writer

I should be ashamed I love these things. But I’m not.

Not really. I suppose I should be because they’re not the usual suspects like spring in Paris, babies and puppies but hey, how boring would that be? We all love those things.

No, these are specific to my twisted brain. What I feel the least bit of a tinge of shame over is the ferocity with which I love these things. It’s the way I love them. The love is mad and runs deep. So, even though I know you weren’t wondering, without further ado, here they are:

1. Grilled cheese sandwiches. And not just any grilled cheese sandwich. It has to be just so. The trick is to use nice, thick bread and then butter and grill both sides. If that much butter bothers you order a salad instead and by-the-way, I don’t think we can be friends.
2. Words. Well, certain words like, pomplemousse, inert, tiddlywinks and hippopotamuses. I like the way they make my mouth feel when I say them.
3. Homemade croutons. Made from stale sourdough or better yet, brioche bread.
4. False eyelashes. (No secret there.)
5. The very rare natural redhead with brown eyes. My niece is one and people literally fall all over themselves staring at her hair. I had blue eyes (still do) when my hair was dyed red—so yeah, I was batting zero for two.
6. Pink champagne. Does this need an explanation? It shouldn’t. It’s magic.
7. Straws in my drinks. No umbrellas and please, no plastic monkeys (okay, just one).
8. Hikes with trees. Like a forest hike, not those dirt trails where there’s no shade and the terrain resembles Death Valley.
9. Science Fiction ANYTHING. Movie, book, TV show, it doesn’t matter.  I repeatedly tell my husband that in my next life I’m coming back as an astronaut/archeologist/deep space explorer. I’m pretty sure that won’t be for a while since I don’t want anything to do with our current space program. I want to be on a ship with gravity. Where I can run around, not need money and replicate whatever my little space exploring heart desires. So, see ya in 3033.
10. The chinese chicken salad at Joan’s on Third. There is only one that is better. My mom’s. Hi mom.
11. Jeans. Don’t you love jeans? I just love that I live in a day and age where pantyhose are no longer required and if they’re not faded and you wear them with a black jacket and nice shoes, you can get away with jeans almost anywhere. Except maybe a funeral. Wear a black dress or real pants to a funeral. Show some respect.
12. The chocolate pie my friend Ginger made for my birthday. ( Are you sensing my love affair with food?) She made two and we had a least one piece a day for my entire stay. I didn’t ask for the recipe because I’d like to fit in one airline seat the next time I fly.
13. Flashmobs. I will scream and cry if I ever see one in person. They make me crazy! You can surprise me with one anytime.
14. Nora Ephron movies. My favorite is You’ve Got Mail, but I also adore Sleepless In Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, Michael, Silkwood, Julie And Julia and…

So…what do you love with a fiery intensity that you might never admit except here, as an anonymous reader in front of tens of  my other readers?

Carry on,
xox

Hey you guys,
Digging around in my “dead drafts” file I came across this stream of consciousness, shitty first draft of an actual event that happened to me last year at this time. Since it’s a year old I suppose it’s a Throwback for a Thursday. Right? And since I know most of you, no, make that all of you, have loved and lost, I thought I’d share this unabridged account of just how much I suck at it. Loss that is. So here goes. 

Carry on,
xox

I wish more than anything that I had a profound and pithy quote befitting this story, instead, all you get is:

“Omg,omg,omg,omg,omg,omg,omg,omg,omg,omg,omg,breathe.”~ Me

I heard his voice again last night. For the first time in thirty years.

This is a voice I would have given my left tit to hear back then, back in the days and months after our break-up in 1986.

Truthfully? I would have sold my soul, my car and my beloved cat to hear him say my name in that seductive way he had.

Just one… More…Time.

Shameless doesn’t adequately describe me.

Neither, do I have enough fingers or toes to count the number of times I sold-myself-out emotionally.

I would call, he would answer and I would hang up. Or, I would get his out-going message on his answer machine and since I knew he wasn’t home (he was never home), I would call back and listen to it ten to fifteen times in a row with the intensity of a FBI voice analysis expert, searching for any small hint in the tone, or the words that he used as a clue to his state of mind.

Was he happier without me? Or did he sound like wads of Kleenex were shoved up his nostrils, his heart-broken into tiny pieces that were scattered across the globe by the wind—like me?

Mostly I did it because second only to his smell, I desperately ached for the sound of his voice. That along with a longing for reentry back into his inner circle from which I’d been banished.

He was the drug and I was the addict.
He was the tall, cool drink of water. I was dying of thirst.
He was the Sun, and whatever small ray of attention he chose to shine on me, like a sunflower I reached up and reveled in it.
He threw his scraps of attention to my bruised and broken heart as I rolled around in the dirt like a feral animal, begging for more.

You get the picture. Shameless.

It had to be enough—but it never was.
Because that’s the thing about that kind of love. The always evident, finite nature of it, creates mental insatiability.

From the beginning, the deep tone of his voice could magically make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
Like a musical instrument, my body was specifically tuned to him–it had a visceral reaction—every cell vibrating with desire.
It was crazy. At nearly thirty years old I’d never felt anything like it.

My love for him felt crazy. So, I began to mistake feeling crazy—for love.

It culminated in a real eye-opener when I jumped out of a second-story window and chased his car down the street. In that moment it turned dangerous crazy. Stupid. Untethered to reality.

At no time was I aware how unsustainable that kind of love, lust, obsession was.
Nothing that burns that hot can survive as it consumes everything it touches. It must flame out. It must. Even volcanoes go dormant.

I thought I would never get over him. The mere mention of his name could send me to bed sobbing for hours.
The pain was simply unbearable.

In order to function in the world, I put myself into an emotional rehab of sorts. I removed all signs of him from my immediate surroundings. First I got rid of all the gifts he gave me. An 80’s abstract patterned sweatshirt, a small, carved jewelry box. Then I took the pictures of him out of their frames. Well, to be honest, for years I left them in the frames and covered them with more current shots of friends and family in the hopes that this was all just a bad dream and we would eventually reconcile and I could put our pictures front and center once again.

Slowly, I erased all of his saved voice messages. They were like the tiny airline bottles of booze alcoholics save in case of an emotional ”emergency”. A quick fix. A masochistic game. A rush followed by the pitiful groan of my heart as it dropped like a piano from a fifty story building. Over, and over, and over again.

First to go were the simple ones, “Hey babe, just checking in.” Hearing those only hurt a little bit, like a blister or a cold sore.
I could hit erase on those and not immediately burst into flames.

The next ones, the ones that were funny or touching, well, those hurt like I imagine a cracked skull or broken bones do. I would suffer physical pain for days after deleting those.

The last ones to get erased took me the longest to let go of because of their intimate nature.
They held my heart in chains and like a prisoner with Stockholm’s Syndrome I feared I’d die if I we parted.
I threw up for four straight hours the night I had the courage to hit ERASE on those.

Detox. It was Emotional Detox.

I’m not proud of the fact that it took me five years to become neutral. Yes, you heard me. Five fucking years to get that man out of my system. But I did.

Eventually, I healed and as part of that healing, I held a ceremony where I burned everything. It was my graduation ritual. Emotional rehabilitation complete.
As I watched all of the cards, love letters and yes, finally, the photos of us disintegrate into ash and swirl their way back into the aether, I felt free. He no longer held my heart prisoner. I was literally and symbolically free of him. Finally! And I have to say it felt fan-fucking-tastic!

So, you can imagine my reaction when a few weeks before Christmas, out of the blue, after thirty years —he reached out on Facebook for connection. And it triggered in me the most curious mixture of love and hate, attraction, and revulsion, curiosity, and fear.

Anyway, we agreed to talk. On the phone. Like for real.

He is fifty-two to my fifty-seven years and still in dire need of a “sensitivity chip”—just as I remembered.
He laughed hysterically when I said I was fifty-seven. “Yeah, sure you are” he guffawed, “You just keep telling that story.”
“I will, because it’s true,” I replied with a half-ass laugh, trying to keep things civil. Truth be told I wanted to reach though the phone and stab him in the neck with a fork. Come to think of it, it was not an unfamiliar impulse where he was concerned, but the rage he was still able to trigger shocked me.

Remember, we burned HOT.

After listening to him for a while, it was clear as he reminisced about our on-and-off two years together back in the eighties that:

1. He remembers that time fondly. Like, scary, made up memories of weird things that never happened, fondly. I do not. I was not my best self back then. Not even a little bit. Think, hot mess. That time turned into a catalyst for my own self-reflection and introspection. I’d jumped out of a fucking window overcome by lust so I’d say I was a girl desperately in need of some self-respect. It was not my proudest moment and as a result, I did decades of work on myself after that.

2. Our five-ish year age difference which I will admit felt much larger as a twenty-five-year-old woman with a twenty-year-old man (boy) had grown to a much broader span of his memory (hence the snide remarks). In HIS telling of our tale, the age difference has grown to decades. He is now Ben Affleck and I am Dame Helen Mirren, (who by-the-way admittedly looks better than I do in a bikini), but that is neither here nor there—the woman is seventy. 70!

3. His life has fallen to shit. He is re-connecting with me because he has become the Mayor of Martyr-ville. As he explained it, when his beloved father passed away, he gave up a thriving career and a life filled with fancy houses, cars, tons of money and super-models, (insert HUGE eye-roll), turned his back on love and ever having a family of his own, to live in his childhood bedroom taking care of his ailing mother and special needs sister. Oh come on! He’s NO saint. I can hear you, don’t turn on me now!

Why do guys do that? Why do they call you after they’ve fallen down the rabbit hole? I KNOW with every fiber of my being that if his life were going well he may have looked me up out of curiosity on Facebook (like we all do), but he would have NEVER in a million years have contacted me. I know that because I’m over fifty and life doesn’t work that way.

He sounded to me like someone who was in dire need of the three “C’s”. Camaraderie. Consolation. Contrition.
I don’t think I’m the right person for the job. I tried for about thirty minutes. Then I couldn’t wait to get off the phone and back to real life. You know, MY real life of fancy houses, cars, and super models.

For several days afterward I felt emotionally unstable. Like I’d been massaged by a plunger or punked.
I couldn’t tell if he felt bad about how things had ended and he most certainly didn’t call for my forgiveness.

You know why? Because he has no idea the suffering I put myself through. Did you catch that? I tortured myself. Everyday. All by myself.

So… why did he call me? Why was I the one he chose to soothe him? Honestly? I have no idea.

One of my friends who is familiar with our saga asked me if I somehow felt vindicated by his shitty life. You know, the best revenge is living well and all that. So…did I?… Maybe…and Yuck!
Had I learned nothing? Great. There go tens of thousands of dollars spent on three decades of self-help.

After feeling ashamed of myself, I have also started to figure out why I feel so out-of-sorts.

Perhaps because it was clear he still inhabited that wild, careless and dangerous place I had turned my back on years ago, and maybe I was afraid that hearing his voice would somehow lure me back there after being off of that sick, adrenalin high for thirty plus years. Perhaps.

More likely it’s because I have absolutely no desire to re-live the past. Even those lusty, tempestuous years with him. Like I said, those were not the good old days for me and no amount of reminiscing will make it so.

I have a distinct memory of something my mother said to me as I writhed on her bed in my broken-hearted agony—so here’s your quote. “He’ll come back. One way or another, they always come back.”

I lived breathlessly off the fumes of that hope for many years like a lost Mariners wife waits for the sea to return her beloved. Until eventually, facilitated by the passage of time, the entire situation was no longer a trigger for tears but an ancient, distant memory.

Then… he came back.

You guys,
I have a confession to make.
I hear voices.  Pretty much all the time.

I have all of my life.

When I was in my twenties I was urged to leave my first marriage.
Like Liz, I too was guided away from motherhood.
A voice told me to start a blog four years ago when I’d never even read one before that moment.

Eighteen months ago one particularly pushy voice insisted I write a screenplay (something I had neither the skill nor desire to do.) But… with her help I did it.

When  I think about it they help me with every decision I make IF I take the time to listen. And trust.

Except for confiding in a few of my friends and family, I’ve tip-toed around this subject for years because I didn’t know how to write about it without sounding, well, batshit crazy. But yesterday, Liz did an amazing job explaining a particularly woo-woo occurence—so I’ll just let her tell you about something that I once viewed as a curse but have come to realize is a gift.

Carry on,
xox

Dear Ones-

START KNOWING.
This is something I wrote in my journal a few months ago.
These words came to me through a powerful internal voice.

Allow me to explain.

I hear voices sometimes.

It’s cool. Don’t be alarmed. It’s all good. I’m willing to bet you hear voices sometimes, too.
AT LEAST I HOPE YOU DO.

Every powerful woman I know is guided by voices.

Here’s a story:
I have a brilliant friend who used to work in academia. She told me once that she’d been conducting a series of interviews of accomplished women, for a research project about women’s success in the workplace. On the outside, all these women appeared to have nothing in common. They came from all different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and all worked in different fields — corporate and non-profit, secular and religious. But each woman carried herself with confidence and ease, and all of them had become quite powerful in their own corners of the world. When my friend asked these women how they had gotten so far, they all began by dutifully reporting the same sorts of standard statements about the importance of hard work, and cultivating discipline, and fostering good professional contacts, and staying positive, and uplifting other women, and seeking out mentors, and blah, blah, blah..

Sounds perfectly logical, right?

But then there would come a moment in each interview where EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE WOMEN would seem to get bored with the questions, or maybe she was just feeling mischievous. Then each woman (EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!) would ask my friend to turn off the recording device. Then the woman would lean in really close to my friend, and say in a conspiratorial whisper, “But do you want to hear what REALLY happened?” And then EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE WOMEN would report how — at some point in her life — she had heard a voice.
A mystical voice.
An otherworldly voice.
A powerful and certain voice.
A commanding voice.
A voice that could not be explained away rationally.

And each of these women reported that this voice had told her exactly what she needed to do next. And she had done it.

“I know it sounds crazy…” they would say. But it was true.
They had heard a voice, and they had followed the voice.
It hadn’t been easy for any of them, they reported. The voices often told them to do really, really hard things — things that often felt like total disruptions of their lives.
Maybe the voice had said, “It’s time for you to move to Los Angeles now” — even though the woman had just signed a lease on an apartment in Houston.
Or maybe the voice had said, “It’s time for you to go to medical school” — even though she’d just had a baby.
Or maybe the voice had said, “It’s time for you to leave that boyfriend” — even though her parents really liked him.
Or maybe the voice had said, “This religious path is no longer authentic or meaningful for you” — even though she had been raised by fundamentalists.
Or maybe the voice had said, “It’s time for you to learn Mandarin” — even though she’d never been to China.

But the voice had come. And whatever the voice said, the woman in question had taken the enormous risk of deciding to follow it. Even when it was inconvenient. Even when it was challenging. Even when it seemed prohibitively expensive. Even when it meant cutting her losses and walking away from any sense of security whatsoever. Even when it cost her the approval of friends and family.

Even when everyone thought she was insane.

And THAT’S how she had gotten there, to her place of power in the world. It really had nothing to do with professional contacts, or mentors…it was just that she heard a voice, and she chose to listen.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
So.
I hear voices, too.

I heard voices when I was a teenager, saying, “You are meant to be a writer,” and when people said, “But how will you make a living at THAT?”, those voices were still like, “Yeah, whatever…you are meant to be a writer.” And when I got rejection letters for years and years, and nobody was interested in my work, those voices were STILL like, “Yup…you are definitely meant to be a writer.” And those voices STILL tell me I’m meant to be a writer. I’ll stop writing when the voices stop telling me to write.

I heard voices telling me to move to New York City when I was young. I heard voices telling me that it was imperative that I see the world, and that I learn how to travel alone as a woman — no matter what the cost or risk. I heard voices telling me not to settle for the security of getting a “real job” — but instead to just work odd jobs, and to keep traveling, and to keep writing, and to keep gambling everything for creativity and an exploratory life of the mind. (You guys, I can’t tell you how many times the voices tell me never to choose security over creativity. It’s exhausting and sometimes scary. But they seem to REALLY MEAN IT.)

When I was in my 20’s, I heard voices warning me not to get married, but I went ahead and got married anyway (side note: it’s REALLY HARD for young women to push back against the forces of culture and tradition sometimes) and then I SERIOUSLY started hearing voices when I was 30 years old, and firmly married, and living in a shiny new house in the suburbs, and my mind and body were absolutely falling to pieces, and I was supposed to be trying to have a baby that year, and the voices started screaming, “OH, NO YOU DON’T, MISSY!” And then I had to leave everything behind, in order to re-calibrate my path to my own truth. (This was awfully inconvenient and horrible and expensive and terrifying. And it’s REALLY HARD to decide not to have a child in a culture that still tells women that having children, ultimately, is the only thing that shall fulfill them. But the voices were like “NOPE”, so I had to leave it all behind. We call that “a course adjustment”. It’s never easy. But you don’t get to chart your own life without making some pretty hardcore course corrections along the way.)

I still hear voices.

I heard voices this spring telling me to leave everything behind yet again, and to gamble everything for love. (Very hard. Very scary. Very ACCURATE.)

Where do the voices come from? Beats me. You can call it “intuition”. You can call it “the still small voice within”. You can call it your “inner compass”. You can call it “God”. You can call it “Angels”. You can call it your “spirit guides”. You can call it your “gut instinct”. You can call it your “dead ancestors speaking though you.” You can call it “the flow”…but whatever it is, those voices exist. And you must train yourself to trust them, and to risk everything in order to follow them.

Notice that I didn’t say, “You must train yourself to hear them.”

I don’t think you have to practice hearing them. I think they are always talking to you. I just think you have to train yourself to TRUST THEM. That’s the hard part.
Learning to trust those voices is a practice that you can cultivate. Just like any other craft or skill, it is worth the effort to learn how to master it.
So…Today, I want to tell you what my voices have started telling me lately.
It’s just these two words:
START KNOWING.

Here’s the thing about my voices. They can be merciless. They are not always sweet and gentle. Sure, there are times when my voices say, “Poor baby! Poor little small one…we are so sorry that you are suffering, please take care of yourself, and lie down in a soft and safe place with a warm towel over your head”….but there are also times when my voices are like, “Oh for God’s sake, FIND YOUR STRENGTH. Grow a fucking spine, woman, and take the action you need to take right now, and stop wasting time…we didn’t send you here to let you pretend to be damn weak.” (Interesting side note: The difference between THAT voice and my dark internal voice of self-hatred is that the dark internal voice of self-hatred says, “You’re such a baby, you aren’t worthy, you are a scum person, just curl up on the floor in a pile of dirty towels and die,” but the mystical all-knowing voice says, “We love you too much to let you keep pretending that you are so powerless…COME ON! Let’s DO THIS! GROW A FUCKING SPINE! WE HAVE THINGS TO DO! WE HAVE A DESTINY TO CREATE! STAND UP OFF THE FLOOR!!!! LET’S GOOOOOOO!!!!!” See the difference? Good.)

There have been times in my life (this year, among them) where my voices have needed to get really firm with me. They have challenged me, and they have pushed back against my arguments. They will hold my face in the truth and make me look at it, even when the truth hurts. They will not baby me. They refuse to enable me. This is good. They will not say, “It’s OK, honey! Don’t worry! It’s all good! It doesn’t matter — you’re doing your best, and everyone’s human!”, but instead they say, “Actually, honey, it’s NOT ALL GOOD. This situation is NOT OK, and the way you are behaving is NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, and it’s time for you to grow a spine, and challenge yourself more, get creative, and change everything. Let’s GO!”

But mostly, this year, my voices have been saying to me just these two words: “START KNOWING.”

Anytime I am faced with a dilemma, and I start to feel very small and confused, and I hear myself saying, “I don’t know what to do!”, some voice from deep within me rises in full power and says, “START KNOWING.”
(I even wrote it down in my journal one day, for my entire entry that day. So that is what this picture is all about START KNOWING.)

What my voices are challenging me is to realize is that when I am feeling sad and scared and small, and I keep saying, “I don’t know what to do!” — the truth is that usually I DO know.

In fact, my voices are pretty certain that I always know. Somewhere, deep within me, I have always known what I need to do. I just don’t want to do it sometimes, because it’s too hard, or too scary, or seems to wild or too risky. Or I don’t want to hurt anyone. Or I don’t want to be judged. Or I don’t want to lose what I have already attained. But still — I do know. Secretly, I do know. And my voices get impatient with me, because they’re like, “Look, lady, we don’t have forever, OK? You have all the information you need. Nothing will change now unless you change it. Make a move right here. Stop pretending you don’t know what you need to do. START KNOWING.”

I’m sensing this in so many women whom I encounter these days, too. They seem stuck and frustrated and confused and insecure and afraid. They have grown too comfortable/uncomfortable in the realm of “not knowing” what to do. They come up to me at my speaking events, and they introduce themselves by telling me about their injuries and their wounds. Before they have even told me what they want to create in this world, or who they long to become, they tell me the worst thing that has ever happened to them. Then I hear them start spinning and spinning and spinning the same story they’ve been telling for years about what happened to them, and how it damaged them, and what they want, but what they aren’t getting, and why they can’t change it, and why this situation is impossible, and what they wish would happen, and why can’t it all be different, and why it’s too late…and then they say, “I just don’t know what to do!”

And I swear to God, this fearsome strong voice starts to rise out from the center of my spine, and all I want to do is take that woman by her shoulders, shake her, and shout at the top of my lungs: “START KNOWING!”
(But in a loving way. I love you all! Seriously, I love you guys! Smiley face! You go, girl!)

But seriously…this voice that rises within me is not a voice of judgment or contempt. It’s not a disgusted voice. This is just the voice of the Archangel of Womanhood — a divine force who cannot abide seeing any woman who has ANY power in her life pretending that she has no power in her life. Not you, not me, not your sisters, not your daughters, not your mothers. She just can’t take it anymore. So voice of the Archangel of Womanhood says (out of a sense of fierce but merciless compassion, and a desire to liberate us all), “START KNOWING!”

Yes, it’s hard. Of course it’s hard. What did you think — it would be easy?

Did you think they would just hand your destiny to you, cost-free? Yes, you might have to risk everything. Yes, you might have to cut your losses. Yes, some people will hate it. Yes, some people may never understand and never forgive you. Yes, you may walk away from the situation with a permanent scar, or a bad limp, or a battered heart. Yes, yes, yes, blah, blah, blah…
But come ON!

START KNOWING.

Stop saying, “I don’t know what to do!” Because I believe that — somewhere deep in your center — there is some powerful truth about your life which YOU ALREADY DO KNOW.

If you’re afraid of making a hasty decision, just remember that the alternative is to stay stuck in the same bullshit garbage death swamp you’ve been stuck in for years. (I say that lovingly! I love you! Smiley face!)

So start knowing. Start knowing what you already know. Start knowing what is so damn obvious about your life that a perfect stranger could see the problem, if you told her about your situation in a five-minute conversation. Start knowing that you will no longer degrade yourself with the illusion that are powerless, that you’re in a trap. (Here’s the evidence of that: Tell me your story of how powerless you are, and I will find you a story of a woman who was in EXACTLY the same situation, and she changed it. I know…that sounds harsh. But it’s true. Start knowing that it’s true.)

Start knowing that you have far more agency than you think. Start knowing that the story you’ve been telling yourself about your limitations, or your helplessness in this situation, is NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU. Start being honest with yourself about something that your body has been trying to tell you for years. (Listen to your body’s pain — IT KNOWS. The body always knows. The body knows exactly the thing that is causing you suffering, and holding you back. I had a boyfriend once who I was madly in love with, but every time I got in his bed, my body would explode into pain, because my body already knew, “This man is no good for you.” I didn’t want to know it, because I was blinded by love — but my body knew. Start knowing what your body already knows.)

Start knowing the kind of woman you need to become — so that your daughters can have a better chance of becoming that kind of woman, too. Start knowing that the universe didn’t send you here to this fearsome planet of change and danger so that you could practice being more afraid…but rather, the universe sent you here to this fearsome planet of change and danger so that you could practice being more BRAVE. (Stop waiting for the world to feel safe, before you live your life. The world never will never feel safe. This planet has a nickname in the universe, you know. It’s called: THE ADVANCED SCHOOL FOR UTMOST HUMAN BRAVERY. They do not call our planet: THE COMFY RESTING PLACE FOR PRACTICING EASE AND SECURITY.)

Start knowing how brave you are. Start knowing how resilient you are. Start knowing how resourceful you are. Start knowing that you are the descendent of thousands of years of survivors, and that have you inherited all their wiles. Start knowing that the Archangel of Womanhood loves you too much to let you keep acting meek and degraded. Start knowing how willing you are to walk away from all of it, if you must. Start knowing that there are no victims in this room. (I can’t tell you how many times my voices say to me, “THERE ARE NO VICTIMS IN THIS ROOM.” I hate it sometimes when they say that to me. But the Archangel of Womanhood is quite firm on the matter. There are no victims in this room, she says. Period.)

START KNOWING, you guys.

Try saying those two words to yourself in a very calm, very wise, very ancient, very adamant voice — the next time you panic. Just say it (START KNOWING) and then breathe. Then get quiet and see what comes up.

I promise you that your very next thought will be the truth.
It might not be easy, but it will be true.
And you are ready for it.
Seriously, you are.

Start right there. That’s what every powerful woman I know has done.
Because the voices within you already know everything. But they can’t work with you until you are willing to START KNOWING, too.
OK?
I love you. Smiley face. Let’s do this.

ONWARD,
LG

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good and go for the great.” ~ Steve Prefontaine

“Oh, fuck. That’s BRAVE.” ~ Me

I wrote this almost exactly three years ago and found it today when I put the word murder in my search.

Don’t ask.

It just so happened that I’d only minutes before been discussing this very thing with my BFF. It was the main catalyst for the life altering change she made, which coincidentally is the subject of her memoir, Unbound. (By Steph Jagger, go order it now. I’ll wait.)

Is dissatisfaction enough of a trigger?

For some of us good—just isn’t good enough. We want more.

Is boredom enough of a reason to shake your Etch-A-Sketch?  Some say no. Some say the catalyst must be pain or suffering, or better yet, both of those together served with a side of depression.

I call bullshit. 

She emailed me later in response to this essay #boredomisenough —because we communicate in hashtag speak.

I agree. Boredom is enough!

Why wait for things to get worse? Why wait for the house to burn down, or the marriage to fail, or, or, or, before you make a change?

I’m curious. What do you think?
Carry on,
xox

How can we ever come to new insights or conclusions about our lives if our existing reality is never challenged?

That would be like only eating at the salad bar because you’ve never walked the whole buffet and seen the dessert cart.

We are creatures of habit.
Scared of any turbulence or bumps in the road.
But can we learn to appreciate, even welcome the rainy days when we only prefer clear skies?

A certain amount of failure is necessary for success, because it sends us back to the drawing board.

When something’s not working there is clarity in that realization.
A certain amount of discomfort is good for our souls.
We know we don’t want to do that again so it colors all of our decisions.

Like Abraham says, “When you know what you Don’t want. You know what you DO want”.

I’ve come to this conclusion :
All the great gifts, people and circumstances that have come to me in my life were born out of soul-searching that was either precipitated by dissatisfaction with the status quo, or…pure unadulterated boredom.

Either I went willingly, although with little to no support. Or I was drop-kicked against my will by the Universe in the direction of a new life change.

Both ways felt like shit but that’s okay.

Here’s my NEW conclusion:
Big change feels scary. It feels a bit awkward, uncomfortable and uncertain, so we drag our heels.

And…change is rude! It shows up unannounced, often at the most inopportune times and tracks it’s dirty feet through our lives.

So what does this all mean?

We can either hide under the bed.
Keep living each day exactly like the day before.
Or we can put our arms up, throw our heads back—and scream bloody murder as we careen toward our brighter future on the roller coaster of life.

In full surrender mode knowing the Universe has our back.

“The past is never where you think you left it.” – Katherine Anne Porter

Time.

Time as a fluid nonlinear happening-all-at-the-same-time slippery little bugger that I’ve been attempting to wrap my brain around lately.

Does your future inform your past?

Can we change our past?

Can we? Can I go back and make better choices in clothing and in men?

Mind…blown.

What does Jason think? What do you think?

Carry on,
xox

This is reprise from last year that my friends still quote back to me. Ha!
Carry on,
xox

Hey guys,
Here’s a holiday favorite that this year I’ve been able to put on the Huffington Post.
Take a look. If you know him you’re going to smile and if you don’t, well, I think you’ll want to.

The big French guy who stole my heart — and then hijacked my favorite meal!
Cheers!
PS. REAL men use pink rubber oven mitts! Bam!
xox

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/how-my-french-husband-hij_b_8547286.html

 I have readers who request some of these holiday posts throughout the year. Even in July. From as far away as Brunei.
Seems we are all united by the one simple fact that family is family wherever you live.
And Americans have not cornered the market on dysfunction.

And neurosis speaks every language and crosses every border.

Oh, and by-the-way, that obnoxious cousin in the last sentence? Seems he may have had the gift of clairvoyance.
Carry on,
xox

Thanksgiving in the U.S. can be brutal. I blame it on social media and the unrealistic Norman Rockwellian expectations we place on each other. Unfortunately, what in our imagination looks warm and fuzzy, can quickly turn cold and prickly.

Even though everyone at the table is somehow related, dinner etiquette can morph into a kind of blood sport. Back handed compliments and thinly veiled sarcasm abound and it’s just not Thanksgiving unless someone leaves the table in tears.

Add tons of carbohydrates, loads of judgment, a dash of shame, with a pumpkin pie chaser and voila – Hilarity ensues!

NO. No it doesn’t.

When you put together people who only find themselves sitting in the same room once a year there isn’t enough alcohol on the planet to keep you in that loving place.

It can turn into a real numb-fest.

The carbs numb you down.
So do the booze,
The sugar,
The football,
Even the ridged potato chips smothered with delicious sour cream onion dip. THAT is my numbing agent of choice.

Yes, you heard me. It all numbs us down, making us compliant enough to smile and remain civil so that everyone lives to see another holiday.

But let’s all try to remember, shall we, that almost everyone had the highest of intentions when they pulled up in the driveway.

And each year can be a fresh start. We talk all about gratitude that day, but I think it’s a good idea to start with acceptance.

When we can make acceptance the first course, it helps us all to remember that everyone is just doing the best they can and it makes the rest of the day play out differently. 

My family is loving, relatively sane, and really quite civil —now.
I think that’s because we’re all so damn old. The last time we served crazy for Thanksgiving was during the Reagan
Administration.

Gone are the caustic comments lobbed across the table by a perpetually inebriated uncle that were meant to be funny—but weren’t. And the long, squirmy, uncomfortable silences that followed.

Everyone, even Aunt Barb, who’s worn a wig for the past twenty-five years has stopped criticizing my hair. I’m fifty freakin’ seven Barb! It’s gray with some purple fringe—let it go!

My dad used to insist that we get dressed up. You know, jacket and tie, skirt and (gulp) pantyhose were mandatory. But since he’s been gone for a decade, elastic reigns supreme. These days style is sacrificed for comfort. Think sweatpants thinly disguised as dress pants.

To add insult to injury, this year, I intend to give up the fight—the Spanx stay at home.

Hey you! You picky eaters! Stop your complaining. If somethings not Non-GMO, gluten-free, free-range, antibiotic and hormone free, vegetarian or vegan—just be polite and eat what won’t kill you—or feed it to the dog and stick with the crudités.

So…let’s all practice forgiveness, humor, acceptance and gratitude; choosing to operate from the heart remembering the true intention of this day. Being with family.

Now take a deep breath, put on your best holiday smile, and listen with loving acceptance as your well-intentioned cousin explains to you all the reasons why Hillary will never be President.

Happy Thanksgiving,
xox

Hi you guys,
Below is my latest Huffington Post. You see, after the election,once I stopped reeling, after I gave up on politics and put away the raw cookie dough, I decided to write to the girl/woman who will most certainly become our first female president.
Carry on,
xox

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/an-open-letter-to-the-fir_b_12903170.html

Dear Future Madame President,

I find great solace in knowing you are out there.

Selfishly, for the sake of my eighty-year-old mother who was emotionally invested in this past election for reasons that are obvious, I hope this finds you occupying a seat in a college classroom, a non-profit, the senate, or some other adult occupation at which you excel–and not a bouncy seat at a pre-school.

If you’re currently a millennial well, I suppose that’s okay seeing that makes you tech savvy enough to never get yourself caught up in any kind of email kerfuffle.

By the way, watch those selfies and delete your Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat accounts–they may come to haunt you.

That being said, a long and arduous path was cleared for you this year with the nomination of a woman by a major political party, so you can cross that milestone off your list. But don’t worry, many more lay ahead.

It will be my great honor to call you Madame President. You are clearly a badass and I am humbled after witnessing the journey it took to get you here.

Just know, you have some pretty big heels to fill young lady. My wish is that you have the intellect of Hillary, the sass of Elizabeth Warren and the authenticity and oratory chops of Michelle Obama. I know this is a tall order but I think you’re up to the task.

A few more things: Be unapologetically smart. Go ahead. We can take it.

But practice humility and for god sakes learn how to say “I f*ed up, I’m sorry, I was wrong.” It forgives a myriad of sins and is even more rare than hearing the truth in Washington.

Please. Remain a student of history so you can learn from our mistakes.

We got so close this year and the loss still stings. Maybe we were overconfident. Maybe it just wasn’t the right woman. Maybe we underestimated the level of misogyny in our country. Perhaps we dropped the ball… Bigly.

You will bridge the divide. Without being perceived as harpy, bitchy or scary. YOU will be the “better angel of our nature.”

Most importantly, what history and the next four years will come to show is that you can’t keep women down. Numerous indignities have been heaped upon us over time and what did we do?

We got stronger. And we came back. With a vengeance.

Madame President, I trust you have had enough setbacks in your life to smooth out any rough edges–but not enough to put out the fire in your belly.

In closing, I wish you the winning trifecta of wisdom, intellect and wit–and the confidence to display them all in equal measure.

Most of all, and I’m sure I speak for women all over our great nation–I wish you grace.

May grace be your superpower and your co-pilot as you take on the Herculean task of being the most powerful woman on Earth.

Rest assured you have my unapologetic admiration and support until the day we finally meet.

With great anticipation,
J.B.

Happy Saturday you guys!

I had to share this with you. It is short, succinct and says exactly what I would say if I were as smart as Seth. Except I would have inserted a knock-knock joke, so there’s that. This is a pesky problem we all share, our running internal narratives. I am forever trying to re-write mine. To the point where I’m out of erasers and white-out.

Let’s see what Seth has to add to the discussion.

Love you Seth Godin!
Carry on,
xox

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” – Jonathan Borroughs

The memories we rehearse are the ones we live with.

A million things happened to you today. The second bite of your lunch. The red light on the third block of your commute…

Tomorrow, you’ll remember almost none of them.

And the concept that you’d remember something that happened to you when you were twelve is ludicrous.

What actually happened was this: After it (whatever that thing you remember) happened, you started telling yourself a story about that event. You began to develop a narrative about this turning point, about the relationship with your dad or with school or with cars.

Lots of people have had similar experiences, but none of them are telling themselves quite the same story about it as you are.

Over time, the story is rehearsed. Over time, the story becomes completely different from what a videotape would show us, but it doesn’t matter, because the rehearsed story is far more vivid than the video ever could be.

And so the story becomes our memory, the story gets rehearsed ever more, and the story becomes the thing we tell ourselves the next time we need to make a choice.

If your story isn’t helping you, work to rehearse a new story instead. Because it’s our narrative that determines who we will become.

~ by Seth Godin

http://feedblitz.com/f/?fblike=http%3a%2f%2fsethgodin.typepad.com%2fseths_blog%2f2016%2f11%2fthe-memories-we-rehearse-are-the-ones-we-live-with.html

You guys!
Just yesterday I was talking with my sister about aging, botox, frown lines and that damn upper lip of mine! Some things never change! Cheers!
Happy Friday!
xox

“Youth is wasted on the young” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Fuck. I was just thinking about that today.

About youth and aging.

About perky tits and chicken neck waddle.

About going from looking in the mirror and worrying if you have enough concealer to hide the zits, to being completely helpless without the assistance of a mega-powerful magnifying mirror developed by some sadistic scientists at NASA to apply anything besides Chapstick.

By the way, news flash, what in holy hell happened to my lips?

Every morning I send out a search party out to find my upper lip.  It disappeared around five years ago, leaving only a butt pucker looking facsimile which my bottom lip lacks the volume to compensate for. I miss it.  If you see it out on the town, wearing a bleeding-into-the-creases, wildly undefined coat of Chanel red lipstick—please tell it I’m looking for it.

What I was really pondering, was my ability as a young woman to fluctuate between being utterly fearless—to riddled with insecurity, indecision and doubt.

It was quite a swing, the speedball of emotional cocktails – and I know I’m not the only one.  You can’t hide.  I can sense you there.

Things that used to terrify me, sending me into a cold sweat, have now become second nature. And vice versa.

These days I have no problem letting someone know if they’re out of line. I have mastered the art of confrontation (which when done well is an art) to the point where it doesn’t even feel like a disagreement and often we all end up laughing, hugging, singing Kumbaya and taking a selfie.

I also spontaneously hug people – in public.  Complete strangers. It can be triggered by the most random of things, a great haircut, a cool tattoo, an interesting laugh, what they’re eating, a cute dog or if I happen to catch them crying.

As a younger woman I would have rather been killed by a clown car full of disapproving authority figures.

Back then what I lacked in-depth I made up for in reckless abandon.
I was born with very little modesty.  I’d show my boobs to anyone who’d ask (there may have been requests), pee without closing the door and walk across a beach or crowded pool party in a bikini (gasp) without a cover up.

I know! I was oblivious. There is photographic proof.

Now just recalling those things makes me sick to my stomach.

I’d also sing at the drop of a hat.  At the top of my lungs.  That is until I turned thirty and developed crippling stage fright which only released its grip on me after fifty when I no longer gave a fuck.

I care less and less about making a fool of myself, which is one of the HUGE side benefits of getting older. I cannot overstate that.

 If only I’d felt that way back then. I’d be Lady Gaga by now.

As I established earlier this month, the older I get, the less fucks I give.  I have a limited amount left and I don’t want to waste one.

I’m a Nazi about only spending time with the people I want to see, doing the things I want to do.

I no longer give a fuck about chipped nail polish, carrying the “right bag”, who the latest, greatest anything/anyone is, how big your diamond is, how much grey hair I have, the ebb and flow of the stock market, keeping up with the Kardashians, or who wore it better.

I have bigger fish to fry.

All I give a fuck about these days is my health, the people I love, and what my dog think of me.

A friend complained to me recently, “Oh God, I don’t need any more friends, I have forty years worth, and I don’t see enough of the ones I have!”

Not me! It seems I make new friends faster and more easily as I’ve gotten older.

Either people have become less discerning or I’ve suddenly become much more interesting and engaging. (I’m not sure which one bodes better for me.)

Maybe it’s true that like a fine wine, I have improved with age. The jury’s still out on that but what I DO know is that I’ve become infinitely more approachable.
And curious.

I was so self involved when I was young, (if it had been an Olympic sport, I would have medaled), that I really didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone else.  I also thought I knew it all.  Now I’m certain of ONE thing only:  I don’t know shit about shit.

Here’s the thing,  these days other people seem SO frickin’ interesting to me. Everyone’s doing something fabulous that I need to hear about right now! Their lives are complex, multi-faceted nuggets of wonder and goodness. When did that happen?

In my opinion, youth is wasted on the young simply because of their lack of appreciation. Also, because in not knowing any better, too many fucks are wasted on frivolous shit that doesn’t matter a day, let alone a year or ten years later.

And by the fact that in the moment, being young seems like it will last forever.   Doesn’t it?

Curious to hear what you think.
Big love,
Xox