Relationships Aren't Disposable

Several months ago a friend posted something to the effect of, "life takes many turns." It was a phrase I held onto when one of my online relationships fizzled.  I thought it was real until I realized I was being catfished.  Again.  My catfish history has lead to my 9 day series on Anatomy of a Catfish, and here is the first post in said series. It's not all roses but it's not just piss, either. I was again on Facebook today when another friend posted about unfriending and blocking people.  We take that for granted, don't we? With the superficial aspect of online friendships, we have the full ability to cut someone off and we can choose to not acknowledge their existence.  It's easy.  It's a button and a confirmation click and you don't have to see them and you can stop them from seeing you.  When my ex first left me and I felt abandoned and attacked by everyone that knew us both, I did lots of blocking.  I've since unblocked people.  Less freakouts on my part mean I'm more passive about the secret fan club I may or may not have.  Now there's a handful of blocked people and they're only men that didn't take my direct rejection as hint enough to stop asking me out.  (Please don't try to woo a woman by telling her she doesn't know what she wants when she tells you it's not you.)

I even fully ghosted a man once.  Months later he called me from a different number to ask why and it's not something I choose to do as easily.  It's human nature to need acknowledgement.  I knew a man that was big on ignoring people.  Maybe I still know him.  I don't know if you ever know anyone right now.  I'm a little jaded. I can admit it though. We were at a gas station once and another man walked up to his window to ask for money.  The person I knew ignored him.  The acknowledgement probably hurt more than the money that wasn't given.  It's important to humans to be seen.  It's who we are. There are selfies for that reason. Personally, I have a whole blog with stats and everything.

Where is the social aspect of social media? Don't get me wrong.  I love Facebook.  I give my Facebook feed more of my free time than I give my blog. I get to spy on friends and watch their lives without taking time out of my life to actually see them in person.  I can share inspiring videos and things that make me smile.  I can share snippets of my Mommy Moments that look like snark and dark humor.  I can wish someone a happy birthday and even though that may be my only interaction with them or their page until next year, I can make you believe that phrase I typed means I hold you close to me.  Because in that moment you do. Don't get me wrong, I love all of my friends and really do stalk them all day and night.  At the same time, I can't tell you the last time I drove to a home or restaurant or cafe for a moment to really engage with someone outside of my kids.  It's totally me.  As it is, I rarely feel like there are enough hours in the day to do the things that I want to do the most.

Life would be different without social media.  I would probably make a greater effort. I mean, all of the meaning we feel in life is a reflection of the relationships in our lives.  As much as I'm big on my loner moments, I'm still very affected by my relationships and the frustration I feel with the amount and quality of interactions I rarely make time for.  When I was younger I would call my grandmother or write her letters.  When she passed, I found that she kept all of them.

Today I can share a picture and tag my mom and she doesn't need me to make the same efforts.  My mom takes Facebook photos and prints them out.  At the same time, social selling has become so easy because of these relationships.  People I know and have trusted are a few finger strokes away.  There's a whole network of people I have met or know through a network or two that share certain visionary ideals and their pictures and thoughts give me a daily boost of hope.  My point is we all need to dig deeper for a more meaningful relational experience with our friends. With the fast pace of life as a mom, I understand how busy we can all get.

Yes, I just admitted I'm not as involved in relationships as I really want to be. There are friends I've known since I was a little girl and friends from high school that I would love to spend some time with.  There's a 3 month old I am dying to hold and sing to, but I haven't made the effort.  I see his adorable pictures and pick apart the ways he looks just like his Dad did when we were all young and loving our terrible choices for after school entertainment.

What about applying the superficiality of online relationships to real life? In school we were forced to see the same people over and over again.  If you started a relationship that ended, you might get stuck with that same person sitting behind you. Talking about the new person in their life.  Making you miss them and showing you all of the reasons why you really shouldn't. You grow up and sometimes there's a spark at work and you consider that career move a little faster than you might have.  Or, like me, you go through a nasty separation with kids and have to do a custody swap.  We were lucky enough to have a judge wise enough to make most of those swaps happen from the kid's schools.  If I'm lucky, I don't have to see him.  But at the same time, we still have to see each other at functions for the kids and on custody swaps during vacation times.  It's frustrating because at one point we were close.

That's the point of relationships, right? At one point you move from strangers with nothing in common to people that share interests.  You become people that share a history.  Post relationship we might be able to be friends instead of picking fights.  That rarely happens for me.  A relationship ends and either they still love me or hate me.  There's no in between that fades into friendship. But when we blocked each other there was no fuel to fight with. It was convenient.

The thing with relationships it that they don't just end.  Months and years later, you might hear a song or smell something that brings you right back to where you were when you remember a special memory.  The people we love or have loved will leave indelible marks on our hearts and it's okay to honor that.  I think it's okay to tell someone what they meant or mean to you, even if there is nothing reciprocated because there is too much hurt to allow something like that to land.  The beauty of love is it can be unconditional.  You can give it without expecting anything in return.  You can offer it, knowing that it may always be unrequited. Giving love without it being returned can be painful.  It helps to remind yourself that your expectation meant you weren't giving it unconditionally.  That expectation was the cost of the love you offered.

Relationships aren't meant to be convenient.  They aren't meant to be one sided either.  My late aunt once gave me the best marriage advice.  You give as much as you get.  That's part of the deal.  The relationships we have take effort and communication.  They need time and intentional connection.  With all that we have and all that it takes, and our individual needs to be seen, acknowledged and loved, is it really that important to cut someone out of your life?

Self Limitation: What is Stopping You is Often Just You

A Facebook friend posted a query: What if your glass ceiling is actually a mirror?

My favorite answers were:

1. Well then you see your limiting beliefs.

2. Then I guess you’d look up and see the only thing truly holding you back.

3. Discovering what you have not been willing to see . . . jump through the ceiling to go to the next floor of your possibilities and become unstoppable.

Yes, I know some intensely visionary beings of light and they live in possibilities that not everyone can imagine. I’m very grateful for the network of ideals that flow through my Facebook feed.

How often do we stop short of taking a risk because we can imagine the outcome? Usually that outcome isn’t in our favor.  I must acknowledge what I’m doing and stop it. My kids do it and I’m trying to teach them not to, but what I have done consistently is a more solid lesson than the possibilities of what we can create when I’m choosing to be intentional.  Being intentional is a choice that needs to be chosen moment to moment when habits are easier to fall into.

An example is when we go shopping and my kids already expect what I will say yes to and what is usually a no.  Anything food related that isn’t too full of sugar or caffeine is usually a yes.  Toys are usually a no, unless it’s one that is reasonably priced.  The rest depends on my budget and how much I want to put up with it.  It’s a mom thing.  We don’t always want the loud toy that requires batteries.  We sometimes prefer quiet time. My consistency means my kids are really hesitant to dream big and ask for what isn’t usually approved.  It’s not something I want to continue teaching them.  I want them to learn to ask for the bigger things.  You don’t know what the possibilities are until you ask and are answered.  Everything in life is negotiable.  You just have to know what to ask.

In the shopping example, my kids limit themselves by thinking about my expected response. They stop themselves before giving me the opportunity to answer and in life, it’s a practice many of us have perfected.  We limit ourselves, not knowing we are often our only limit.

Sheryl Sandberg wrote Lean In and in her examples, there were many times she encourages women to Lean In.  This means not accepting what has been and pushing for the new thing.  I highly suggest it.  Her prose is easily engaging and her examples relatable.  More than that, her career altering perspective shift is just what is needed for women in the workplace. Sandberg writes about the many times in a career that a woman is likely to not lean in.  Be it starting a career, or jumping into a conversation, they often limit themselves.  Don’t get me wrong.  The glass ceiling and financial disparity in the work place are real and influenced by gender.  That’s a norm all of us get to break together.  At the same time, she points out where women are responsible and offers the authority and power to regain control of how you craft your career with her honest advice.

It’s a practice for me to ask, “what story am I telling myself?”

My big goal for the end of the year is still to take my kids to Canada.  It’s Kid1’s dream and my goal.  I do not yet have the finances, and that is the first story I tell myself. It’s hard to not think of my present financial situation as the only one there is.  It’s hard to not convince myself that the only way to make the money happen is to do what I’ve always done, and that’s going to work and making money.  Earlier this summer I started selling whitening toothpaste.  It’s work, but it’s also sitting on my phone and playing on Facebook.  (You can try it too.  It’s less risky than slanging rocks on a street corner.) Last week I was in a minor car accident with a minor payout to go with it.  Money comes to you in different ways all the time.  Why do I usually believe I won’t have enough if I don’t have a job? Because I’m living in the story I tell myself, and not the possibilities that fall in my lap because they surprise me and I can’t count on their schedule, even if I can count on those opportunities arriving (because they always do). Always doing things one way doesn’t mean I have to keep doing so.  I get to try new tricks.  I get to let the possibilities play themselves out without falling to the limits of a past that may never repeat itself.

The next story I tell myself is about access.  First on my list is to get passports.  I get to fill out forms, wait in an office and pay for them. Once I do, I also have to get permission from their Dad.  There’s also transportation and lodging. The area that limits me the most is having to ask their Dad for permission.  This was something that Kid3 also believes is impossible.  The kids aren’t convinced their Dad would let them go.  I’m not convinced either, but living in possibilities means when the time comes, I get to ask him. I will not just assume I know the answer because in reality I’m only in my own head and not always sure of what my own thoughts are.

The last story I’ll go over for now is the story that it’s not my time.  If I have until the end of the year, I can push my goals, right? I can wait for the right job.  I can wait for the right body shape to wear that outfit.  I can wait until my kids are older.  But then I’m giving the world excuses that I need to put off living my life.  What is so important that I would put it before my desire to live the life I choose to live? Go get your life! No one else gets to live it but you. Putting your life on hold doesn’t serve anyone.  Where’s your urgency?

It’s like lying.  What is so important about someone else’s perception that you can’t stand in the integrity of your word? What is so important about someone else’s feelings that you would choose to invalidate who you are by lying? If you can’t tell the truth as you see it, can you see why you would devalue yourself so much as to make someone else’s perception of you more important than how you see yourself?

So what is your story?

What do you tell yourself and convince yourself of, based on a past that has nothing to do with the future you get to create? What limits do you put on yourself?  What limits do you allow others to put on you? Why do you put these limits on yourself and do you know you really don’t have to?

Go get your life.  We get two. The second starts the moment you decide you only get one, and you won’t get out of it alive.  That’s not how the game is played.  We all die, but there’s no reason to live a dead existence.

People Are Not Labels

I love watching a man run, and yes, that is living poetry, but we are not boiled down to a word or phrase.  I might think he's sexy or even delicious, but he's probably smart and has complex feelings too. Labels are for jars of canned fruit.  Labels are for pantry items and filing cabinets.  Labels are not for people. I read an article (maybe it was a blog post) about a mom talking to her kids after her daughter (in a bit of I-want-it-so-I’m-having-a-tantrum-until-I-get-it-and-hurt-you kinda way) told her mother that she was fat.  Her mom informed her daughter that we all have body fat, and we are not defined or identified by something we may have.

That was profound.

We are not identified by a part when we are whole.  Honestly, that’s a literary trope and I am not a synecdoche.  We are not literary phrases.  It was a terrific argument. I wish I had saved that link.

I am not fat but I love my relationship with my marshmallow fluff.  I have a family member with diabetes, but he's not only diabetic.  Labels like that are for medical professionals to understand how to treat you.  That doesn't mean you are identified by a term.

My sons are not autistic, though they are on the spectrum.

This is all about relearning language because the words we use to identify us, have a strong influence on our identity.

I know I've said this before somewhere, but it's worth repeating: Labels for disabilities are like labels used in gender studies.  It's a way to classify a person so other people that can't empathize can understand them.  Labels serve to identify other people by differences, excusing us from actively looking for similarities. My sons will live in their world the exact same way if they didn't have a label.  Labels are not for them, but for the people that don't understand them. We are more than a body or a mind. If I didn't look for ways to be different from others, I would look for ways that we are the same.  This is where prejudice starts.  

When children are looking for their first friendships, they look for things in common.  When they are older and start looking for alliances in their friendships, they look for differences.  This pattern doesn't stop unless you are intentional with stopping it.

We are not the sum of our debt or how extravagantly we live.  You are so much more than words used to define you when usually you’re still working out who you are for yourself.  Understanding who I am in this world and in my skin is a life long exploration. There is so much more that makes up who we are and affects how we show up in the world.

The funny thing about defining ourselves in life is that those definitions are meaningless in death.  We pour so much into a career or home.  We want the fancy cars and the designer clothes. No one will care about what you drove or how many bills were piling up.  They won’t care about what you wore or how you wore your hair.  They’ll care about the connection they had to you and how that void will be filled, or if it even needs to be. They’ll worry about how their life will go forward without being able to rely on you.  They’ll be upset that they took for granted the fact of your existence.

At the most connected point of your interaction, that is the part of you that matters in the world.  It's not when we're on our phones, swiping or scrolling past a post that is a superficial substitution for a relationship. It's when we are sharing who we are through stories of what we have been through.  It's about holding a hand or embracing someone in a hug that is meant to hold someone together.  It's in sharing the vision of your future and the vivid dreams of your legacy.

You are not the designer clothes you wear.

You can work hard to keep it high, but you are not your FICO score.

You are not a fancy job or the transportation that gets you there.

You are not the depression that visits and holds you down.

You are not the pain of your illness.

You are not the person you are dating, nor are you defined by the connection you have.

You are an amazing and unique person and self love is essential to happiness, but even then, you are who you decide to see yourself as.

You see it, don't you? It's the many ways you are a unique and amazing person with exceptional gifts that only you can offer the world.

My point is there is so much to who we are and the ability to laugh and grow that is within us flourishes the most when we connect with others.  Humanity thrives on relational connections. No individual word or the stigma it carries can define who you are.

Get Help Through Depression

I do collections.  What I’m doing for the company I work at is pretty much collecting payment for what most of the world sees as a luxury.  For the most part, I’m not harassing people that are trying to decide if paying me is going to cost them groceries for the next week.  But there was a call yesterday and it reminded me that I haven’t asked myself, “what’s my contribution?” in a while. I’m here to encourage you today.  My inspired moment yesterday looked like a poorly planned Facebook Live. I had the sun glaring behind me and forgot to turn off my Waze app that was taking me home.  There were lots of giggles but this is my follow up. Fewer giggles.  Same insane amounts of love for people I may never see.

I get it. Life can be overwhelming and difficult.  Bills pile up and it can be overwhelming.  Relationships can feel one sided or draining. Or they can end before you want them to. Things we hope for or expect can fail us and fall through.  It’s easy to get caught up in what we hoped for not being our reality and it can wear us down.  I can tell you to shift your perspective, but it’s not an easy thing to do and sometimes you have to shift it every couple of minutes.

Who are you?

I want to remind you that you are not your debt. You are not your job.  You are not your relationship.  When you are gone, no one will remember the details of what you did for a living, or how extravagantly you lived.  They’ll remember who you are.  So, who are you?

I’m a brave, courageous, heart-led leader.

I’m a mom who will do whatever it takes for my kids.

I am a woman capable of giving love and one day I will comfortably say I can receive it too. (Battle scars.)

My identity is not tied up in my circumstances.

I am not the jobs that come and go.

I am no longer an abandoned wife.  I’m here for me and I will not leave my side.

When we make regrettable choices in life, it’s so easy to take that moment and wear it as a punishing cloak of identity.  This is a choice you don’t have to make.

I loved being a student, so I’m asking you to take a moment to think of finishing school.  Once you graduate and are no longer a student that education is still able to serve you in knowledge as well as the habits that got you through it.  But you are no longer a student.

It’s like looking at that miniskirt I used to wear in high school.  I have the same legs, but my belly has held enough life to stretch it in ways that leave designers stumped (there really should be a market for c-section belly overhangs that just need a comfy belly bra).  It might look like it could fit, but it really doesn’t and I see it every time I try.  While it’s in my hands and not on my body, I’m imagining what could be, unable to release what doesn’t fit for the yoga pants that do.  Let it go.

You are not alone.

I understand depression.  I understand the inability to see beyond an immediate circumstance that has made me feel worthless.

My first real suicide attempt was when I was 14.  I had to have my stomach pumped and stayed in the hospital for about a week with most of that time in Intensive Care.  This was followed up in therapy. There were several other serious attempts, but I couldn’t give you a number.  I got help though.  I’ve had a therapist through the first event, the baby blues in 2001 and when my husband left me in 2015. I wasn’t counting the lows because it was a series of days that were too dark to see through. The most recent was probably around 2014.  My depression was intense but I got help in the form of a prescription that time.  The point is, I couldn’t handle things on my own and I got help.  Repeatedly.

Get help.

All I can say is I’m here today because I searched for help and didn’t stop searching until I felt I was safe.

I was never the type to tell people I wanted to kill myself.  Not in anger or as a threat. My personality is much too implosive for that.

I’m very self-aware and have always been great at torturing myself with that pain in silence.  But it has also forced me to advocate for myself in getting help.

When I started visualizing self-harm, I asked for help.

When I tried to imagine what death would do to my body, I asked for help.

When I sat alone in the dark, unable to get out of bed, I asked for help.

When insomnia was controlling my life, I asked for help.

When I couldn’t eat anything, or couldn’t’ stop myself from eating everything, I asked for help.

When I started cancelling plans with friends because I didn’t plan to be around, I asked for help.

When I held pills or something sharp in my hand, and couldn’t see myself getting past the next hour, I asked for help.

When my smile was painfully fake but no one could tell, I asked for help.

When I see that same smile on someone else’s face, I now offer help.

You will get through the next minute, hour, day.

You will learn to help yourself through hard days.

I sing out loud.  I dance or walk (endorphins are amazing). I get lots of sunshine for Vitamin D. I write, and when I feel the people I reach out to are making things worse, I step back and know that self-care is not selfish. And I catch a sunset.  Something about nature reminds me that I am tiny and as small as I am, my problems are smaller and just as the world does its thing without me, I don’t need to feel responsible for the world.

You’re not a tree.  You don’t need to stay where you are.  If you hate your job, get another.  If a relationship isn’t working, end it.  You don’t need to put a time goal on your life.  There’s no need for “I’ll give it another couple of months.” Go get your life.  Decide what you want to change or keep and work for it.  Don’t settle for the same circumstances and hope time will fix things.  If it’s meant to be done, you must get it done.  No one can live this life for you.  No one is to blame but you if you choose to settle in misery.

Again, get help.

Ask for help from your doctor.  They have pills and facilities that are made to help you when it’s too much.

Ask for help from your pastor or church.  There are religions built around helping others. Good stuff, really.

Ask for help from a therapist.  They won’t fix you.  They’ll help you learn to shift your perspective, address what is holding you back and break through to the next phase of your healing.

Ask for help from family and friends.  I can’t remember a time I tried to kill myself with an audience.  Don’t be alone if you don’t feel safe.

Know that saving your life is an inside job that no one can do but yourself.

Know that there is no shame in what you feel.

I won’t say you’re wrong in what you feel.

I won’t say you need to help me feel better about what you are going through.

I won’t guilt you for feeling bad.

It's okay to feel what you do.

If you’re hurting enough to want to hurt yourself or others, you are hurting enough to need support.

Ask for the support you need.  Know you are worthy of a happy and fulfilling life.  Know that depression isn’t a life sentence and there are always options and answers to questions we don’t always know to ask.  Wait and the question will present itself. Help comes when you look for it because it never looks the way we expect it to.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800) 273-8255

Everything Happens the Way It's Supposed to and It Isn't Always About You

A couple of weeks ago I was getting a haircut.  I loved the way his work made me feel. I wanted a trim and a dye job.  I have a bit of hair at the nape of my neck bleached, then dyed purple. I wanted it near work in Santa Monica to help me take my time getting home so I could avoid traffic. I found a hairdresser who uses gentle products and was very social.  I loved my time in his chair. While he worked and the shop began to close, his cleaning man came in to scrub floors and make the place smell chemically clean and sanitized. We chatted about his birthday weekend plans apart from his twin sister.  We chatted about the twins I carried long enough to love. Just as my hair was washed out, a woman came into the shop.

The hairdresser was supporting her with a hug and the benefits of friendship.  She wore a cute black dress that was perfect for work and made me jealous of it until I remembered I rarely sit like a lady in a dress.  She seemed to be holding back with so much pain and emotion.  I asked if she had just endured a long day and my moment of compassion opened her up just enough to be authentic in the pain she felt.

This woman was going through a divorce with a man still intent on making her suffer even though they were no longer together, and she was faced with starting over.  New city, new job, new lower credit score (divorce will do that) and no idea how she was going to get through it. I've been there and I'm certain several of my readers have as well.

I gave her encouragement like I got so many times from people who had been divorced.  I told her she was stronger than she knew.  I was told the same thing repeatedly and it was only in the months after I found a new normal that I could see it was true.  I told her there were good times and bad times.  Remember the bad, but cling to the good.  I told her that I acknowledged her for not giving up and getting this job for herself.  She insisted the job was for others and their expectations of her, but I pointed out she was doing it for herself.  I knew because she wasn't in bed, hiding and quitting life.

The cleaning man stopped to encourage her as well.  He was a man that got to start over after nearly 40 years and and it wasn't his first choice either.  He also eventually found freedom in starting life over.

What are the odds that I would be in the right time at the right place with another stranger sharing a similar story of getting through the end of a marriage with a woman who needed to borrow our strength?  We were exactly where we needed to be when we needed to be there.

There was another hair appointment that was supposed to be worked in tandem with mine.  She had cancelled and had she been there, we might not have had that same cradle of connection and care that we were able to offer her. Had I decided to go straight home or wait for the weekend to go to a salon near my home, I would have missed her.  We are right where we need to be, when we need to be there, but sometimes we're meant to be present for someone else.  It's not always about me, and I get to see how I might help others.  That is a gift.  It is a special honor.

I told her to hold onto that moment.  It was one of the good ones where she openly cried with two strangers and she was met with love and compassion.  One day what we gave her will be needed by someone else. I'm certain she will give and also receive in the act of giving the way I did.

There is a right time and place for everything.  There's a whole song and bible verse on it if you don't believe me.  The thing is you get to look at the moment you are in and see what the purpose is.  Maybe you're there and the reason is you're meant to support someone else.

Do You Even Know Who You Are?

Juliet:"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

I met a woman today and her name is Sarah. Immediately the name conjured feelings of joy and warmth because my niece shares that name. I think of how closely she resembles me when I was younger, and I’m tickled by the looks she gets to look forward to. I hope she finds as much pleasure in her reflection and body that I do. I think of her quiet and snark. I think of her food joy (anything involving potatoes) and I think of her defiance as a little girl looking me in the face as she poured her dark purple grape juice on my cream colored couch. Her name means so much to me that this woman was automatically shaded in relational love.

It’s like a person that has a first, and then second language as my mom once described it. I don’t actually speak any other languages. Not really. My mom learned English in her late teens after speaking Thai first. She once explained that when she hears a conversation in English, she first translates it into Thai, and then her answer in Thai is translated to English and then spoken. It amazes me the way she thinks. My mom is my hero in so many ways, and her intelligence is the greatest source of my admiration. When I hear a person struggle with English, I think of how amazed I am that they can do what she does.

When this new Sarah introduced herself, I had this inspired moment that probably made me look a little crazy. I asked her what “Sarah” means to her. This was after I explained what it means to me, including the bit about Sarah being the biblical mother of many nations and the more intimate idea of it being about my Sarah Barracuda. She told me about Sally being a nickname for Sarah and a song that goes with it that I have already forgotten. But the name and now the face are cemented for me, and shadowed in kindness that was borrowed from a beloved niece.

The greatest part of that conversation was the idea of “who are you?” that I hit her with. I have moments when I am filled with doubt and fear. These moments look like I’m unable to enjoy the present as I’m focused intently on my future. How are my bills getting paid and what has priority? In these moments when I realize the physical toll of my stress, I remember who I am committed to being to my sons.

I am a brave, courageous, heart led leader. I am a daughter and a mother. I’m an estranged wife going through a divorce and (scandal alert) a girlfriend who feels we’ve both been bashed by the lucky stick. I am not an artist and while I love accounting and finance, numbers are not my friends, but I’m great at stringing words together. I embrace the fact that I’m aging because I love this bolt of lightning time has shaped me into. I’m a bit full of marshmallow fluff and it keeps me warm and curvy. I love what I look like. Mainly I’m a woman capable of love and willing to share my love.

It doesn’t matter what I’m called or how my name is said. You could spit it with venom or your soft lips could whisper it as a caress of sound. Your lips could kiss out the sound as an expression of pleasure or joy.

I know who I am, but who are you, and does your name really matter if you don’t know what it means to you to be who you are? I ask again, who are you?

Kindness Creates Change So Be Kind

I was nearly in a car accident getting off the freeway this morning.  It was totally my fault.  It wasn’t the low gas in my tank and guessing if I could keep getting closer to work before stopping or would my gamble make me really, really late.  It wasn’t looking at my GPS while on a call to deal with the insurance company for my cracked phone.  It wasn’t even being stressed that my son fights going to school with me because he feels safer fighting me than the bullies making his school day hard (that was my first call).  I just didn’t see the car hanging out in my blind spot until I heard his horn and saw his double fisted single finger salutes in my honor.  He was angry. What do you do when you’ve been flipped off? Do you retaliate? Do you pretend nothing happened and avoid eye contact? Do you flee as quickly as possible?

Not if you’re me.

I asked the woman on the phone with me to wait just a moment and as he pulled up near me, I put my window down and apologized for not seeing him.  It was the truth.  I could have really ruined my day and hurt the car that has been my trusted ally in adventure for the past year.  The rage I inspired told me he was also not looking forward to getting to experience the upheaval in an accident.  Hands raised, window rolled down (do they roll anymore, or is that my old showing?) . . . I said, “I’m so sorry.  I just didn’t see you.”  He said it was okay and apologized for his burst of anger.  I got back on the call and the woman apologized and tried to rush off, and I assured her I was fine, had a moment of trying to merge into someone hanging out in my blind spot and had a fairly uneventful commute for the rest of the hour on the road.

Kindness and unwillingness to return his anger with my own made my morning flow smoothly.  I got to the office after slaying a few dragons and was able to flow into my next task. You know, the ones I actually get paid for.

After a full shift at work and a long commute home, I was standing in line at the grocery store with an elderly man just behind me.  He had rough wrinkles around the corners of his eyes.  They were the kind that stood proudly as if leathered in the sun and toughened with age.  His eyes were a soft and almost faded blue and he had a few stories to share.  He told me about a story a college professor told him over 50 years ago.  It brought humor and light to a political situation that has made me angry and conjured passionate tears in the last few executive orders.  What he gave me in kindness I returned with an open ear and a smile that was an extension of my kindness.  So much of the exhaustion from traffic that settled in my shoulders left as I was packing groceries into my car.

This weekend my boyfriend grabbed my clean laundry from the dryer.  The shock faded as I watched him step out in the rain and I walked back to my bedroom as quickly as I could and began to cry.  It was a heavy cry with shoulders shaking and heart aching because it was the sweetest offer I didn’t expect.  I was able to stay inside and out of the rain while the man that seems to adore me went out in the rain to grab my laundry so I would have clean socks to wear.  I tried to get the crying under control but he reads me well enough that I couldn’t hide how overwhelmed I was at his kindness.  He did something similar with a broken dish he cleaned up before I could reach down to take care of it.  He did it again in clearing dinner dishes so I could go mother my boys.  It’s his kindness that melts the ice around me while his ability to tell me what to do without making me angry has my complete attention.  Without his kindness, there would be nothing. He would tell me to sit in the corner booth while he got our food and I would walk out.  Instead it's sexy that he's so commanding and kind to me.

So much of the world we live in has an expectation for an exchange.  We give because we expect something in return.  We offer because we know that might mean we’ll be gifted in return.  What happens when your only expectation is a moment of kind engagement? I write this and I know when I get home I’ll have to talk to my son about self-defense.  Kindness doesn’t always work, but I would never want him to be a victim and there’s a balance we get to find between confidence and cockiness, self-defense and violent aggression.  It’s one of those lessons I don’t want to have to teach but it’s a lesson we all draw on.

In the policies changing and pulling human kindness out of a nation, we’re left with the ability to stand in unity, petition in solidarity and write unceasingly until we see the change that puts kindness and humanity back into the fabric of our nation and the breathing spaces of our world.  We can’t survive by looking out only for ourselves and allowing the strongest to win.  We win by ensuring we are lead to work on the ideals of equity and not the blind belief of equality.  It means we give each other what we each need to succeed rather than just treating everyone the same.  We acknowledge and honor our differences and celebrate our similarities.  We breathe as a nation based in love and kindness and we create a world with intention.

Self Help Starts With Focusing Inside of You

Enrollment is typically a word used to describe your commitment to take classes that will end in an accomplishment.  This is why we enroll our kids in kindergarten and later we get to watch them enroll themselves in their first college class.  What I want to offer is more than selling an idea to you.  It's about getting you to embody a lifestyle, and that's the cream filled treat I'm after right now. I want to enroll you in living epically. I did another Facebook Live video.  My goal is to post one a week.  It allows me to get comfortable with seeing myself on camera.  The video cut out because of a weak signal, but I stuck with it. [facebook url="https://www.facebook.com/yessica.maher/videos/10209199150269611/" /] I see my blog as free therapy for me, and I've been asked if I see the value I give others.  I don't always.  Sometimes, I get encouragement from people that follow along with my shenanigans and their ability to make a deeper connection that resonates with their experience helps me feel like I am helping, but it's not my goal to be a self-help guru.

I don't read a lot of self help books, and I rarely get lost in movies or television anymore.  I spent so long escaping my reality into someone else's imagination that I now choose to face my life head on.  There's no escaping into fiction. There's no checking out in a vicarious adrenaline rush or a romance that will warp my ideas of deep and meaningful love.  I face my life and when I recognize a shortfall, I get to take notice and make changes.

I mean sure, I read inspirational bits in small doses (and mainly from Pinterest lately).  Yes, I took the Basic and Advanced leadership courses. What I get from it all is what I take and internalize.  It's not enough to ask how to live a meaningful life, if I can't internalize that system of values. Otherwise, I'd remain on the eternal search for the next person who can tell me what to do. To live epicly when you weren't before means you get to do what you have never done before.  It can be hard, but nothing magical happens when you're still in your comfort zone.

It helps to be as introspective as I am.  I look at every detail and analyze meaning in everything.  I want to know what the general thought is and then see how it applies to me uniquely. It's who I am, but I look for it in others. If I have a conversation with a man that can take new information, blend it with what he already knows, and come up with a new perspective or ideal, rather than spitting out the old, separate from the new, he has my attention in all the right ways.  Intelligence it hot.

It's not enough to tell people that the life I get to live is amazing.  It's not enough to say anyone can join me, or you should follow in my footsteps.  I know what it means to live authentically in who I choose to be.  I know how amazing it feels.  What I want for those I love is for them to know and understand that they have the potential to live as they want to. They can do what I do because it's a choice that is their possibility.  The hardest part isn't when you set out on your journey.  It's  that moment when you decide to take control of who you are and what that looks like.

For me, this road has been solitary.  I have a hard time accepting dates I don't want. Why spend my time in a way that doesn't excite me? I have many people say they want to join me, but it's beyond their comfort and I often end up alone.  I invited my family to join me on Sunday and they all chose to stay closer to home because it was a rainy day in Los Angeles.  I went out with an umbrella, but didn't see any rain at all because serendipity is on my side.  (That post is coming soon.) I have a great friend give me the "SWSWSWSW" I've been living by.

Some Will.

Some Won't

So What?

Someone's Waiting.

I'm not waiting for anything, and that is my authenticity.  You get to decide what yours is.  How epic is that? I can't sell you on how I choose to live, but I can enroll you in the idea that it's always shifting and growing in ways I can control.  I can show you that I'm always learning with each day, experience and connection.  You get to do that as well.

What's Your Contribution?

A few weeks ago I showed up for a friend.  She's a super talented actor and she had produced, directed, and put her mark all over her Unsupervised Sketch Show at Bar Lubitsch in West Hollywood.  She gave me a solid block of laughter on a night I really needed it. We all have moments when we see something we really want, and then we're blindsided by the other side that we tried to refuse to see.  We're smacked with a painful and dirty reality.  But that night she helped me laugh.  When the show was over, she gave me a hug to hold me up and together and I woke up the next day feeling like this wasn't a funk I wanted to stay in.  I woke up determined to shake that feeling.  I stood in front of my bedroom mirror and outloud said to myself, "what is your contribution? You don't get to be a taker, stuck in your head and wallowing in disappointment.  What are you going to contribute?"

I got to work and did a first live stream that was about contributing, and not about being stuck in my head.  This moment came on Veteran's Day and the weight of the remembrance I was in was profound.  This came just after President Elect Trump won the election.

[facebook url="https://www.facebook.com/yessica.maher/videos/10209057704573557/" /] The point for me was it's not enough to sit in my funk.  How could I be the person I wanted to be if I wasn't actively contributing to the world around me?

Last night I was at Blind Dragon Karaoke but I was an hour late because I got to show up for a stranger in Roku.  Yeah, I'm embracing childcare so I can go clubbing on a Monday night like I don't have a full shift the next morning. I could complain about sitting in a bar when my friends were in another venue all together, but I believe everything happens the way it's supposed to.  We cross paths with people all the time and it was a moment for me to give to her.

She was kind in leaning in to tell me that I'm beautiful.  She was too.  She was a tall leggy blonde and going through her own moment of disappointment.  I encouraged her the way I would encourage myself.  A few years ago I would have been anxious about missing out on what I had planned to do, but I felt like I was where I needed to be.  By the time I left, she was on her way to being just fine.  I was able to enjoy my friends for a while.  I sang (badly) to a few songs (and had an epic time of it). I checked back in with her on my way home and she was fine.  I headed home and was in bed by 12:15 and I felt like it was a terrific night.  I felt like I had given of myself in authenticity.

My goal as a person is to be brave, in spite of fear.  Courageous in spite of physical discomfort.  Heart led, so my needs are never greater than those of the whole . . . While not becoming a martyr because I can't contribute if I've sacrificed myself.

Sometimes showing up just means you arrive in the authentic space you occupy. I was exhausted yesterday, but determined to get a sitter and show up for birthday celebrations for people I know and love. I showed up in exhaustion.  I showed up in transparency.  I showed up with an open willingness to take what came as a gift offered to me and a gift in which I get to give of myself.  I was met in a room full o f love and joy.

What do you contribute outside of what you feel? It's so easy to get stuck in your head with the things said to you or the things you can't quite comprehend.  It's easy to look at what you are used to and disregard or dislike anything that is foreign.

An easy way to contribute outside of yourself is to reach outside of yourself.  Sometimes giving is as simple as giving a smile, or a hug.  You don't have to fake a feeling you don't feel, because being open in vulnerability allows others to reach into something they feel and offer empathy.  You get to receive that. Sometimes there's a disconnect and you aren't met when you reach out, but that's okay too.  You get to continue practicing living with your heart outside of yourself where it can do the most work in creating deeper connections with your world, removing biases and fear. You get to be your authentic self and transform the prejudices against your exterior from a position of the authority of your birthright.

Reinventing Yourself

I watched a beautiful friend blossom in a few short months, and this transformation is one that inspires me.  We met at the first leadership class I took in July.  I had just started a new job.  I was still going stir crazy with way too much down time at work to make me happy. I’m still getting on my feet as a single mom and near 40-year-old starting on a new career.  This young woman was a petite powerhouse.  I mean, she looked solid and muscular.  She was beautiful.  And she was nervous about the company we were in.  The class I took was a privilege. I'm fully aware of the gift I was afforded. At the time I was stll skeptical about the class.  The way things fell into place put us in a room with actors, lawyers, doctors, business owners, nurses, news anchors . . . It was a mosh pit of success. I was an odd one out, but that is who I embrace on most days.  She was lost. We were standing outside of the room on the way in from a break and she told me she didn’t know if she belonged there, she was only a scientist. Seriously.

I remember thinking how amazing it was that she was a scientist.  I dropped my geology major because it was too hard for me to do it well.  Literature was easy for me.  I was frustrated that with my education in Los Angeles, I couldn’t get a better job because of my lack of paid experience and she was feeling unimportant because she was a scientist.  I got past my shock and told her that she was a badass.  I gave her a minor glimpse of the amazing I saw in her. Fast forward to last night when I showed up for her graduation from the third leadership class, and she embodied all I saw in her when I first met her.  She was no longer ashamed to be "just a scientist," but has already set things in motion for medical school.  She is fierce and the transformation in her life is encouragement.  Being able to see her grow the way she has in such a short time, and for me to be inspired by that is her feedback.

On my lunch today, I shared a Facebook live stream because I choose to get comfortable with speaking in front of a camera.  I used to be such a ham and lately I'm more like chicken. [facebook url="https://www.facebook.com/yessica.maher/videos/10209140257437327/" /]

I’m a mom that would have given every single breath, vision and dream for my family, at a radical personal cost because this is what I thought motherhood meant.

My parents always did what was necessary.  They worked, they were present.  To this day, I've never seen either of my parents drunk or high.  They embody sacrifice and putting their children first. The last almost 16 years has taught me that being a sacrifice to my family doesn't serve any of us.  I believe I would do what I can to be the mom and example I need to be for my kids, but that means learning to balance self care with caring for them so I can continue to care for them.

Just this weekend, my son wanted beef jerky.  I had passed on that bag for myself just the week prior.  It looked good, but I was being frugal and decided I didn’t need it.  Kid2 asked and before he could finish his sentence I had already approved. I debated and denied myself, but offered it freely to my child.  I’m not doing anyone any favors by showing my family I don’t matter.  I’ve done it long enough.  I have been getting a sitter to show up for me, so I could show up for friends lately, and soon I’ll be getting a sitter to show up for me, so I can show up for me. I'm working on fighting for every choice like I matter because I do.

I get to make space for my own joys and pleasures along what I do when my kids are with me and when they are away.  I don’t need to be a martyr.  I can make sure my kids have what they need and celebrate with friends because that’s the point of a sitter.  I don’t need my time to become secondary to the idea that my time is only valuable in the context of a date night with their Dad.  Grocery shopping or a Target run used to be my ideal space for “me time” because I had no idea there was more to life than being a mom and a wife.  My enjoyment of my life is just as important as theirs is.  It’s a valuable gift that they would see that I am not secondary or sacrificial to my family. I don't need to stay home with the kids and make space for someone else's dreams and hobbies. Happy wife, happy life takes on new meaning when I’m in charge of my own happiness.

I am in the process of a divorce from a marriage that has lasted 42% of my life.

I get to decide what being single means.  I get to figure out what I like to do and go do it.  This usually looks like hiking and museums with some really great food thrown in and watching live performances in Santa Monica. This looks like those incredible hugs from that really hot guy with washboard abs that managed to convince me my curves and softness are sexy and that I’m beautiful. Or it’s coffee with that one man who never skipped leg day from Uruguay that said my name in a way I can’t copy.  He made me laugh and that was enough. It's late night texting that means I don't go to bed until 4 in the morning with the bald man with soft crinkles for laugh lines and a deep, penetrating voice that tickles unexposed fantasies, and that's okay because when I wake up at 6:30, he's still the one on my mind. It means spending the night out alone because dating myself never disappoints me.

I get to learn how to budget my finances.  I get to prioritize purchases that I value.  I can buy a game for my kids, or budget and plan for school pictures or jewelry if it sounds like something I would like.  I don’t need permission or to worry about picking a fight.  There is no more fighting or my passive aggression.

I get to decide how I want to raise my kids when we’re in my home.  I get to let them test their boundaries without feeling like I’m coddling and overbearing because someone else thinks I need to be. I get to teach them to cook and test their independence in doing so when they're ready.

I’m starting a career from spending most of my adult life as a stay at home mom.

I love my job, but I get to take my time figuring out what my career should look like, and being picky about my next job.  This morning that meant I turned an hour long interview into 8 minutes, because I knew they couldn’t offer the work environment I thrive in. I had no reason to waste another second of my time impressing them when they can't offer what I want.  In dating, it's text messages that look like this:

"As beautiful as you are, it feels unfair to test out the fact that I know it won't work.  We want different things and as much as I might enjoy your company in the short term, you aren't the one for me.  I hope you find who you're looking for."

I get to figure out what brings value to my work and what solidifies my work ethic.  I can say yes.  I can say no. I'm in a position to ask for what I want and there's nothing forcing me to stay in the present aside from the fact that it's what I have been doing.  I'm not happy with a portion of something, so I'm not happy with the whole and I don't need to sit and complain because I get to change things.

This means you get to reinvent myself.

If you find the people you surround yourself drain rather than energize you, it's time to create space for yourself.  You don't have to apologize for taking care of yourself.

If you don't like how superficial your connections are, you get to reach out in vulnerability and accept support and encouragement with genuine connection.

If you don't like your job, look for a new one.

If you don't like what your bank account looks like, see where you can improve things.  Is your bank offering cash back or an annual percentage yield? Are you pinching every penny? What are you prioritizing and is that serving you or costing you more?

If you don't like what you look like, change it.  Get a haircut.  Start exercising slowly enough that it isn't a struggle to increase what you started with.  Change your diet.

You are in control of your life.  If it doesn't look the way you want it to, the only one that can change it is you.  You are your only road block and your only motivation and the idea that you keep doing the same things because it works is a fallacy because if you are unhappy, it's not working.

If you feel fear, doubt, or stress, you should know you created it.  It's in your head, can't be measured or removed by anyone other than you, and it only hurts you when you allow it to manifest physically in your body.

Live the life you want by choosing better.  Even if it's one small step in the right direction each day, it's better than sitting in pain, complaining that you aren't living epicly.

The Point of Labels on People is Pointless

The thing about having special needs or a different gender identity or sexuality is that you will always be who you are.  Labels that box you into a definition are for the people that aren't able to see you as you are.  They need to define you. We all do it.  We see someone we like and start looking for the things we share in common.  We meet someone we don't like and start stacking differences to build a case.  If we removed these labels, and learned to look for commonalities instead of differences, we could meet everyone where they are, without needing to box them in and create distance.  They become people instead of labels.  This could apply to political parties, race, religion or diet.

I was hiking with a group through Griffith Park but it wasn't all heavy discussion.

We talked about pregnancy changing my sense of smell so now I'm part canine.  We talked about sweating as a teenager, and how your body changes and reeks after you give birth.

We talked about cinnamon flavored toothpicks, and pink bathrooms and toilet paper.  Of course, this was met with, "they used to do that back then?" Yes, I tucked my old back in.

We talked about my singing out loud and a friend told me she loves my voice.  I assured her that changes depending on how loud the music I'm singing with is.

Mainly we talked.  We walked up a mountain.  We talked.  We laughed.  We took pictures. And I connected.  It was a good morning.

Have You Thanked A Vet?

I have freedoms I take for granted and liberties that other countries are denied and I owe them to our military. Our country has been fighting or occupying other countries pretty consistently since the early 90's.  Many of us know or have lost someone that volunteered to do so much, and I want to thank them. My Dad is an Army combat vet as was his father and his father before him. My step Dad got his honorable discharge from the Air Force and I could but won’t honor the many men and women in my family and life that have served this country that I get to call home.

I need to honor and think of the men and women that come back changed. They're asked to do what most of us can never imagine. They risk their lives and know that their faith is their only safety. They endure so much fear, discomfort and loneliness and name it duty. Soldiers are made of much more than I could ever be.

My Dad's brain protects him as it did during war by not allowing him to remember the names of those he meets. He spent long enough in a war zone to not want to remember. I learned early on not to surprise him to wake him. The nightmares he lived still plague him as if the war were yesterday instead of 1967 and because of this, his fists are up before he is when startled out of sleep. Even a holiday like today is painful for a person who has survived so much while so many around him did not.

The images of war can easily plague a person into seeing it all happen at home and to those they love. Dad always has a plan for his family for the war he sees in Los Angeles.

Today I am happy to say "thank you" to those that have given so much for the freedoms I have. I can't think of a holiday that moves me so deeply every year. I don't house hop or spend the day in the kitchen. I quietly remember those I love and what the front lines of freedom have left with them and those that love them. Most years I do this from home, but today from work. My sense of motherly duty dictates I do whatever it takes for my boys.

I thank you for volunteering. I thank you for spending your first time away from home at boot camp. I thank you for learning how to take orders and learn to safely use your weapons. I thank you for being a role model and lending a hand to those you may not know and may not like. I thank you for embracing your job through the loss of your hearing or limbs and I appreciate your willingness to march back to those front lines with your Purple Heart. I thank you for the legacy you leave behind. I thank you for the living legacy of gratitude for our military that I get to embody and pass on to my sons.

I thank your military families. I thank the spouses that keep your family together as a single parent until you return. I thank your spouses for easing you back into family life until your next deployment. And I thank you for spending your holidays with your co-workers so I can be with my family, oblivious to your sacrifice.

A generation of children now know what it is to have a parent, aunt or uncle, grandparent or family friend go to another place, and maybe never make it home. Maybe it's not a lost life, but a limb or eyesight or hearing. Either way, they are changed by more than the physical.

So many young people give up their innocence for duty and honor, and today is a time to remember to give them our gratitude. For me, I feel a sense of warmth towards anyone in uniform, because I know that there is so much that I get to thank them for every day of my life.

Did you thank your Veterans today? You might see one with ink carved flesh to remind them of something they’ll never forget.  They may be wearing a hat or a patch because they find other vets and they connect with a history that the rest of us can never understand.

Buy them a drink at your local bar, but make sure you give them that look in the face that says, “I see you.  You matter to me.  I honor you and would love to support you.”  Offer to cover the cost of a meal at a restaurant or their coffee behind you at Starbucks.  (This absolutely applies to our Police Force as well.)

You get to be the change, as do I.

How You Show Up Matters More Than Who You Say You Are

  We call our loved ones special terms of endearment and it makes them special.

My kids have been:

Munchies, Munchkins, Kidlets, Punk, Punky, Punk Butt, Pumpkin (Always depends on how I react to their normal.) Leprechaun, Snuggle bug . . .

I've called exes Sweetie, Love, Babe, and Honeybee.

My sisters have always called me Yessie, but I usually introduce myself as Yessica.  I respond to Mom too.

I like birth names.  I've met plenty of people that define their identity and shift a name to shift the perspective they want to be seen as, but I prefer birth names and try to use them at every opportunity.

When I was younger and my neighbors were from Diamond Street, I'd walk with them to their  "neighborhood" (layers of irony define gang life, who knew?).  They went by their placa, but I always called then names given by their mom.  We'd walk to Bixel where he was slanging rocks with his homies, and I was calling them Jorge and Juan instead of Trusty and Ghost.  I never called my ex by the names he created because I always see who I interpret, and never who they want to portray.

For me it's about intimacy.  When I see a person . . . when I truly look at them, I choose to see past what they say.  It's part of that overthinking superpower.

I see a man that chooses to shave his head, and I wonder if it's because his hairline was receding or if he was going gray.  I wonder if he knows how hot his salt and peppered hair is to me.

I see a man that surrounds himself with toys and things, and wonder if he's bored when he's alone because when we talk, he isn't as nearly fascinated with himself as I am with him.  I wonder if he sees his value the way I do because if the conversation has lasted more than 10 minutes, and I'm saying more than he is instead of one or two words or a sentence here and there, I'm digging the way he makes me feel.  I wonder if he sees his value in what he has and what he's done. Things that never matter when we're apart and all I have are memories.

I see a woman that walks proudly and I wonder if she is in a blissful moment or putting a strong face forward because that's what we do to avoid street harassment.

I see my son with his excitement going over every single detail of something he saw or experienced, and I listen fully and remember details to return because it's not the day he wants me to remember but the fact that he is mine and I love him is something he needs to be reminded of. For a while he insisted he was "Super A Plus."  He was humored.

When I was pregnant with my children, I put so much hope into their lives and it showed up as what I would call them when they were born.  I wanted their names to mean something.  Naming a child is providing a legacy to grow into.  We named our firstborn after two of our best friends growing up.  Our second child's middle name is after his Dad.  Our third son's middle name is after a missed grandfather and a crazy uncle that saw me when I was at my broken and rebellious age.  He was my anchor.  We honored our family in our progeny.  I spent time thinking of my children and their names and who they would become around those names. Okay, so Kid2 and Kid3 were named because I had an obsession with Irish names.

My name was never my favorite.  It's odd.  My Dad was studying Hebrew.  In honor of the alphabet, he named me Yessica instead of Jessica because there isn't a "J" sound in Hebrew.  There is now because language evolves.  He refers to my name as "God's gift." It was often a source of teasing.  It's constantly misspelled and misheard, but it's who I am.  When I was younger, I couldn't wait to grow up and change my name.  At some point in high school, I was referred to as Yeska, and the idea of being someone's addiction is what made it okay to be what I was born as.  I started feeling like my name was no longer a label but who I get to embody.  There is no one else like me, and I own that now.  I didn't, but I do.  I can accept that I'm intense and what I give to the world doesn't need to be returned because I am boundlessly refillable.  That is what it means to be Yessica.  That is who I am.  I didn't create a name because I've finally grown up into who I choose to be.  My name was chosen just for me.  It was created for me. If my parents were like me, my name was written over and over the way you might doodle the name of a person you like.  It was given to me for my birthday and I use it every single day.

I might not have said it but I love Harry Potter.  I tend to keep my inner geek tucked in, but you'll see her sneaking out from time to time.  She likes Star Wars and Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and when t.v. was about escaping life, the Syfy Channel.

My oldest keeps referring to our President-elect as a yam.  I'm not calling him Voldemort.  I'm just saying we embody our names and become a symbol of who we are and our name is our identity.  When we see the name "Trump," we often think of his successes and failures as a businessman (taking risks is part of winning big). We might think of his signature look and sense of style.  We now think of the hate inside of him.  I see his brokenness.  When I think of Donald Trump I see a man that has had to prove himself repeatedly . . . His need to surround himself with beautiful, submissive women . . . His hate is more about ignorance from distance.  I see brokenness.  He's damaged and I don't feel gentleness but pity for him.

We give out so much of what we hold within.  I was in a dark place when I started making my Facebook profile private.  I realized last night I'm not that person anymore.  Hiding who I am was about a sense of shame I don't feel anymore.  I'm an open book.  I live with so much freedom in what I do, where I go and what I say because it's who I am.  It's been a journey for me.  But sometime last night, I realize I'm where I am meant to be.  I've discovered the place where my story is the one I want to tell because who I am and how I show up means more than what others see.  I used to be obsessed with gossip, but I've become a person that is more interested in the story I see and hear than what was told to me and I don't even know when that shift occurred. I'm sure it started with Princess Diana's death.

There's so much reward in being the rose.  Smell sweet.  Blossom under the sun.  Be the beauty within because when you start showing off what is within you, no one will hear what you have to say because how you show up says it all.

Be the Best Representation of Your Minority You Can Be

My boys have been more concerned about this election than any other current event I can think of right now.  The person I stood for and my children championed wasn’t elected to run this country.  I woke up at 6 before the sun peaked above the hill that my bedroom window faces in the east and I wondered how to answer the questions I knew my boys would have.  I was over thinking it.  I decided the only approach was to come to them with Mom wisdom.  It sounded like a call to action and I’m about to Mom you all.

It’s not a time to despair and whine about an uncertain future.  My Trump supporter friends were more silent last night.  I won't try to imagine what they feel, but I know this transition is a challenge for many people and my advice is to do whatever it takes.  Get through it.  Cry through change if you need to, but don’t stay there. Sometimes the greatest transformations start with the darkest paths through the deepest valleys.  You must be willing to keep moving forward.

Failed marriages. . .   A career move you're afraid of. . . A new relationship that scares the crap out of you . . . A president elect that you really wish wasn't elected . . .

Move forward because there's nothing left behind you. You belong in this moment and can't hold onto the shredded past that fell apart on you.

I've explained how I felt about Donald Trump.  His title may justify respect based on the desires determined by a nation, but I can’t deny the way he has treated those he doesn't identify with.  I see him as a person that has been so hurt by what scares him, that he doesn’t even recognize when his hate is offensive.  What is worse is that the parts of him that are hurting are also hurting in the people I know and love that voted for him.  I'm certain there were women, Mexicans, Blacks, LGBTQIA, and Muslims that chose him over a woman that looked like the greater evil.

I told my boys we’re in a unique position.  I reminded them of the ways that people with special needs are like people in the LGBTQIA community. There are umbrellas of definition for the people who don't understand who they are because my Kid1 and Kid2 don't need a label to define who they are.  They just exist and that is enough. We are mixed race.  Black, Thai, Mexican, Caucasian, Choctaw Indian and Burmese . . . The list could probably go on. We are everything that our President Elect fears and distances himself from.  Our birthright is the capacity to be the change.

We get to stand in the authority of who we are and show up in love.  Who we are is a set of labels to other people and we get to show up to show out who we are in a way that matters to one person at a time.  In this way, I get to open eyes and I get to help others heal in the ways they are hurting.

As black men, you get to heal the fear that has killed innocent adults at the hand of frightened and angry police officers.

As women, we get to be powerful and confident and heal the expectation that a woman can't handle the art of adult survival without male assistance or approval.

As white men, you get to show the world what it is to not define your existence in terms of what has been because you are here now and this path that you carve is all you, Love.

As a Christian, you get to embrace and normalize the woman wearing a hijab because her God is not any more or less than yours.

As Muslims, you get to show the world who Allah calls you to be in your external expression of faith, the ways you really do hold and honor your women, and the way you care for those less fortunate.

The love I have as a woman that loves gay men and transgendered or gender fluid people can heal others that don't understand what it means to love unconditionally.  I get to hold hands on both sides of the bed and show you that we all love and hope and sleep the same.

If age is nothing but a turn on, why can't your kink be? If you are comfortable enough to claim it as your kink, is it really considered kink?

If we heal the pain that others have identified with . . . If we stop insulting our friends and relatives that made a choice they felt was the best option . . . If we accept that we are accountable to how we show up and reinforce prejudices and that our voice can heal others .  . We can diffuse the power of destruction that we have created in a world that was a vacuum and is still sucking away at life, searching for love.

Be.  Be love.  Be the change.