that day had fresh, muddy paw-print polka dots all over them. Ruby was grinning too. Like a muddy fool. It didn’t take a pet psychic to tell me that she freakin’ loved free-the-bed day too!

I know when to admit defeat. 

There are some compromises we make in a marriage that keep the wheels from gumming up and sticking. If you can’t eventually, after almost two decades together, remove the stick that’s been stuck up your ass and go-with-the-flow, then I suggest a giant vat of WD-40 for the gummy wheeels—and sheets the color of mud. 

Carry on,
xox

Since we’re all just making this up as we go along, I have a question for ya, because I haven’t been able to figure this one out for myself. What is the deal with women and pain? And do we tolerate more than we should? 

I suppose we can include men in this too. I mean I heard a man, a doctor of psychology, talking today about men tolerating discomfort. He cited having to pee really bad at a movie and not getting up until the “urge” had turned to an “imperative”. If you asked that same man (preferably after he relieved himself) what the movie was about, he’d have a hard time telling you. His discomfort took him out so of the moment it actually disrupted his quality of life.

Gotta go potty – 1
Quality of life – 0

Which brings me back to real suffering…and women. Why are we willing to sacrifice our quality of life even for one minute let alone several months or even years? Maybe it stems from the fact that we are genetically wired to push something the size of a bowling ball out of a hole fit for a marble without a complaint?

I don’t know. What do you think?

I had a friend in high school who suffered excruciating pain during her periods. The cramps were so debilitating she had to plan her activities so they wouldn’t fall close to “that time of the month.” When I told her that wasn’t “normal” and asked if she’d seen a doctor she replied, “Oh, gosh, no. I just figured every woman suffers like this.”
Uh, no. No, we don’t.

Cramps – 1
Quality of life – 0

What about men who cheat and the women who love them?

It seems improbable that any woman in her right mind would stay with a man who cheats and yet history and my contact list are FULL of them! And these are not stupid women. On the contrary, some of the smartest, funniest, most accomplished women out there have had their marriages hacked by the nanny.

And it doesn’t happen just once. Some men are serial cheaters.
And these amazing women look the other way. They settle.

I can understand the rationalization—because I’ve heard it all.
It can be a financial thing. Or a little kid thing. It can even be an “I’m just not ready to leave yet,” thing. Still, if you dig below the surface, just past the cave where the soccer team and their coach were trapped, you know, thousands of feet deep where all of the feelings have been buried. There, in the pitch-blackness, lies an endless stream of tears and rage. Along with a reverberating chorus of bats singing “Why aren’t I enough?”

Infidelity – 1
Quality of life – 0

Every one of these examples speaks to me. What about you?

I’ve had to pee so bad I’ve used a bush on the side of the road because I didn’t speak up when there was a perfectly good bathroom an hour earlier. I toughed it out. I guess I’m so familiar with discomfort, it barely registers…until it’s almost too late.

Same with my lady parts. I had a fibroid, okay make that eleven, that gave me a uterus the size of a sixteen-week pregnancy. It crept up on me slowly, over a decade, but come on!  There was bleeding and pain and there may have even been waddling and some incontinence when I laughed (which means I basically peed a little ALL THE TIME). Why was it okay to tolerate that? 

I have no idea. Like I said, I’m familiar with discomfort. 

I too had a boyfriend who cheated on me. I loved him something awful (which should have been an omen). And I can totally relate to the Why aren’t I good enough for you? syndrome. I was so distraught I thought it was somehow my fault which he LOVED because that meant he was completely and totally off the hook. I did research to fix us. I read every book on relationships and what goes wrong. I laughed at all of his jokes, cooked more of his favorite foods, and waxed off all my pubes.

But we all know that wasn’t the answer. So what is?

I know of two times he strayed and I forgave his lying ass, but I soon found out that was just the tip of the iceberg (the iceberg I wanted to tie around his scrotum to give him a tiny popsicle dick).
But I’m not bitter.  

So…please explain this to me. Why is it okay to settle for less and tolerate pain?

But first, go make yourself a sandwich, and buckle up. I have a feeling we’re in for a long, bumpy conversation.

Carry on,
xox

Once upon a time, there lived a couple. A man and a woman of middle age (if the average lifespan is 120) who’d been together for close to two decades.

Now, truth be told they were generally delightful, sharing many things in common such as their love of dogs and their wiggle butts, foreign travel, and food.

But alas, they also had their differences.

Besides politics—she was a life-long bleeding-heart liberal and well, his heart, although reduced to mush by babies, sappy songs, and car commercials had never shed any blood (politically speaking) so besides that, driving together had begun to come between them.

In all fairness, the man’s job required him to traverse the city of freeways numerous times a day. Frustrated, he operated one notch below full-blown road rage as he shared the streets of LA with the other clueless, dumb-shits, commuters.

She, on the other hand, drove very little; and when she did, a book on tape, podcast or favorite music mix would delight her, making her commute through LA almost…bearable.

When they rode together to dinner, the movies or to see friends all the way in San Diego, great caruments (car arguments) would ensue. There was yelling, tears and bad language and it all started to impede on their compatibility.

The women, feeling more and more like a Crash Test Dummy, may have used the words aggressive and dangerous when describing his driving, He preferred the words assertive and tactical.

When he drove, cars seemed to jump out of nowhere, threatening the poor sucker in the passenger seat (the woman), at an alarming rate. He was oblivious. It was his super power. And as such, he started to find her constant criticism more than mildly annoying. She found herself blaming him for her high anxiety and lack of fingernails.

All of this to say: When they drove together he was an assbite and she was fast becoming a wingnut.

On one such occasion, just the other night, the situation reached critical mass.

Winding their way home through the canyon after a delicious steak dinner and wine with friends, the woman noticed that he was driving uncharacteristically slow. Like pace car slow. Like “rush hour” slow. Like Asian tourist slow.

Curious as to the cause of this anomaly and sensitive to the fact that her nagging caused him to get defensive which never ended well, she delicately broached the subject.

“You’re drunk aren’t you?” she asked. “Otherwise why would you be driving like an old lady?”

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t adjust his speed or move his head. He just stared straight ahead, following the curves in the road at a glacial pace.

He must not have heard her she surmised, so she asked again, only this time louder.

“Is there a problem? Are you drunk? Why are you driving so damn slow?”

Undaunted, he stared straight into the night.

“Hey!”

“I hear you,” he finally replied never taking his eyes off the road. “I’m ignoring you.”

“Why?” She barely got the word out before he continued.

“You’re not happy when I drive fast and you complain when I drive slow,” he replied in an uncharacteristically non-defensive voice. “Besides, I’m a drunk old lady so I can only do one thing at a time.”

His response caught her so off guard that a giant force built inside her until her body could no longer contain it and out it burst. Giant guffaws of laughter filled the car. It must have been contagious because his face broke into a Cheshire grin and slowly he started to laugh too. For ten minutes straight, they laughed and they laughed and before they knew it—they were home.
Where they continue to live happily ever after (unless they discuss Hillary, health care, or how to get anywhere fast on the 405.)

Carry on,
xox

“A unique astrological energy fills this summer that you may well be feeling! On one hand, FIVE planets are retrograde in the heavens, bringing back old, sometimes ignored issues from the past to be reviewed, faced and cleaned up once and for all before a big, new cycle starts in autumn.” (This makes me want to vomit.)

For many years after my first divorce, more than I care to remember, I lived without air conditioning in LA. Many a hot summer was spent in that no-mans-land, north on the 405, otherwise known as the San Fernando Valley. 

Spoiled rotten after being raised in a home with central air, I roughed it in my twenties and thirties, too broke to afford a place with air-conditioning.  Many a night I braved the triple-digit heat naked on the floor in front of a fan, spraying myself with ice water. And I swore that when I had a few bucks I’d NEVER LIVE WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING AGAIN!

Cut to: Friday of last week. Extreme heat advisories were issued as the temps set new record highs—rising to 113 degrees. I watched from the comfort of my air-conditioned home as the heat scorched all of my hydrangeas, caused the squirrels to loiter in my fountains, and shocked several of our trees into dropping all their leaves. 

Sitting in the cool, dry fabulousness of my home, I felt real compassion for all the suffering this extreme heat was causing. Been there, done that, I thought as I sipped a freshly brewed ice tea. Then, a few minutes later, I felt the tiny droplets of sweat form on my upper lip.

 Huh, that’s curious, I thought. With great haste, I made my way to the thermostat to see where it was set. You see, sometimes, when I’m feeling energy conscious, I set the thermostat to the recommended 78 degrees. But that happens so infrequently that I feel like I’m fibbing to you when I tell you that there was even the slightest chance that it was set at 78. 

Can we speak frankly? 

I’m fucking sixty years old. And I only mention that because I’ve been burnt alive from the inside out for the past decade or so. I guess you could say I “run hot”. But that’s a colossal understatement. That’s like saying volcanos “run hot”. Truthfully, I’m being burnt alive from the inside out! Luckily I have it under control. That is until it gets over 100 degrees. Then my body turns into a series of rolling wildfires. 

When that happens I’m not nice. I get short with people my husband. My tongue gets sharp like I ate glass for lunch.

And I most certainly CANNOT be anywhere that isn’t 72 degrees. So that was just the long way of telling you that our thermostat was set to 72 degrees. Do NOT get in my face about this! Trust me, it’s a preemptive measure because if I overheat I can do great damage. Seriously, you could weaponize me. 

So you can imagine my horror when I checked the thermostat and it was going in the wrong direction!

It was 79 degrees! 

I checked the vents. They were blowing tepid air in my face. 

WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD?!

I collected myself and calmly phoned my husband.
“I think the air conditioning is broken,” I chirped.

I know, that he knows, that if I know it’s not working we’re all fucked—so I pretend I’m not sure—when I am—sure that we’re all fucked. 

“I’ll call my guy,” he said. Then he hung up.

His guy. He has a guy—and he’s gonna call him. He’s gonna call his guy. I felt reassured. 

Cut to: Saturday afternoon. In an 87 degree room in our house. 

    “FUCKING FIX IT!” I screamed. 

And when I say screamed I’m not engaging in hyperbole. I was screaming. At the top of my lungs. 
What can I say? My inner heat index had reached DefCon 5 and I was about to blow. 
There was no reasoning with me, believe me, the sane part of me was trying. 
I watched our little brown dog run for cover, terrified.  We don’t scream in our house, well…ever. 

“FUCKING FIX IT NOW!” I continued to scream as if my husband possessed the superpower to shoot frost out his ass.

“I have a call out to all my guys; they’re swamped. Everybody’s air is breaking.”

Not everybody. All I had to do was stand next to one of the windows we had flung open searching for a breeze. But there was no breeze to be found. You saw that coming, didn’t you? Anyway, they were letting the hot breath of Hell superheat our house while I could hear a thousand of our neighbors cooling units happily humming a chorus of You Can’t Always Get What You Want.

SOMEONE NEEDED TO DIE FOR THIS. I was fully weaponized. God forbid a technician shows up now. 

“I swore I would NEVER live without air again!” I said.

“I know. You’ve screamed that at me a thousand times,” he said.

“Why aren’t you doing something? Aren’t you hot? Why are you fucking with your computer!!!” I screamed.

“I’m putting you in a hotel,” he said.

That’s when the technician showed up. As a favor to my husband. He’d made the time to squeeze us into his impossibly overbooked schedule. Because he likes my husband and they do a lot of work together.

I thanked him profusely, offered him a cold glass of lemonade and watched hopefully as he fixed our air conditioning. 

Nah. That’s not what happened. 

I annihilated him. I didn’t even let him descend the ladder before I laid into him. Remember, I was fully weaponized.

          “What do you mean it’s broken BECAUSE IT’S HOT! THAT’S WHAT IT WAS MADE FOR!  IT HAS ONE JOB! 

            WORK. IN. HOT. WEATHER!”

Then I caught myself and apologized with all my heart.

Nope. That didn’t happen either.

The guy came down the ladder—and quit. 

So here I sit on Tuesday, day five of a brutal heat wave with a crapped-out air conditioner. 

I LOVE a five-planet retrograde. And I really think I’m clearing out some of my old issues from my past, don’t you?

Carry on,
xox

I don’t know about you guys but I have a pretty good relationship with my “inner boss” (some call it their Guardian Angel, mine is way to bossy to have wings).

I know this because she has kept me out of trouble for most of my life. Guiding me toward what makes sense, and away from my most idiotic tendencies. That is when I listen to her.

What I often forget to factor into my daily discourse with all of the idiots (I say that with love) around me, is that THEY also have an inner boss who is guiding them away from idiocy. 

But can we trust that? 

Can I trust that the guy driving sixty-miles-an-hour next to me on the 101 and TEXTING is going to put down his phone long enough to hear his “boss” try to convince him that the fight—texting with Debra is a really bad idea?

I heard a woman talking the other day about her twelve-year-old son wanting desperately to walk on their frozen pond. It was early March and she wasn’t convinced the ice was still thick enough to support him. 

In other words, FUCK NO!

Just to back up her concerns she told him all the “falling through thin ice” stories she could think of. Especially the ones that didn’t end well. She even showed him the videos on YouTube. By the end of her lecture, he was yawning and SHE was the one who was hyperventilating and needed a cocktail.

She was so worried that he’d disobey her warning that she forbid him to go outside at all.

Seeing that it was the first nice day they’d had in months, he pitched a hissy fit and she felt like Cruella D’Ville. Even the dog showed his disapproval by pooping in their downstairs bathtub. 

Maybe we should all just wrap ourselves in bubble wrap, live in a hermetically sealed room, and call it a life, right? I mean at some point we have to trust that those we love (and even those we don’t) have their own inner boss who will keep them out of danger. Ewwwww, that’s a haaaard one!

I’m practicing this in real-time with my own husband—who is a twelve-year-old boy in a man suit. 

He wants to go on his annual motorcycle ride up in Northern Cal barely two weeks after getting out of ICU due to a nasty interaction between his motorcycle AND THE GROUND. All the doctors advise against it. They warn him that the margin of error is, well, zero. If he falls again, it will be bad. 

Like, fall through thin ice bad. 

But I’m not his mom. I can’t forbid him to go.  I have to trust that his inner boss will take the wheel. That he will realize the idiocy of taking a chance like that—and make the “right” decision.

He asked for my opinion and I gave it: Go on the trip, just drive a car.

“That’s what my better angels were telling me to do!” he admitted. 

Whew! I guess that “trusting” shit really does work sometimes! With sixty-five-year-old men.
Mother’s—I still wouldn’t let my kid walk on the frozen pond.

What do you think?

Carry on,
xox

I have a question for ya. What is your exit strategy? In other words, how do you plan to depart this big, blue marble? I’m not so concerned with what comes after the dying thing it’s just the way I have to get there that makes me anxious when I think about it—and unfortunately, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

I know, Debbie Doom.

But hey, none of us can escape it—we can neither buy our way out, bribe our way out, talk, bargain or cajole our way out of the inevitable.

Death is an equal opportunity sniper on a hill.

It’s just the way this game is played. So…knowing that, have you thought at all about your exit? I read about a man who did.

Thursday, a 104-year-old Australian man chose to die in Switzerland from assisted suicide. He was neither terminally ill (which is the condition required for most legal assisted suicide) nor was he mentally impaired.  

He was just so fucking old that his quality of life had diminished significantly enough to cause him to make what we can all agree is a pretty drastic and permanent decision. Or is it?

Even his family was on board. As a matter of fact, he was accompanied by his grandson… to Switzerland, silly, not the great beyond!

Do you want to live so long that you outlive everyone you’ve ever known and loved? I for one, think that would suck.

The reason I’m asking is that my husband was in a motorcycle crash earlier this week and although he had to spend a couple of days in the hospital, he’s going to be fine. But it made me think about all the ways to die and how  there is a part of me that every time he goes racing or off-roading waits for “the call”.  

If you were to ask me on any given day over a beer and a taco, I would tell you that dying on his bike would be the way he’d want to go. But it would have to be quick. No severe injury that would force me to make the decisions no spouse ever wants to make. A friend of his in his eighties had a heart attack on his bike, so, maybe like that.

Right? Quick and nasty. Here one minute, gone the next. He would like that. 

But when I got “the call” which was actually a text, “I had a bad fall, I’m in a lot of pain, they’re taking me to the hospital,” well, all of that flew out the window. 

No, no, no, no, no! I bargained. You MAY NOT take him now! He’s too young to go, I’m too young to be a widow and besides that, we have tickets to a thing in June!

I’m here to report that I’m a fraud and a phony where the “just let him die fast” shit is concerned. Every molecule in my body was just so fucking happy he was still alive. 

But what am I waiting for? When will it ever be okay?

Do you want to die of a disease? Yeah, me neither. 

So what does that leave?

I know I don’t want to choke on salad. What a fucking waste of a last meal!

I know I don’t want to survive a zombie attack only to be forced to live in a post-apocalyptic society. Attention all Zombies: If you’re reading this—just take me in the first wave, I’ll be the one waving the white flag. (That’s a lie too. I know me. I’ll probably lead the resistance, storm the zombie perimeter with a fire gun and make it to the freezer where they keep the antidote).

I know I don’t want to die sitting in traffic on the 405 because ALREADY KNOW HOW THAT FEELS!

I’ve already said I don’t want to out-live every one I know but I also don’t want to die on a really good hair day doing something fun with my friends.

So…licked to death by puppies?

I may need to give this a little more thought…or not.

Carry on,
xox

I didn’t expect to be beguiled. After all, it was barely 10 AM on a hectic Saturday morning filled with errands, but how could I ignore it?

He had to be almost forty. Lean and tan with the legs of a cyclist showing off under a pair of baggie, beige khakis. The flip-flops and Ray Ban’s attempted to shave a decade off that number but with more salt than pepper in his purposely disheveled bedhead…yeah, I’d have to say he was close to forty.

She was eleven.

I know this because I LOVE eleven-year-old girls! They are one of my favorite things on the planet—and she told me. But that came later.

They walked into the bustling nail salon holding hands, both wearing grins like of a pair of Cheshire cats as they finished a giggle that I presume had started in the car. They tried to put an end to it prematurely like you do an ice cream cone in an establishment that doesn’t allow food, but just like it does, the giggle melted and ran between her fingers as she attempted to stifle it with her hand.

Joy doesn’t often enter a building using the front door. It’s like…an anomaly.

Every head turned and we all stared because well—joy had replaced all of the oxygen.

“Can she get a mani-pedi?” He asked like a pro, his hand resting gently on top of her head.

“Sure, have her pick a color,” one of the women closest to the door replied.

Everyone else went back to their respective daydreams. Me? I was enchanted.

As the manicurist ran the water for her pedicure, our little eleven-year-old skip/bounced over to the wall where hundreds of bottles of polish are displayed. I watched her eyes scan all of the various colors like I used to discerningly pick from my giant box of Crayola crayons (the one with the built-in sharpener in the back).

He stood behind her, absentmindedly playing with her long brown hair as she showed him the colors under consideration, weighing in on each one.

“I don’t like that pink as much as the first one,” he said, and “Why don’t you save the neon orange for the summer?” Were a couple of the opinions he offered. He was thoughtful and PRESENT.

Clearly, he adored her.

Once she’d made that huge decision, (and we can all agree right here at the gravity of this right of passage, seeing that the wrong nail color can ruin your life, even if it’s only for a week or until you get home and take it off yourself, wasting $25 and a precious hour of time you can never get back) she plopped into the big chair and made herself comfortable.

I watched him adjust the seat for her, moving it forward so her skinny little legs could reach the roiling blue water of the built-in foot soaking tub.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, feeling secure that the twenty or so women in the joint would look after his little girl. “I’m going right next door to CVS.” We all shook our collective heads, silently agreeing that it was okay to leave her, but only for a little while. She grabbed onto his fingers as his hand brushed her cheek. “Are we sure about the blue?” she asked him. She seemed to want him to stay longer.

He nodded and walked slowly toward the door, her eyes following his every step. “Daddy!” she yelled above the steady buzz of nail salon gossip, he swung around, “Bring me something?” They both made a fist bump followed by a high five kind of special hand gesture.

Oh, that’s where it starts, I thought.

Fifteen minutes later he returned with a bag of stuff out of which he pulled an Abba Zabba. And even though I thought it impossible—this old-school choice of treat endeared him to me even more.

I fucking LOVE Abba Zabbas.
And Eleven-year-old girls with their dads.
I love blue toenails.
And mani-pedi joy.
And being unexpectedly beguiled on a Saturday morning.

He came back inside after going out to use his cell phone as I was gathering my stuff to leave. He must have called his wife to ask her how much to tip because I saw him fold up a few bills and tuck them into the pocket of his daughter’s jean jacket.

“How old are you?” I asked as I walked by. “I’m eleven,” she replied cheerfully as she worked on her Abba Zabba. “You guys sure are sweet, “ I said, motioning toward her dad. Her face lit up with a big, nougat and peanut butter grin, “We sure are!” she replied without a self-conscious bone in her body.

Just imagine, I thought, with a father like this, what kind of woman this girl will grow up to become.

That thought and their joy stuck with me all day.

Carry on,
xox

It’s uncanny. The way certain people in your life, even celebrities, can say or do or post just the right thing at the right time. Like they’re living a life parallel to your own. Liz Gilbert does that a lot. We have some kind of cosmic bond that was anchored by a hug way back in San Jose at an Oprah event.

Anyway, I too woke up this morning in a tangle. I’ve been tangled for a while now. Nothing as devastating as losing a partner like Liz, mine has to do with family and dysfunction, obligation, boundaries, and playing the role of the heartless turd, which is a nickname I gave myself last week before they all could.

When my mind is in distress it makes meditation a Herculean task. Like jumping rope without a bra, all my negative thoughts slap me around. I forget about my heart. I don’t know how I can because it hurts so much, but I do. And I know better.

The world seems very raw to me these days. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think so. Perhaps these words from Liz will remind you, as they did with me—to rest in the heart. Doesn’t that sound better than a boob slap?
I Love you, Liz.

Carry on,
xox

Dear Ones:
I woke up this morning with my mind in a tangle, and my emotions in a storm.

I lay there in bed for a long time, wrestling with my thoughts and fighting hard against my feelings. But I was losing ground. No matter how hard I used my powerful THOUGHTS to try to extract myself from my other powerful THOUGHTS, it didn’t work. My THOUGHTS just got darker, and then my THOUGHTS about my THOUGHTS got more panicked and distressed until new and worse THOUGHTS arose, and now we have a tornado, folks.
(This has happened to me before. But only once or twice.)

My mind thought: I NEED MORE THOUGHTS, TO FIX THESE THOUGHTS! THINK HARDER! FIND A SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING! STOP THIS! GET CONTROL! DIFFERENT THOUGHTS! BETTER THOUGHTS!

Then I remembered: I cannot use my mind to help my mind when my mind is in distress.
At these moments, only the heart can help.

So.
My heart stepped in quietly and said to my tired mind: “Come and rest your tangle here with me. I’ll take care of you, just the way you are.”

My mind said, “But, but, BUT —“

My heart said, “Shhh. I’ve got you.”

Then we all rested together — me, mind, heart.

No solving happened this morning.
Solving doesn’t always have to happen. Sometimes it can’t. Sometimes all you need is a safe place to rest.

HEART.

Then I got up and drew this picture, for the next time I forget.
Onward.
LG

Do you believe in energy?
I do.
Do you believe it can gather momentum?
You don’t? Oh, boy, I do!
What about those days when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and before you can say crap sandwich​, you stub your toe, the cat pukes on every flat surface in your apartment, the zipper breaks on your favorite pair of pants and you get a parking ticket in front of Starbucks?

THAT is what I mean by momentum.

Thankfully, not all days are bad and neither is momentum.

Energy is an equal opportunity force that can kick up the volume on positive stuff too. Don’t shake your head like that! What about those mornings when your hair decides to obey all the laws of physics​ and arranges itself on your head in a not-so-shitty way, you find ten bucks in an old pair of jeans, and just when it seems like things can’t get any better—you get a primo parking spot at Trader Joes (which practically takes an act of Congress) in the ten minute window you left yourself to shop.

But I’m no different than anyone else. I forget about momentum. That would mean I have to pay attention to my energy and steer it in the direction that feels better. Fuck, that sounds exhausting!

It’s so much easier to play the victim.
Ouch.

The other day I got a front row seat to some wicked energy momentum and it was so blatantly apparent it stopped me in my tracks. You expect it to be stealthy, sneaky, but sometimes it is so in-your-face you have no choice but to pay attention and try and take control of the wheel before your day or week goes completely off the rails.

Case in point:
STANDING IN THE BATHROOM.

He: I saw on Facebook that my buddy’s business is sponsoring a race car.

Me: You were on Facebook? Are pigs flying?

He: Ha, ha, very funny. I know, I’m anti-social media. Anyway, they’re sponsoring a race car and I never heard anything about it.

Me: Why would you?

He: (aghast) Because! I’m the car and motorcycle guru. I’m their go-to guy for anything with an internal combustion engine.

Me: (Yawn) Right. Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure it was just an oversight.

He: (unintelligible) Grumble, grumble, grumble.

LATER THAT NIGHT…

Me: What’s the matter?

He: Nothing.

REPEAT THAT INTERACTION AT LEAST TEN TIMES.

Me: Okay.

He: I went to see my buddies at their headquarters to ask them about the race car, and when I pulled up I saw my electrician’s truck in the parking lot, and lo and behold his guys were there doing a bunch of electrical work without my knowledge.

Me: Well…Did you ask…?

He: No.

Me: Why not?

He: Because…it was weird.

Me: I know, but I’m sure there was some kind of mistake. A new guy maybe?

He: How could there be? They all know I’m the one who arranges any work that’s done there.

Me: Hmmm…

He: And when I walked into their office they were talking to another pal of ours and they all stopped talking, like I was intruding. It felt weird.

Me: (Thinking ) Then did they all flip their hair, laugh diabolically, and walk off together to homeroom? (Said out loud) Maybe it was just your imagination? What could they be saying that they wouldn’t want you to hear?

He: I don’t know. Nothing. It was just so weird that my electricians were there…

Me: I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.

He: Right…

Me: What about the race car? Did you ask about that?

He: Oh, yeah, it just happened. They were really excited to tell me all about it.

Me: See. It was nothing.

He: Right…

Me: Somebody needs a hug.

He: Somebody needs a bottle of wine!

As he downed his first glassof wine like it was grape juice, I gingerly mentioned the fact that it looked suspiciously like his energy of they left me out of the loop from that morning had gotten a whole lot of momentum and was having its way with his emotions.

I could instantly remember doing the same thing a million times. Can’t you? It hurts. And as obvious as it is that the crappy reality we’re creating in our minds can be changed if we just take the time to see it—sadly, we are always the last to know.

“Think about it,” I said. “Out of the loop is the one thing that all of those situations have in common.” He yeah butted me for a while until he could see it too.

“I’m sure when you talk to your guys tomorrow there will be a perfectly simple explanation that will have nothing to do with being left out.

And as it turns out that’s exactly what happened.
His electrician called him first thing in the morning to ask about the billing (proving that he wasn’t going behind his back) and later that day he found out there was a new guy at the company who wasn’t read-in on the maintenance-chain-of-command.

Nothing was nefarious or personal.
It was all just a bunch of misunderstandings that were feeding on his energy.

Do you believe in energy?
I do.
Do you believe in momentum?
I most certainly do. I’ve seen it in action!

Carry on,
xox

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