The Biggest Tragedy of My Day Was the Fact That I Couldn't Blog.

Here's what I had planned for today:

• Observe a moment of silence in memory of those who lost their lives on 9/11/01
• Master the first workout in the ChaLEAN Extreme series.
• Mow the yard
• Give the dogs a bath
• Write something brilliantly poigiant about 9/11, patriotism and America...later resulting in a Pulitzer prize for...something....and rendering my day job strictly optional.

Yeah...we make plans and God laughs.

First I slept through the moment of silence. 

When I finally got up, this beautiful, ridiculously well built woman named Chalene Johnson pretty much beat the snot out of me through my TV. 

I cried a little. 

I texted my coach and, bless her heart, was talked back into my big girl panties.

Yes I mowed the yard.  One thing went right.

Then the power went out.

So I weeded a little, I visited my neighbors, I gave the dogs a bath in the kitchen sink since it was pitch dark in both bathrooms. 

I realized my dogs are too big to bathe in the kitchen sink.  

I cleaned up.

Then I spent a good deal of time in my car, with my phone charging up, trying to catch up on text messages, phone calls and, of course Facebook.

I realized I could never be Amish.

And now it's almost bedtime, because I'm a wuss, and my Pulitzer will have to wait because, frankly, I'm whooped.  It must have been all that time sitting on the lawnmower that wore me out.  Right?

But I feel like I've been neglecting Blog Over Lunch.  I've written so little lately.  And I really do have a deep love of my country and feelings about that beautiful and horrible September day which would be difficult to put into words in my best form.  And, Sugar, today I am not in my best form.

So I dug out something ten years old.  I was 35 and it was the first thing I had written since my legendary article on the Student Council race of 1982 in my High School paper.  It won't win me a Pulitzer but it was from the heart, and it still is.

And it is not lost on me that the biggest tragedy of my day was the fact that I couldn't blog. 

         The Change

I don’t complain any more about what I can’t have

I feel now that I have more than I deserve,

and so much more than many.

I don’t wonder anymore how others think of me

I know that my family loves me

And we’re together, and I’m grateful

I don’t think anymore about wrongs that have been done to me

I know now that it doesn’t really mater anymore

We’re all in this same terrifying boat.

I’m afraid I’ll never again look up at the sky and see an airplane

And wish I was on it, going to some exotic destination

I’ll see a missile, and potential disaster.

And I’m grateful that I AM....wherever I am.

I’ll never again mentally go over my grocery list

Or move my lips and not sing along

During the National Anthem

I may never again hear “God Bless America” and not shed a tear

Of pride and of sorrow

And hear the words, as I never did “before”

I don’t worry anymore how my son will do in school

Or if he’s learning the rules

For now I just try to explain all this insanity

And in the end hope he doesn’t really understand

the horror of it all

And I hold him just a little closer than I did “before”

And I may never again think in terms of years or months

Of then and now

But always in terms of “before 9/11” and “after 9/11”

I will never again see a fireman

And not want to weep

And hear the word Hero echo in my thoughts

But no matter what I think, see, hear

No matter what I’m afraid of and what I’m grateful for

I may never be as proud to be an American

As I am today.

Come Shake it Up With me

A couple of weeks ago I went to a graduation party for my dear, sweet Goddaughter Jenna.  I knew a few people, because I've known her mother, Teresa, forever.  We met in business school, shared an apartment for a year and were in each other's weddings.  Our children played together.  We have supported each other through highs and lows and watched each other's babies grow.  She is as close to a sister as I will ever have.

But the tasks of raising children and developing careers have kept us at arm's length for the past couple of years.  We have run recently in more separate circles and while I knew her other closest friends at the party, the ones who also flank her in her wedding pictures, I still felt a bit uncomfortable and out of place and, of course, fat and ugly.

In walks this woman.  She's tiny but she brings with her an enormous energy that reverberates through the room.  And my first thought...she looks like a yoga instructor.

I had no idea who she was, but as I sat alone in a chair she wandered through the living room looking a little lost.  I asked if she was looking for the bathroom and she said she was hoping to find Teresa for a tour.

Knowing my friend was at her wit's end trying to greet guests and keep everyone happy, I offered to walk her through and show off Teresa's beautiful new home.

I don't know how I've known Teresa for nearly 30 years and never crossed paths with Tina.  Apparently she went to the same business school as Teresa and I attended, but I don't remember her.  And, sure enough, she's a yoga instructor.  She has a bright smile, tan skin and the body of a 20 year old.  And I like her in spite of all of this.

Near the end of the party a bunch of us vowed to get together for a girl's night out.  She friended me on Facebook.  And this past weekend I had the pleasure of sharing a meal and some drinks with a group of wonderful women.

Tina and I swapped phone numbers, and we talked for about an hour yesterday.  Along with her yoga job she is also a BeachBody coach.  We talked about my fitness goals, what I'm doing now (not much), what I'm about to start doing (back to the gym twice a week, walking now that it's cooler out).  My issues (tendonitis, arthritis, high cholesterol).  We talked about networking, and about me becoming a BeachBody coach.  What she knew of me made her think I would be successful.  What she learned of me in that hour further convinced her.

She sent me some informaiton, I sent her the link to this very same little ditty you're reading from now.  I started thinking about either trying the system or jumping in full tilt and being a coach, but I wasn't sold.

I grabbed my keys and went to the mall.

Any blogger will tell you it is difficult to write from the heart without over-sharing one's personal life.  I've avoided writing about my current situation for just this reason but it's part of this story so here goes...I'm in love.  Again.  Yeah, I know...best case scenerio=death and all.

There was this boy, my first real love.  I was 15, he was 17.  He broke my heart. We're giving it another shot. One minor hurdle...he lives 1300 miles away.

So I'm taking a trip the end of the this month.  And I went to the mall to buy something pretty to sleep in while I stay with him and his daughter.  Something cute so nobody runs away screaming as I search blindly for coffee in the morning.  I wasn't dilusional enough to envision myself in anything sexy...but pretty would have been nice.

But the thing is, as much as I am still that 15 year old girl in my head...the dressing room mirror is a mean, hateful bitch.

I came home with a pair of cotton sleep pants and a strong sense that someone was trying to tell me "Hey dumbas....listen to Tina"

So in the very near future I will be starting, with the help of my new, dear friend and coach Tina Gonzales, a journey to become fit and healthy and help others to do the same.  I'm hoping that my success will make me a walking infomerical for the Beach Body line and for Shakeology.  Some may want to wait and see if I succeed before diving in and that's fine, but I invite you all to take this journey with me if you dare.  There will be details in the near future.

Come shake it up with me....

Best Case Scenario = Death

There's a comedian named Louis C.K.  If you have no knowledge of him I recommend you go to your nearest video store or Netflix account and educate yourself....wait...come back here!  Do it later.  Jeez what’s wrong with you?

Anyway I was watching one of his routines and he was talking about dating.  Basically he says that no matter what, it will end badly.

Maybe you meet and one of you thinks the other is repulsive.  One of you will be hurt and miserable.

Maybe you meet and things seem great..... for a while.  Then the spark fizzles out and you break up.  One of you will be hurt and miserable.

Or maybe you meet and the heavens open up and angels sing.  You date, you get married, you have kids who grow up to be productive members of society and give you adorable, grandparent-worshiping grandchildren.  You have holidays together that make the cover of the Saturday Evening Post look like a Manson family reunion.  You make sweet, passionate love to each other twice a week into your 80's. He opens doors for you and you cook for him, or vice versa.  Whatever floats your boat.

But then...sure as shit...one of you WILL die....and the other one will be hurt and miserable.

So basically, in relationships, the BEST CASE SCENARIO...is death. 

So why do we do it?   What is so freaking awesome about this thing we chase after...this elusive feeling...this luuuuuuuuuuuuuuvvvvv....that makes us temporarily, sometimes for the long-term, blind to the sheer misery that it is sure to cause? 

Now I'm not sure if  have any male readers, but if I do, here is where you're thinking that it's totally worth it because you get to put Tab A into Slot B on a semi-regular basis.  You are now excused from this conversation.  You are genetically incapable of participating.  It’s not your fault, but be gone with you.

But ladies....seriously.  Why do we try so hard to find Mr. Right when we know his socks will stink just as bad as those of Mr. Wrong?  Why do we dream of the day when we can say "I Do" when statistics show that if he does, he won't for long? 

Freaking why?

There are theories that we are simply wired that way.  Just like the men are wired to dip their wicks every chance they get, we're wired to find the caveman who will keep the wooly mammoth out of the cave.  But really, how often does it work out that way?  Right now I'm 0 & 2 (or am I 2 & 0?  I should know better than to try to pull off a sports analogy)....I have two failed long-term relationships.  I have my very own .357 magnum to which I have no problem introducing any wooly mammoth that dares darken my cave opening.  So why do I glance at the left hand of every reasonable looking man who is polite to me?  I am quite capable of going out and clubbing some protein over the head and dragging it home to cook over a fire (ok..Aldi's & the microwave, work with me here).  So why do I still shave my legs?

If the theory that we're wired that way is true, we're wired to be stupid.

I'm not claiming to have evolved beyond any of this nonsense.  Not at all.  Even as I take a break from the soul-crushing task of making a relationship work (and perhaps that's best given my attitude, yathink?) I am at the same time looking forward to getting back out there at some point.  I am guilty of entering my search criteria into Match.com and perusing the results.  In fact didn't their tagline used to be "Go ahead, it's free to look"?.  I am far from ready to open myself up to that sort of heartache again, but I'm acknowledging that at some point I'm going to do it....scary as it is.

But I don't know why.  Maybe when I figure that out I'll know I'm ready.  Or, best case scenario, I'll be dead.

Today's lunch:  This really awesome vegetable bake that my friend Dee turned me on to. You just take a shitload of veggies (I used squash, bell peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms & onion) cut them up, drizzle on a little olive oil, add salt & pepper, bake it at 350 for an hour, add some mozzarella cheese to the top, bake again 'till melted. Simple and delicious.  So I had that with applesauce.  And diet coke...if I don't add some chemicals to the meal I fear my body will go into shock and reject the healthy food.

My (Pessimist's) Mug Runneth Over

I have this mug....wait...this mug here. 


The other side says "Pessimist's Mug", though I don't really consider myself a pessimist...more a cynic and a realist but really, po-tay-toe/po-tah toe.

Today as I sit here munching on company-supplied pizza (yes, my friends, there IS such a thing as a free lunch) I can't help but think that The Universe, God, Budda, Allah or my Fairy Godmother...someone....has actually provided for me quite nicely over the past couple of months.  And to continue to approach life with one eye firmly shut and the other fearfully squinting at whatever comes my way is sort of an insult to that Higher Power that has taken such sweet care of me lately.

Not to diminish or understate the value of aforementioned free lunch, but this is actually not the greatest of my recently received gifts.  Before the implosion and reconstruction of my life I had no idea how many friends I had.  I have been humbled by the help and support I've received both from tried and true long-time friends and from newly re-connected aquaintances-turned-bffs'. 

The fear that I would spend all of my free time watching Northern Exposure reruns and bingeing on ramen and cooking wine has been replaced by hard, productive work interrupted by the occasional hour or two spent happily basking in the glow of the TV when, with great deliberation and care, I'm able to carve out a small block of me-time to watch a few reruns of How I Met Your Mother.

I am blessed to have people in my life who don't just tolerate my presence but who actually seem to WANT to spend time with me.  We hang out, we chat, we go places, and when the need arises we help each other out.  Recently I have been primarly the recipient of the helping out, and I have been the beneficiary of many a shoulder to cry on.  I aspire to become helper and benefactor as the need arises.

Pithy as it sounds, I have my health and I have my family.  Before everything went to heck in a sidecar, then came back again, I could be heard saying that I had no family but The Boy, but this isn't true.  I also have cousins and I have friends who are bound to me by ties as strong as those of any cradle to grave siblings you could find.  I no longer grieve the lack of siblings and I am settled in the role of orphan that everyone fortunate enough to outlive their parents assumes at some point.

Most importantly I have a child who is healthy and bright enough to test my patience on almost a daily basis and who often makes my heart swell with pleasure and pride beyond words. 

I have Diet Coke and coffee, two of the small pleasures that help me muster the strength to go on when all else fails to inspire me.  I have this little blog and my little circle of followers and I appreciate you all so much because as much as I enjoy writing, it means more when someone reads it.

I have the means to keep enough food in the cupboard to give myself a bulging middle and high cholesterol and the sense to know better...though I have to start USING that sense a bit more often.  I have a strong, if somewhat crooked back and four limbs that work to move me about and chip away at the never-ending chore list before me.

And I have a job that I love.  One that occasionally provides for me a free lunch.  And which I need to get back to.

Filling the Holes

Six weeks after the big breakup XBF has officially removed all of his possessions from my house.  I told him to take his time but six weeks felt like a bit much.  It just felt like the longest.......breakup........ever.  Like for the past six weeks it was over but not over, you know?  So the point at which he was officially done moving was a big turning point for me.  

My house is mine again.  I didn't mind sharing it with him when he lived there...but sharing it with his stuff after he was gone, and having him come back twice a week to collect a few things at a time, it was hard.  I'm glad that part is over.

So the project of the day (week? month?), you know for the five minutes a day I'm neither working nor pulling weeds, is to rearrange things to fill in the holes.  I have walls that used to have pictures but now have only nails.  I have shelves that used to hold assorted memorabilia where now only holes in the dust remain.  I have one and a half empty closets!!!  I have neither the desire nor the money to acquire new things to fill in these holes, but the holes get on my nerves.  So I need to rearrange what I have to fill the empty spaces.

Oh yeah, I guess I should dust too.

This rearranging feels very symbolic of what I'm doing with my life in general.  When I got divorced I filled the hole that my marriage left with another relationship in fairly short order.  This time, as much as it feels like I'm filling the relationship hole with FREAKING YARDWORK....that's not really, entirely the case.  I'm expanding my relationship with The Boy...not always to his liking but it's tough to be him I guess.  And I'm hoping to expand my relationship with myself.  I need to spend a little time on me....working out, going for walks, spending time with friends, reading, becoming confident in home improvement projects and learning to ask for help when I need it, and even self-indulgent time-wasting things like sleeping in and watching TV in bed.  It feels like it's time to be a little nice to myself for a change.  The big work will be in making myself okay with that.  It's easy enough to sleep 'till 10 (I'm a pro at it, let me tell you).  The trick comes in not beating myself up for it for the rest of the day if it was something that I feel like I really needed to do.

Right now I feel like this being nice to myself stuff has to wait until after every last hole is filled and every last weed in every last flowerbed has died a slow and painful death, which would mean we'd be talking about mid-December-ish.  I'm working on convincing myself that every single thing doesn't have to be done before I can stop and take a breath.

So it's a balance between filing in the holes, killing the dispicable weeds, and stopping to breathe.  Balance is not something I'm especially good at.

But back to the holes...the holes need to be filled, though they don't have to be filled rightthisverysecond.  And I have to be very careful of what I fill them with.  Nature hates a vacuum, and it will tend to suck into it anything that happens to be passing by.  I need to be careful to fill my holes with good stuff, existing stuff.  Growing what I have to be bigger and better stuff.  And then, on down the road, should there be more stuff (pictures, knickknacks, a man); I will be more likely to gently and thoughtfully make room in my house and my life.

Today's lunch (filling my pie-hole, to stick to the theme) was a six inch Subway tuna sub on wheat.  Yum.

Sneaking Up To The Grownups Table

In 20 minutes I have to leave my cozy, cool little house to go out into the 90 degree heat to meet my boss and one of my coworkers at the hotel up the street where my boss is staying.  The three of us will then drive to the home of the owner of our company to have dinner with the nine top people in our organization (the owner and my boss being two of those nine) and the other six people who work in my office.

I'm nervous.  I've never been to the owner's house before.  I hear it's beautiful and it's right on the lake.  Six of the top nine are in from the east coast and, while I talk to all of them by phone on a regular basis, I still feel very much like a kid trying to sneak unnoticed up to claim a seat at the grownups table on Thanksgiving.

I wonder if I'll ever feel successful?

I am working in my career of choice...well OK never has a six year old said "Mommy, when I grow up I want to be a Payroll Manager"...but the fields of Princess, Ballerina, Country Singer and Freelance Writer are highly competitive so about ten years ago when I fell face first into a Payroll Manager job I made a very conscious decision to make a career out of it.  Prior to that I had job-surfed, wearing the hats of Secretary, Office Manager, Administrative Assistant and Accounting Assistant to name a few.  So when I found myself doing a job where I wasn't primarily responsible for making someone else look good, I decided to stick with it.

And when I lost that job six years later, I agressively searched for another one in the same field.

So there is some success in just the fact that I AM working in my field of choice.  I have worked in this field for a bit over a decade, I have earned professional certification.  I'm a CPP.  Certified Payroll Professional.  It's a real thing.  Honest.  Look it up.  I was hand picked by my former boss to be the first Payroll Manager in their growing company, and I have built a successful one-and-a-half person department from scratch.  I am responsible for making sure 1,700 people get a paycheck every two weeks.  This is no small feat.

And in spite of my ability to toot my own horn, and the fact that my boss makes me look at an amature at it, I still feel like everyone else is all grown up and successful and I'm...I don't know....lucky?  Faking it?  I don't know.  I'm asking!  Is this typical?  Do we all feel this way?

Five years ago I got divorced.  I bought my ex husband out of the house we had built together.  I have kept the house for my son, so that he can reach maturity in the only home he's ever known.  Stubbornly, to my own detrement at times (like now) but successfully I've done this.  But even to this day, when someone says I have a nice house, I think to myself that it's thanks to my ex husband.  It's MY house...I need to start just saying "thanks" and feel some pride in the fact that I am a single mother who owns a four bedroom colonial on an acre and a half of land.  I deal with the headache of it, and there IS plenty of headache that comes with it, I should allow myself to feel the pride.

But why do I do this?  Why do I have such a hard time seeing my successes, when it seems easy for other people to see them.

I need to work on that.  Meanwhile, though, it would be good if I wasn't late.

A View of my Bellybutton

Every summer, as part of the divorce agreement, The Boy spends four weeks with his dad.  We don't do this all in one stretch, I would miss him too much.  We split it up over the summer in ways that is convenient for us parents.  Week one was scheduled around a business trip I had planned, which I had to cancel in the wake of XBF's departure.  As difficult as that week was, and the empty house made it a bit scarier, it was a blessing that I didn't have to try to appear stronger than I really was, and The Boy didn't have to watch his mother disolve into a puddle of snot on a daily basis. 

Week two was last week.  A couple of friends expressed concern, wondering how I would deal with being alone.  I assured them that I would be fine.  I was too busy not to be.  And the early part of the week was a whirlwind of yardwork and post-funeral duties and catching up on work at the office that got behind due to the funeral planning.  It was nice to just be able to re-heat the food a friend had brought me because of my mom's passing, throw my single dish in the dishwasher and move on to the next task at hand without making conversation and being, you know, a Mom.

Toward the end of his stay with his dad I found some spare time, which was not necessarily a good thing.  I had been wishing for a breather, looking forward to sitting in my big comfy chair with my dog on my lap (I feel I've been such a neglectful, absent doggy mommy lately) and just watch some mindless TV.  I did all of that, but the momentary lull in the schedule allowed a few sharp pieces of reality to stab their way into my consciousness.  It was painful, and perhaps a bit soon, but they had to get in there one way or another, so maybe it's for the best.

During the more introspective times (I am, after all, an olympic level, grand champion naval-gazer) I found myself feeling.......adrift.  The best way to describe it is to recall an article I read years and years ago on the subject of rules.  The expert author assures us that children not only need rules, they WANT rules.  And to a child, life without rules feels similar to if you or I was to walk through a door, expecting to walk into a room, but instead found ourselves with no floor beneath us, no ceiling above, no walls surrounding us.  It would be a scary thing. 
That is how I was feeling, but the issue wasn't really lack of RULES.  I was LOVING the lack of rules, the ability to close my curtains and buy junk food and watch what I want on TV and use the overhead light in the living room instead of the lamps on the end tables and...well I could go on and on but sufficed to say that I was enjoying some freedom to do things that I wasn't exactly FORBIDDEN from doing, they just weren't worth the fight...and now I can have them and do them with no fight....those are rules I do not miss.

What I felt I was lacking, was a job.  I mean I have a J.O.B., a career actually, (and thank God for it on a daily basis) and heaven knows I have plenty to do with the oversized house and the loathsome yard that surrounds it, but if you look at all of the things that fill our days, and separate out the difficult, less than pleasurable parts...to me, those are all "jobs".  Everything from going to work to going to the bank to going to the grocery store.  Everything from maintaining the house to maintaining the yard to maintaining relationships.....and THAT is a job that I have lost.

And let me tell you folks, that was a JOB....wait...it was a 

J-O-B

...that doesn't quite cover it, but I don't know how to add flashing lights and dripping blood to the letters so you'll just have to use your imagination.

I have been consumed with trying to "make the relationship work".  And after a couple of years of banging my head against that brick wall...the sudden absence of that brick wall caused me to not only, quite unexpectedly but thankfully temporarily, fall on my face...but the sudden lack of BANG BANG BANGing has left a ringing in my ears that almost drowns out the silence.  I find myself sitting among the rubble and bricks, a halo of cartoon stars whirling around my head, the sound of tweeting birds in the background, and thinking "now what?"

Before I had to answer that question, The Boy came home.  And now I can focus on him.  In this parenting gig, it's a very slippery slope between not enough attention and too much.  Between neglect and smothering.  When SHOE THREE dropped I had to fight the screaming parental urge to lock him in his room and never let him out because I was convinced that anything bad that could happen to me WAS happening to me and I was TERRIFIED about his safety....certain that the next time he left the house a bolt of lightening would reach from the blue, clear summer sky and strike him down only because I love him so much. 

The Boy is sixteen years old.  To paraphrase a line from a movie that I can't quite put my finger on at the moment.....there's nothing a sixteen year old boy likes more than spending time with his Mom.  Ok...there's nothing he DOESN'T like more...and I do realize that.  But I'm trying to build a man out of a boy here and that is a JOB in itself.  And I feel fortunate to be able to more clearly focus on the task at hand, and to be able to do it in a way that I, with the input of his father, feel is correct without being told over and over and over again about how every single freeping thing I'm doing is wrong.  Another brick wall my head does not miss.

So this past week has been spent chauffering him to appointments and investigating home schooling (he's not interested) and working side by side in the yard and forcing him to come home from his friend's house long enough to share a meal with me and say "How was your day?".  Tonight I am sparing him from having to share food or oxygen with me.  I have yardwork to do and a friend who is willing to help me so he's off the hook.  But he WILL go to a movie with me this weekend, and we will help each other rearrange our bedrooms.  We will fight and he will drive me crazy and I will certainly return the favor. 

It will be awesome.

And then I will let him go have fun for a while.
And come Sunday afternoon week three with his dad will begin.  Hopefully I can spend the week accomplishing some things around the house and learning how to relax without trying to see too far into the future...or into my belly button.

Today's lunch:  Panera Asian Sesame Chicken Salad, whole grain baguette, flower cookie.  A work lunch which I dind't have to pay for.  Free food is always good.  And SO yummy.   The flower cookie is a seasonal thing.  It's your basic miraculously wonderful panera shortbread cookie, with frosting and sprinkles.  It is the proverbial unicorn farting rainbows and glitter. It's wonderful wrapped in scrumptious wrappe in oh em gee. You can't get better than that.  But when I first heard about it I thought it was a FLOUR cookie...and I was reminded of this joke.

Woman:  You don't pay any attention to me, you barely KNOW me.
Man:  Baloney.  I know plenty about you.
Woman:  Ok....tell me....what is my favorite flower???
Man:  Um.....Pillsbury??