“Then that happened…”

This is what I said to my friend after I broke down on Friday night with the truth of how lost I’d been feeling. 

She said to me, You can’t do that. You can’t say something like what you shared, and then cover it up with a joke like it wasn’t important or true. 

And that’s what I want to do with today’s blog. I want to try to stem some of whatever reactions I believe you might have had to yesterday’s blog of anger and fear and isolation. Because no matter how I feel in a moment, I do need you greatly, and I want you to still like me and not to think that I’m a whiny, privileged person who’s lost perspective on the world. 

So, I’m going to try not to do that, to reverse any effects of what I said yesterday. And simply let it lie. 

I do know that my job is not scooping animal carcasses off the highway, or cleaning toilets, or any other job that many people have. I have friends who've lost children, husbands, gone bankrupt. I mean, I work at a high-end retailer in Union Square, not on a chain gang. And I'm going through cancer survivorship stuff, like I imagine and hope those of us who have to, do. 

I know, too, that in times like these, we all seem to lose some perspective, and I allow myself to have that for now, because I do know it will change. 

But, I guess I did need (or want) to put how I've been feeling out there, even in this impersonal forum, because it is the truth, and that’s what I tell here — with or without back-peddling. 

So, whatever reactions you might have had (because I can see from the stats page that many people did read that blog), I hope … well, I hope it’s okay I put the truth there. And I'm trying to let myself be okay with it, too.

"You can't save your face and your ass at the same time."

Retail Christmas: A Family Tale

'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the store

not a creature was stirring, it was really a bore. 

But some time in the day as I walked back from lunch, 

a gentleman remarked, Gee you don’t hunch. 

What great posture you have, and a convo was struck 

as his wife later joined and we talked cardio stuff

He and I spoke of their trip from Vancouver,

his wife in a fight with their my-aged daughter

I listened and shared; it was strange to be sure

to stand in the racks of not-quite couture

and be talking about things that do really matter

and not prattle on with plastic-smiles, idle chatter.

I gave words of wisdom that were passed on to me

about just showing up and letting her be. 

We even talked of my dad, how things there are rotten;

he said try again, love is never forgotten. 

I have my own opinion and still question his advice

it was odd to talk about this, but somehow quite nice. 

Out came his wife, and we put things on hold,

I said a kind goodbye and to stay warm in the cold. 

But as the wife handed me her card and I entered her digits

She shared she and her daughter were really quite in it. 

I didn’t mention I knew, and just made the suggestion

Tell her you love her and are there to listen. 

We smiled, it was strange, and out of the norm

to be talking real life in this capitalist storm. 

A few hours later, my feet throbbing with pain,

I couldn’t wait to get out and back to the east bay. 

When a coworker said there’s someone looking for you,

around the corner came the wife & her husband, too. 

“I wanted to tell you,” she started to sob, 

"I took your advice while I tried on some bras.

“I texted my daughter I was hurt, but am here,

and, Look! She replied!” her face stained with tears.

I read from her phone, while her husband looked on

a bit happy and startled at her goings on.

“I wanted to tell you, I’m so glad we met,

I wouldn’t have been ready before what you said.”

We teared up, exchanged hugs in the DVF stacks,

a slice of what matters near a discount sale rack. 

They left that day a little lighter it seemed,

and I wondered if this is what ‘meant to be’ means. 

I don’t know why I’m there, in the overpriced store,

but for a minute I’m reminded what humanity’s for. 

And maybe it’s not to sell lots of clothes,

to perfect my eyeliner or hike up my hose. 

Instead I was given the gift of what’s real: 

On the day before Christmas, I helped a family heal. 

God Shot

I suppose this could have been summarized as a facebook update, but I thought to write it instead. (On, yes, my very new [refurbished] MacBook Air, so generously given to me as a Chanukah gift from several contributors.

Yes, it’s materialistic [Ooh, shiny!], but yes, too, there are things that I couldn’t do with my old dinosaur that might come in handy — like if I wanted to work from home, Facetime my mom, or watch Netflix on something other than my cellphone!)

Yesterday, I had the day off from my retail job. I didn’t put this on Fbk either, but I had to take 3 days off last week after hobbling from my job mid-Tuesday to my chiropractor, my right ankle swollen and awful. The retail job is hard. The store itself is as large as a city block, and you’re standing most of the time, walking the length of the store others, and there’s no sitting. 

Now, I know when I quit my regular desk job, I said I didn’t want to sit at a desk 40 hours a week, but maybe something in the middle, eh?

And it was with this experience and knowledge, my feet still hurting, but apparently getting used to it, as my coworkers and dr said I would, that I went yesterday morning to a cafe to continue working on my holiday collage cards. 

I wanted to get out of the house, and I didn’t know if I’d get kicked out of the cafe as I spread cardstock, magazines, scissors and a glue stick out on the table. But, I wanted the human connection, too. 

And, lo, I did not get kicked out. I sat there at the large “handicap accessible” table (don’t worry, no wheelchairs rolled in), and I continued cutting and glueing, pasting and maneuvering images. Even used the alphabet letter stamps I’d bought 2 years ago and the ink I’d been given when I was sick. 

I sat there, content, enjoying, a little self-conscious and waiting to be scolded when a family with two daughters (I’d overheard) home from college for the winter break sat down next to me. One of the daughters tapped her family and looked over at what I was doing, and remarked, “Isn’t that cool?”

It was a sweet thing. I finished the card I was making and put it to the side of my over-large table, knowing I would hand that one to her when I left the cafe. 

A few minutes later, her mother turned and asked me what I was doing, if these were for sale or what? I replied, No, these are just holiday cards, my presents to my friends. For fun. And then I handed her the one set aside and said, “This is for your daughter.” 

She took it, surprised and grateful, and we exchanged names and shook hands. And I smiled at her daughter who’d admired my work. (“No one will ever believe I made this,” I heard the daughter say to her sister, amused.)

I smiled. I was glad to give her something. I was gratified that she’d admired something I consider so elementary and basic and fun for me. 

And then, as the family packed up on their way out of the cafe, the mom turned to me again and handed me an envelope with the words Happy Holidays written on the front. I thanked her, and wished them all well, and they left. 

In the envelope was a holiday card in which she’d written, “Thank you for your kindness to my daughter. Happy holidays.” And there was a twenty dollar bill. 

It was one generosity inspiring another. But it was more than that to me. 

I have felt so unmoored during this "job transition” time. Especially since I’ve taken on this retail job and can barely make it through a day with a breath to myself. I come home late, exhausted, and fall into bed. Chores are undone. Dishes unwashed. Groceries unbought. 

I cried Monday morning on the floor of my closet as I got ready for the day, exhausted from the long Sunday hours. I have felt so alien to myself with so little “me” time, so little time to think about or explore what could or should be next. 

I have felt lost, and a bit hopeless on the career/job horizon. 

And yesterday morning, I sat in a cafe, doing something I love to do because it’s fun and creative and easy and whimsical. Because I know people will enjoy them, if even for only a few weeks on their mantle. 

I sat there, and I was seen. My work was seen. And it was appreciated. 

I was an artist and I was rewarded, if that's the word for it. I was in the world and I was given a “god shot” — a moment of, Moll, you’re on a path, we promise. This, arting, is one of them. Being in the world is one of them. 

Go out. Be seen. Create. Give. 

We see you. The Universe and those in it see me. 

It was one moment. One interaction. One family. But it meant more to me than they knew. As lost as I feel, it was a reminder that I’m not a total fool for not toeing the party line. 

This experience doesn’t point me in a direction, but it is a welcome dose of hope when I very much needed to know that what I can give to the world is indeed greater. 

Spiritual Echolocation

I am not the best judge of my progress or my abilities. But, even though I can’t rightly see myself, I’m beginning to notice that I am hearing it from others.

And this in itself feels like progress: At least I’m hearing it.

There was a time when I described compliments as one of those bug zapper lamps people hang on their porch. The bugs merely get within range of the lamp and they get zapped dead. Same with compliments for me: Anything positive that was said would get deflected before it even got close to touching me. None of that here, pew! pew!

I'd said that you can’t receive a compliment if there’s no complementary place within you to receive it. If there’s nowhere it fits within your own understanding of yourself, then there’s no way that it can be accepted. There’s no ring of truth, because you don’t believe it yourself.

Time passed, and I’ve become more able to receive positive feedback about certain things, because I have begun to hone and cultivate the place within me that is receptive, the place within me that believes you because I believe it myself.

That said, there’s room for growth.

This week, I’ve had several experiences where I’ve been told about my progress and abilities, and even though I can’t quite feel this, I’m beginning to recognize that I believe them, I believe others are seeing this, even if I'm not myself.

Hence, spiritual echolocation. I can’t see it myself, but I believe in the feedback I’m receiving – so there must be something to it.

I know that feeding off external validation is not the way to walk about the world, but what it’s doing for me is giving me hope that one day I can see it. There is an existence of a cave wall. Others are telling me so. If that is truth, there is hope that I will see it, too.

On Friday night, after the first act of our opening night of To Kill a Mockingbird, the director came backstage. He was beaming. He was so glad and proud of the work I was doing on-stage.

I was dubious. But I thought Wednesday’s preview night went much better; it felt better.

He told me he was the only rightly judge of my performance, and Friday night, I was better.

Whether I felt it or not.

On Saturday morning, I went for my semi-regular voice lesson. And at the end of a phrase I’d sung, my teacher applauded and cheered – he even gave me a high five.

“Did you hear that?” he asked, delighted.

No, I didn’t. I can’t hear myself.

The noise and buffer between what is and what I perceive is loud and thick.

“We’re going to have to record you more then,” he said. “You have to get used to hearing yourself.”

This morning, I was on the phone with my mentor, and I reported these incidents to her, as I begin to parse out these places where I’m being told one thing, but I’m hearing and sensing another.

She, too, had told me that I’m farther along than I can feel. And she gave me a metaphor (because we all know I love those!):

She told me I am a tree creating deep, deep roots. A solid foundation. And you can’t always see that growth above ground, but it’s happening.

We were talking (again) about my questioning of where and who I am this lifetime and where I’m going. And she said, some people have really gorgeous foliage, and weak roots.

We’re doing the work now -- early, some might say -- that others come to in mid and later life. Creating a root system, carving out the rot, cleaning the wounds.

Like a field of asparagus, you don’t see its heroic work until one morning you turn, and the whole field has sprouted green, fully formed, like Athena.

I am not used to hearing or seeing myself clearly. I’m not adequately armed with the ability to track my own progress. And thank god for other people, then!

But I do feel the promise and the hope of their reflection. I am beginning to hear what they’re saying instead of zapping it, because I'm beginning to uncover the place within me that believes it myself.

I’m starting to open to a truth that’s been, and is, hard for me to swallow:

I am worthy. 

Who’s Next?

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” ― Erich Fromm

This is the quote of the day relating to the daily meditation I’m doing through the Oprah/Deepak 21-day challenge.

Strangely or not, it’s what I was writing about in my morning pages before I logged into the meditation. The idea of uncertainty, of letting go of what’s known. And how very close to that I feel right now.

I found out yesterday I didn’t get the job I was in several rounds of interviews and mock sessions for during the last two weeks. And all for the better, I think. In fact, I’d reached out to an old schoolmate I’d seen on LinkedIn had worked there to ask her thoughts. And when I wrote back that they didn’t hire me, she wrote: You are better off. That place is a shit hole.

So there’s that!

But, this morning as I reflected on where I am, with the one avenue I was pursuing more actively than others cut short, I find myself without an exact destination. Which is where in fact I’ve been, but I've been distracted with the possibility of this employment.

What brought me to considering the question of Who’s Next was my bringing out an old reader packet of poems from an undergrad course I took. I’d brought it down a few days ago; I was 22 when I took the class, finishing up from the lost semester when I’d been otherwise engaged in a padded room.

The day after I brought the packet down, a friend of mine mentioned teaching again, putting together a C.V. (a teacher’s resume) and syllabus. I went online to higheredjobs.com yesterday to poke around and see. And again, I sort of went all blank about it. I see titles like Professor of 18th and 19th Century Romanticism or of Rhetoric, and I call myself uninterested and unqualified.

And then after a while of poking around online anyway, my computer overheated and shut down on me, which was probably for the best!

But, today I opened that packet labeled Twentieth Century Poetry II, and I read the names and poems of Robert Bly, Gwendolyn Brooks, yes, even the ubiquitous Plath. I read my margin notes, and was amused to see that my handwriting looked as it does now.

I was interested in the poems, but I wasn’t sparked. These were the dreams and longings of a different person. The person who ate these poems up, who devoured and analyzed and waxed prosaic marginalia.

I remember the classroom I was in when we read Spenser’s Faerie Queene. I remember being the one student who was really intrigued by his epic traitorous, political poem hidden in monarch-approved meter. I remember the classroom where the professor told us stories of the poets’ lives, who’d met who and exchanged letters, the relationships behind their lyrics.

I remember the room for my make-up semester, on a different campus, since my cohort had graduated. The computer lab where I wrote short stories and saved them onto the new smaller, square floppy disks that were actually hard.

This morning I reread the same works that meant so much to me then, a woman who felt she had no voice, and poetry was a quiet art that could conjure hurricanes, that could release those that were teeming in my body.

But, I don’t feel it in the same way now. I of course want new generations of students to hear tales of those smoky rooms where creativity was incubated and smile in camaraderie at Spenser’s thinly veiled subversion. But, I don’t know. Is it me? Is it me now?

There’s a quote from a Yogi tea bag I have taped over my kitchen sink, along with all the others I felt necessary to collect. It reads: Empty yourself and let the Universe fill you.

I haven’t ever really known what that meant, or how to do it. I haven’t known how to let go of all I know, of all my plans, of labeling what I know and feel and have done as relevant or useless. I haven’t been able to answer the call of that tea quote until today.

I do feel emptied. I feel emptied of direction, of specific ambition, of perspective on myself. But it’s not a negative feeling.

I feel like a student in a new class, but one I don’t know the course title to. I don’t know which of my skills will be useful in this new class, what of my knowledge will be relevant.

I don’t know if I'll need a paintbrush or a calculator, what I'll grow to learn, or who will be my teachers. I don’t know who else I’ll meet in class, and who I’ll never see again. I don’t know the iteration of myself who will be called upon to show up here, or who will be created from being here.

I only know that this nameless class is the only one on my course schedule for the foreseeable future, and that perhaps at the end of it, I may be able to answer what iteration of Molly is next.

To Infinity and Beyond!

True to form, I’m running late for work. With today’s direct deposit pay-out, I was reconciling my financial situation before getting started for the day.

Seems like if I can manage to gain steady employment by December, I don’t have to touch my savings. If not, I have until January. But, who wants to touch their savings, especially if it’s modest?

I have a third interview with the private high school in Walnut Creek on Monday, to be their Homework Tutor/Student Mentor. Seems like a good sign, but I’m not counting chickens; I’m still looking around for sure.

But, I gotta say, not having a full-time job as of tomorrow, I feel like I’ll have more time to look – but also to focus. To get clarity and not just fire off resumes willy-nilly.

I won’t write a maudlin blog about how much my place of work has meant to me over the past 2 years – I’m going to see most of my coworkers frequently, as I’ll still be teaching there on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. There was a nice send-off snack at our staff meeting on Wednesday with my favorite snacks. And my boss wrote a really warm blurb about my departure for our weekly e-newsletter.

There have been more hugs this week than before, mostly from members of the synagogue, who I won’t see as often. But I do feel like I’ve become a part of the community, not just worked in an office. And for that I’m grateful, and it’s something that won’t change. I’ll still be there at our big events, probably.

But, I’m also immensely grateful that I won’t be sitting at that desk come Monday morning.

I won’t leave my newbie replacement alone too long this morning, so I’ll sign off now. Perhaps there’ll be another more sentimental missive about the place with time and distance, but, for now. It’s just a change. And, right now, change is good.

Trick or Treat, muthafuckas!

Someone will be with you shortly.

In the absence of more information, we fall back on the marching orders we know: Chop Wood, Carry Water. The Golden Rule. Look up, around, and away from yourself.

This morning, in an attempt to cull more information from the universe about where I should be focusing my energies with regard to career and income, I went into a meditation via a shamanic journey.

I didn’t get much. I asked other questions that I got some answers or insight to, but as to What on earth should I be doing next, who should I talk to, where should I focus, I got a whole lot of nothing.

And, in my own experience of meditation, the absence of information is itself information.

Stop trying to force yourself into a path, into action. It will be available when it’s supposed to be. The whole, "God is slow but never late," adage comes to mind. – One that galls me most of the time.

Because, often in my experience, slow but never late translates as “the last minute,” which really means, when you’ve given up all your plans and designs and have thrown your arms down, and said, okay, god/universe/soul/fate, whatever. Just whatever. I’m here, I’m done. I’m here.

It’s usually in these moments of surrender that I find information, that opportunities open up, that more is revealed.

Funny, as I think of it now, the play I’m in right now is a result of that “Whatever, here goes nothing” tack. The second audition of a day, after I’d pretty badly bombed the first, I decided, Whatever, I’m going to pull out (most of) the stops, and just throw it all out there, be as funny and into it as I can be because I have nothing to lose. I tried my controlled, “I want it to be this way” way, I tried working from the place of true terror and fear about what others would think of me, and that didn’t work out so great.

So, whatever, god, whatever you want. And lookie-loo what happened. It’s not to say don’t take action, it’s just to say, let go of my hold of the way I think things – me, mostly – should be.

And, with regard to other information I got in my meditation this morning, one of my questions was how I can stop stifling myself onstage? Because I do. I’m nervous and judging myself, and I want the audience to like me and my peers to esteem me, and I want to do a "really good job." And in that attempt, I’m so in my head that I’m not in my body, in my heart, in the moment, in the fun. And it doesn’t turn out how I want it.

It seems to me that the answer to most of this is, Be where you are, be who you are, and let it happen how it is.

That is so hard for me. And for most people, I imagine.

I want to know what to do next. I want a simple path from A to B. Or even a map to a complex path – I don’t care, just give me some coordinates! This, “be where you are and love yourself in and through it” thing is amorphous and feels ungrounded.

And yet, basing my actions on what I think I should be is as ungrounded as anything, because it’s not grounded in reality or the truth.

It is obvious to me when I reflect that taking actions out of fear, out of imagined people-pleasing, out of a panicked desire to “do the right thing” cause me more harm than good. And take up more time than it’s worth.

So, I will wait until more is revealed, as people often says it is. I will remember that there are no mistakes, only misinterpretations. I will try to embody the … no, I will try to let loose the confidence I know is stifled beneath the surface of my posturing and planning, and I will see what comes of it.

This whole transition for me is about embracing and sharing who I really am. It doesn’t work if I keep on trussing this person up in the shackles of my own expectations and a habit of low self-image.

Hello, Seattle, I’m listening. 

Icarus at the Bus Station

There is an adage I’ve heard: A new bus can’t pull into the station if there’s one already there.

The point being, unless you let something go, you can’t grab hold of something new.

This often comes up when people are talking about relationships, but it can be sagely advised around anything. Today, though, it does mean relationships.

There’s a second category of folks that I need to amend my relationships with, after those who I’ve fallen out of touch with for self-preservation. This is a category entitled: Men I intrigue with but don’t want a relationship with. ("with whom I don’t want a relationship," yeah, I know.)

But. This list, when written earlier this year comprised of 6 or 7 names. Now, there are only two left outstanding. The rest have fallen by the wayside as I’ve changed the electrically charged way I interact with them or have expressly stated I want to change the nature of our lovely, but ambiguous flirtation.

It’s exciting to flirt. It’s exciting to know that with a few taps on my phone, I can spark the interest of someone. It’s a boost to the ego -- and it’s totally unfair to us both. It’s a lie, really.

Sure, it’s fun, and I’m not saying that it’s wrong; it’s just not truthful for me, when I know that these are men who I don’t want to date or pursue a relationship with. For whatever reason.

Some, I just “don’t feel it.” We were never more than friends, to either of us, but there’s something nice about that extra “like” on your status update or the comment posted somewhere down your page, where you know they’ve had to dig to find it. Yes, most of these “intrigue” relationships (meaning, flirtatiously undertoned interactions) are acted out virtually, and that enhances their ease, their prevalence and the reluctance to “break them off,” since, who are we really hurting? Everyone “pokes” each other, right?

But, for me, I know it’s not right anymore. It’s distracting from what I really want, and using someone else as a tool to bolster my self-esteem. Neither of which get me to the healthful relationship (with myself or with someone else) that I’d like.

Some of the men on my list are simply fucked up and/or unavailable, and strangely(?), the last two remaining are in this subset.

It’s not that they’re just my friends who I flirt with; it’s not as innocent as a few extra “likes;” these two are possibilities in relationship-land, except that they’re not. At all.

And these are so hard to let go of, because they’re the most ambiguous, the most possible, and the most delicious. Delicious Evil: the curl of the lip when you think about them, your flirtation with them, what you’ve done with them, because these are not Rated G acquaintanceships you have had.

You like the thrill, the quickening of the pulse, and the slight tensing of your thighs.

Who.Wouldn’t?

But.

Here is where my current work comes in. I don’t want to stop these flirtations/more than flirtations, but I know this bus is not going to get me where I want to go. These are not available people. And despite the purring coo my body radiates when I consider them, my brain and heart can’t really take it.

I do want a relationship, with someone available to me. It’s nice to get the milk for free, but I’m ready to invest in a cow.

I’ve spoken to a friend of mine who has similar patterns with men and relationships, and I asked her honestly if there was the same kind of Icarus-style pull in her marriage. If there was that same forbidden, lustful quickening. If there was that, We’re going to blot out the sun with the heat of our passion. 

And, she told me, Honestly, No. It’s different.

You’re not going to get a cocaine high when you’re sober. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth being sober; it just means, No, there are some experiences that won’t be replicated in a healthy relationship.

Sure, it’s just one woman’s opinion, but I trust her, and I understand her analogy.

No, you won’t blot out the sun, but you won’t go down in flames either.

It’s up to me to decide which life I’d rather live, and which course I’d rather take. I know where this current “intriguey” bus leads – right back here, again.

So, I’m going to have to make a choice to be brave, and let this bus drive on without me, and trust that if I do, there will be a different one coming. (pun intended.)

T’shuvah

(In my vague and limited Jewish knowledge) T’shuvah refers to the time in the Jewish calendar between Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year—and Yom Kippur—when our names are sealed in the “Book of Life” by G-d for the next year.

T’shuvah literally means to return, but most interpretations take it to mean a time of repentance. A time of atoning for our “sins,” and to acknowledge where we’ve “missed the mark” of our own moral target.

I’m not one for “sins,” or for “atoning,” or for asking forgiveness from a spiritual entity. In my own spiritual practice, there is a habit of taking note of where we’ve been wrong and amending that behavior, whether through direct conversation with someone we’ve harmed or through choosing to act differently in the future.

But, the idea of asking a “higher power” to forgive me for anything at all has never sat well with me. I simply don’t think that anything that has the power to create life and death and change and love would need my asking. I believe that whatever “G-d” is, “it” is much too loving or non-personified to ever require me to ask it to forgive my behavior.

As I said, I still think the process of taking stock of my behavior and righting my own wrongs is very important to my emotional wellbeing and my personal relationships. But on the spiritual plane, G-d would never need me to ask for forgiveness. There’s nothing to forgive – there’s only love, acceptance, and a desire for me to be my best self.

That said, I have been reflecting that this week of t’shuvah has certainly been one of returning. I feel that my actions are those of a woman returning to herself and her values; returning to my true nature, and returning to ideas and hopes that were feared or abandoned.

I am in a musical. I’ve returned to that dream of acting and singing, despite the fears and self-judgments it still brings up in me.

I have officially announced this week that I am moving on from my office job. Again, a return to my true desires, my internal compass. I have stopped hitting the Snooze button on my instincts and drives.

No matter what comes of it, disaster or “success,” I am trying something brand new for me. And that is certainly a return to curiosity, innocence, hope, and creation.

I told my coworker that I boycott Yom Kippur these days. The fasting and the communal atoning of sins. I shun this day and its activities because the idea is that by atoning for our sins, we will be “inscribed in the Book of Life” for another year.

According to the Jewish calendar, in 2012 the evening closing Yom Kippur was the moment of my Leukemia diagnosis. I spent the day of Yom Kippur in an ER. And closed the chapter of that day with cancer. I was 30 years old.

I have done a lot of work around turning that diagnosis into the seeds of a new life. But I will never deny that I have a few wheelbarrows full of anger and grief that still need … sorting or composting or alleviation. Or simply time to feel them, and then to let them go, perhaps, if that’s what happens.

But for me, the idea that on one of the most holy days of the Jewish year, on the day when a person is either granted another year of life or is not, I cannot hold the tragedy of being told half my blood was cancer on that same day. 

And, I imagine, my feelings toward all of this will transform, lessen, or evolve. But, for now, I boycott Yom Kippur.

I have used this week of T’shuvah to take stock of where I am desirous to return to and acknowledge and rejoice in the truth of my soul, and to note where I already am. I have used this week to affirm that life can be new and different and fulfilling.

I will never need the forgiveness of an entity that is either made of benevolence or simply is the indifferent force of Life itself.

My week of T’shuvah is and has returned me to a place of excitement and possibility. I don’t need a communal atonement to reward me for how exceptional that is. 

That said. Shanah Tovah u'Metukah -- May you have a good (tovah) and sweet (metukah) year, friends. And may we write our own Books of Life. 

Why Nice Guys Finish Last.

(Note: The following is one human’s opinion and not intended for relationship diagnostic purposes. See a doctor if symptoms worsen.)

You can add your variation of this sentiment to a long list of complaints we’ve heard over the years:

“I don’t get it; I’m a nice guy. Why do women only go for assholes?”

In my meditation on kindness today, I was brought to thinking about “nice-ness.”

In dating, what does “being nice” look like? Most times, we translate "being nice" as allowing the other person to make the decision:

“Wherever you want to go.” “Whatever food you want to eat.” “Whichever movie looks good to you.”

In the beginning, this seems like a great tack. Allowing the other person to choose, we figure, means that we’re being “nice” by saying that we respect and trust their opinion. We’re also saying (perhaps) that we don’t want to impose our will or assert our own interests or preferences, because we’re afraid that if we do, we’re going to proffer the “wrong” choice. 

I’ve had Mexican all week, and want to have Thai, but what if she hates Thai? I have absolutely no interest in seeing a chick flick, but if it means I get to spend time with her, then fine, I’ll sit through it.

We believe that we’re letting the other person make the choice in this situation, but actually, we’ve already made one: I am choosing not to disclose my desires for fear that my idea -- and therefore I -- will be rejected. Period. So, by contrast, if I let you choose, then I know whatever it is is something you'll like, and therefore you'll have a good time and you'll like me.

So, the "nice" guy says, "Whatever you want." Look how nice I am. 

This is a choice. But it's also a manipulation of the truth. And, in my experience, if you add enough of those up, what you wind up with is not knowing at all what the other person likes, what their preferences are -- who they are.

We wind up dating someone who is just trying to stay in our good graces, and in doing so, the "nice guy" begins to lose us, because there isn’t enough of “them” to keep us engaged.

I want to date you. Or at least, I want to find out if I want to date you.

I will add here, that of course, in the start of any dating situation, we’re all angling somehow – of course we want this to work! Who doesn’t want to find someone they enjoy and can be themselves with?

But there’s the rub. If we begin to date on a basis of people-pleasing, we’re not being ourselves at all. We’re being who you want us to be – Or more accurately, who we think you want us to be.

There is always room for negotiation, for compromise, obviously. (And sometimes, yes, you really don't care.)

But I think the (mis)understanding of “nice guys vs assholes” is that we set up a dichotomy that states: "Being nice" doesn't work, therefore women want an asshole. And, asshole becomes defined by the opposite: Someone who asserts themselves regardless of the other person's needs or wants. Someone who treats the other like crap.

And that is NOT what I’m saying is the successful tactic.

Certainly, someone who takes only their interest and desire into account is an asshole. And is not someone who I (or most people I know) want to date.

But there is a middle-ground for each of us between being a doormat, and being the one who makes the other a doormat.

Equality, self-esteem, honesty, fluidity. Uncertainty.

Yes, perhaps you see the chick flick on your second date. But maybe you have Thai beforehand.

Because, I want to get to know you, whoever that is, and whatever the outcome.

Prerequisites

I’m still wading through Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly. I can only take mind-blowing awareness in small chunks! The latest chunk being:

The important thing to know about worthiness is that it doesn’t have prerequisites. Most of us, on the other hand, have a long list of worthiness prerequisites [most of which] fall in the categories of accomplishments, acquisitions, and external acceptance. It’s the if/when problem (“I’ll be worthy when…” or “I’ll be worthy if…”)

Sound familiar?

To me it does. And yet. I have other quotes to help combat this if/when thought habit.

One of which is on my fridge, and comes from a book on auditioning, actually: “There are no mistakes, only misinterpretations.”

Brene talks a lot about the difference between shame and guilt. Shame = I am bad. Guilt = I did something bad. With guilt, your inherent worth and worthiness is not called into question, and she encourages us to use “guilt self-talk” instead of “shame self-talk,” if we have to use anything at all.

Which, we usually do, because… we all make misinterpretations!

It’s interesting. Yesterday, I got the chance to spend some time with a coworker’s 10-year old daughter who was home for the summer, but didn’t have anywhere to be this week. After way too many days watching t.v. on her phone, I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk yesterday. And so we did.

We walked to the nearby park, and when we got to the water and I encouraged her to touch the cool, lapping stream, she was surprised and delighted, and asked if we could walk in it.

Well, I wasn’t expecting to do that, but SURE! Off come the socks and shoes and into the shallows we go.

On our walk back to civilization (a whole block away), she was reporting a story to me about something that had happened with her father the day before. A story that would likely be categorized as one of Road Rage. As she told the story, I experienced many reactions and opinions. Aghast, sad, worried, judgmental, superior.

But what I said was, "There are many different ways to handle situations, and that was one way to handle it."

I’m NOT the person to tell her her father was wrong, inappropriate, endangering, or negligent. I am the person, in that little short hour, to tell her, Yes, we can play in the water, and you are safe with me. I am not going to pile my opinions onto you, because I know you’re making your own.

You go ahead and love your dad. You observe him, and make your own choices. You be influenced by who and how he is, and you’ll have the chance to work through any of that if you need to.

But for right now... I didn’t even say, "That sounds scary," because she wasn’t telling it that way. She was reporting, to see how I’d react, I think. Was what he was doing appropriate? Wasn’t that funny or awful? No. It was neither. It was human.

(As I write this, I realize that I can use this lesson and aim it in a parental direction in my own life.)

It’s slow-going through Brene’s book, because there’s so much meat to her observations and suggestions.

But her lamplight to guide us and offer hope on this journey of misinterpretations is as follows:

Those who feel lovable, who love, and who experience belonging simply believe they are worthy of love and belonging. I often say that Wholeheartedness is like the North Star: We never really arrive, but we certainly know if we’re headed in the right direction.

By not attaching my own value or values to this little girl’s experience, I get to let her have her own North Star and continue to follow mine. No ifs, whens or buts. 

Pushing the RelationShip off the Edge of the Earth

As I recently found out in “Well, Shoot…” there are things that I claim that I want but if they did actually happen, I’m not sure I could show up for them.

It’s embarrassing to be here again.

It just makes me feel really old and really weary.

And I’ll start with the perfect example that I’m sure I’ve told here before:

When I was in college, I was having a fling with a guy. It was purely physical, no “date nights,” no philosophical conversations; whenever both of us were into it, we’d contact the other. Easy peasy.

Then, one night, lying in bed after our activities, he told me he wanted to take me out to dinner. I was aghast, “Why?!” Because I want to get to know you, he replied, as if it were the most obvious and natural thing in the world.

And after that night, I never called him again.

Perhaps to most people it is the most obvious and natural thing in the world to want to get to know the person you’re being physically intimate with. But my years of practicing it otherwise have hardened me to the kind of softness real connection requires.

(I feel really vulnerable writing about this today, I have to say.)

See, there would be no problem if I only wanted to “hit it & quit it.” But I don’t. I would like a connection, I would like a relationship. I would like to be vulnerable and intimate with another person and have them be that way with me.

But when the glimpse of that possibility arises, I bolt. Too much, too scary, I can’t, I don’t know how, is followed by the justifications, You only want sex anyway, why don’t you just hit it & quit it? Stop trying to pretend you want to get to know me.

It’s very easy for me to throw up the barriers, and to put between us one of those cardboard cut-outs of myself: Here is my reasonable facsimile. Have fun.

No, really, just have FUN! Enough with the getting to know me bullshit. Light’s out, Nobody home.

And the trouble today is that I’m really tired of this M.O. And, yet, I’m really terrified to be any way else – the way else being “real.”

So, again, I come to a place where what I say I want (a relationship) in the light of that possibility I say fuck no.

I can lick the wounds of old hurts for many more years to come. I can point to those people to whom I’ve been real and vulnerable and been eviscerated. I can pile up the evidence to say, See, this and this and here is why I can’t show up fully anymore, I’ve been hurt.

But who hasn’t?

To tangent, once again:

There are several situations lately, where I’ve gotten to show up fully, stand in my truth, and not let fear drive me or hide me.

I was offered a job that would pay me minimum wage, but would be in a profession and a capacity that would be a dream. After much thought, writing, and reaching out for help, I turned the job down. I’m able to show up for myself, I don’t have to abandon my truth.

I declined the invitation to my father’s wedding, despite the already rolling-in fall-out. After much thought, writing, and reaching out for help, I was able to show up for myself and not abandon my truth.

I was offered the lead in a play that I didn’t want to be in. And, once again, after much thought, writing, and reaching out for help, I was able to turn it down, show up for myself and not abandon my truth.

What each of these are evidence of is that I am creating boundaries for myself, and a value for myself. I am able to weigh and measure how I feel in a situation, and parse out if it feels right for me. I don’t have to make snap judgments of yes or no, of people pleasing, or underselling, or hiding.

I've been scared to be vulnerable because I'm scared I can't show up for myself, or protect myself when I need to. I've been scared to be vulnerable because I think it lays me open to being attacked. 

But, what I have done in just the last fucking month is to back myself up. I have let myself be open to what was true for me, and be honest (enough) with those I had to create boundaries with.

Isn’t it possible then, that the same practice, the same muscles could be exercised in relationships? Isn’t it possible that I can show up with my truth, with all of me, even though, YES IT’S THE HARDER THING, but it’s the most rewarding of all?

I’m having a tough time at the moment accepting that I’m going to have to change my M.O. Not serving me well, surely, but familiar as all get out.

As a friend once sardonically said, “Everybody look at me, but please avert your eyes.”

Oh, you want to look at me. Oh, I find that I want to look back.

Well, Shoot. 

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...

Why aren’t you writing for a living?

Because it’s just a hobby, an escape.

Why aren’t you writing for a living?

Because it’s too hard and I’m not good enough.

Why aren’t you writing for a living?

Because I don’t know how to show up consistently.

Any of these types of questions ever cross your mind? Any of these questions and immediate quashings?

This morning, that question came to me. I always dismiss my writing becoming a means or an ends. I don’t make the time; I haven’t touched the essay my aunt said I should submit to the New York Times’ Modern Love section. I haven’t crafted anything for the The Sun, a magazine at least 3 people have suggested I submit my work to.

It’s just me being me. How is that worthy or interesting or enough?

Because I saw someone else had clicked on it, I just re-read a blog I wrote in January, Remember What the Redwoods Told You, about being “told” by the trees that I was going to live through my cancer. And as I read through the end of it, about being given the chance to be in my life, to make this time worthy, I think about all the procrastination and fear I still let grab hold of my ankles.

This is not a self-flagellation blog; as you can read in italics above, I already have plenty of those thoughts. But, they are just thoughts, not facts. And thoughts can be changed. Through action.

“Act your way into right thinking,” the phrase goes.

I’ve “thought” for a while about waking up earlier (yes, even earlier) to do some “real” writing. It hasn’t happened yet, and that’s okay, but I know that I work better in the morning, when my brain cells still have some anima.

And as I was finding this question arise in my meditation this morning, goading me to find a legitimate reason for postponing my good, I thought of a perfect resource friend I can reach out to about this, and actually get something into action. And maybe deadline.

Because, as my acting friend told me earlier this week when I asked her how she “makes” herself learn monologues, she answered, Deadlines. She sets up deadlines by signing up for auditions, and makes sure she has a back pocket filled with current monologues.

To paraphrase, Our growth can come as much from our actively seeking it, as it can from being forced.

But, it helps to be pushed a little.

That’s what registering for these auditions is for me, a push to get back into it, to not let another month and another month slide off the calendar. To make this year “worthwhile,” to me means to actually do those things that I think are for other people, people with talent or time or resources. Bull.

The only difference between them and me is action. Nothing more.

A rallying, warrior cry sounds every day for me. It is my choice to heed its call or to roll over and hit Snooze.

And yet, it is also my choice to condemn myself or not on the days I do hit Snooze. As I wrote yesterday, there’s no use in beating myself up for not being where I want to be – that doesn’t actually get me there quicker.

What helps with all of this is accountability, which a deadline is, but also what friends can be. I’ve been toying with the idea (thinking, again!) recently of getting an “Action Buddy,” or “Accountability Partner” whatever you want to call it.

I know this is a system that works for many people, and I believe it could work for me. So, with all irony, I’m going to add “Get an Accountability Buddy” to my list of personal actions… and see if I can hold myself accountable to that!

Because there is no reason I’m not writing that is valid. I know there’s grist here; I know there’s “enough” talent. I would love to take actions that reflect that knowledge. Because, if you haven’t noticed, I seem to think that Time is our most precious natural resource of all.

"Person-To-Person"

Of course it is a pity that so much of all creative work is so closely related to the personality of the one who does it.

It is sad and embarrassing and unattractive that those emotions that stir him deeply enough to demand expression, and to charge their expression with some measure of light and power, are nearly all rooted, however changed in their surface, in the particular and sometimes peculiar concerns of the artist himself, that special world, the passions and images of it that each of us weaves about him from birth to death, a web of monstrous complexity, spun forth at a speed that is incalculable to a length beyond measure, from the spider mouth of his own singular perceptions.

It is a lonely idea, a lonely condition, so terrifying to think of that we usually don't. And so we talk to each other, write and wire each other, call each other short and long distance across land and sea, clasp hands with each other at meeting and at parting, fight each other and even destroy each other because of this always somewhat thwarted effort to break through walls to each other. As a character in a play once said, "We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins."

Personal lyricism is the outcry of prisoner to prisoner from the cell in solitary where each is confined for the duration of his life.

[...]

Of course I know that I have sometimes presumed too much upon corresponding sympathies and interest in those to whom I talk boldly, and this has led to rejections that were painful and costly enough to inspire more prudence. But when I weigh one thing against another, an easy liking against a hard respect, the balance always tips the same way, and whatever risk of being turned a cold shoulder, I still don't want to talk to people only about the surface aspects of their lives, the sort of things that acquaintances laugh and chatter about on ordinary social occasions.

I feel that they get plenty of that, and heaven knows so do I, before and after the little interval of time in which I have their attention and say what I have to say to them. The discretion of social conversation, even among friends, is exceeded only by the discretion of "the deep six," that grave wherein nothing is mentioned at all. Emily Dickinson, that lyrical spinster of Amherst, Massachusetts, who wore a strict and savage heart on a taffeta sleeve, commented wryly on that kind of posthumous discourse among friends in these lines:

       I died for beauty, but was scarce
       Adjusted in the tomb,
       When one who died for truth was lain
       In an adjoining room. 

       He questioned softly why I failed?
       "For beauty," I replied. 
       "And I for truth,—the two are one;
       We brethren are," he said. 

       And so, as kinsmen met at night,
       We talked between the rooms,
       Until the moss had reached our lips,
       And covered up our names.

Meanwhile!—I want to go on talking to you as freely and intimately about what we live and die for as if I knew you better than anyone else whom you know.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, preface to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1955.

Car Conversations

Because the question isn’t: “Would you rather be in a play or not be in a play?” anymore. Maybe that’s what it was a year ago. But my vision has changed, as visions are allowed to do. And more, it’s probably that I’ve allowed myself to see more of my vision, rather than it actually “changing.”

Now, the question is: “Would I rather be in a play, or be in a good play?”

It’s the same coin as the line of thinking that goes: Well, at least you have a job.

That, at its core, is very true, but it seems to me that when we’re living in integrity with our values in as many places in our lives as possible, we’re doing more good – for ourselves and for the world.

When people are living lives that are engaged, they inspire me. There are circumstances that can keep us from this expression of our true selves and skills, surely. There’s war famine racism classism sexism disease and all manner of ill fortune. I recognize the privilege it is that I’ve been able to crawl out of (and partially been born out of) the first tier of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” out of the pure and simple satisfaction of the needs for food, shelter, clothing, and income.

I am reminded of a phone conversation I had with my mom several years ago. I was in the car with a friend when my cell rang. I answered, we spoke a few minutes, and the call ended. What struck me later wasn’t the content of the call, but how I behaved during the call. My friend overheard every word and all the manner and mannerisms that came out during my conversation – and those behaviors would align perfectly with how I interact with my friend.

There was little to no difference between how I comported myself in relation to my mom and how I was in relation to my friend. That alignment of “personalities” was completely new to me. I was always someone different with friends, coworkers, family members, lovers. Although there are necessary adjustments you need to make in those various relationships, I was always way out of alignment – they all were completely disparate personalities.

My car conversation allowed me to see that I was “aligning the films of who I am,” as I later put it. It wasn’t about a shift from wearing different masks to wearing the same mask; it was about relieving myself of the masks at all – and being the same ol’ me no matter where, when, or who.

This feels completely parallel to my circumstances and predicaments these days: How to bring the same person, with the same boundaries, needs, and self-esteem, to work, to play, to relationship.

How to live in integrity, which, to me, means aligning the films of ourselves. Not participating in self-abandonment, and bringing every endeavor and relationship into the light, and questioning if it meets our standards of what we want for ourselves, and if we’re meeting those standards through our own action.

It’s all well and good to report and purport that I want to cease settling for less in many areas of my life; it’s another endeavor entirely to take actions that support that desire. Again, that’s integrity – being who you say you want to be.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am leaving this play. When my friend last night told me that her “intuitive hit” was that I could find work that I love, I began to well up. It's not about permission to do the play or not do the play, even -- it's about giving myself permission to do that which I love. In every arena of my life right now, I’m endeavoring to find that which I love – which starts from acknowledging and listening to and giving enough credence to self-love to do that.

If I am purporting that I want to do what I love, but there are still these fissures of contrary action, I’m offering a divided message to “the Universe,” but mostly to myself. If I engage in that which doesn’t feed my soul and my joy-meter, I’m giving the message that it’s (still) okay to abandon my desires, and that my desires aren’t that important to me anyway.

It’s time for me to have a car conversation with the Universe, one in which I am myself – self-confident with a hint of doubt, a vehement believer in the need for joy and alignment, more than a tad bit wacky – no matter who’s on the other line. 

Note: In this evening's performance, the role of Pride will be replaced by Truth.

She held up her fingers:

“One: Is it a theater company or director you really want to work with?” No, not really.

“Two: Are they paying you really well?” No, zilch.

“Three: Is it a play you are excited about and really want to do?” No, not at all. It’s awful.

“Then don’t do it,” she concluded.

But I auditioned for him three times.

“So, what? Say that something else came up and you’re really sorry. The thing is, that’s a huge commitment for somewhere you don’t want to be. You’d be wasting time that you could use honing your craft, going on other auditions, taking classes, and finding something you really want to do.”

But it’d be my first lead role.

“Yeah, in a play where the actors outnumber the audience for a play you don’t want to be in. That sucks; take it from me.”

* * *

This was the conversation I had last night with my friend who’s a semi-professional actress when I told her I was having doubts about the play in which I'm cast. She said these were the 3 golden questions her acting teacher said the actor had to answer for himself. The instructor, being at a higher level, said that for him, he has to answer Yes to all three of those questions. For my friend, mid-tier, she was told, No more crap jobs: She has to answer Yes to at least two of those questions.

And for me, beginner, I have to answer Yes to at least one of those questions.

Otherwise, what the hell am I doing with my time? What am I saying my time means to me?

I am very much associating all this with my job/career search. If a guy continues to get promoted up through the ranks at a company he doesn’t enjoy, doing work he hates, but is paid really well, is that enough? I can't say.

If we’re not getting paid well, doing work we love or working with people we enjoy… well, what are we doing?

If we can’t answer Yes to any of these questions in regards to career, why are we there? Why are we wasting any days of this short life?

I don’t yet know if I’m going to bow out of the play in which I’ve been cast. When I told her again that I auditioned for him 3 times — meaning, I feel that he's already put such time and effort into me and my performance I'd feel guilty dropping out — she replied, “Take care of yourself, not them.” … Oh… right.

Because the reality is that I will be in rehearsals for 3 hours nearly every day of the week for two months… for a really awful play. It’s really awful, folks. Not like, passable, manageable, I'm just being picky — It’s really awful. It’s terribly written. I’d walk out, if I were an audience member.

Because it wouldn’t have been worth my time.

No matter how great I am or am not in the play, my heart wouldn’t be in it – and if it’s not, then that’ll show up, too. I roll my eyes every time I read the script. I say aloud to my cat, “This is a really awful play,” each time I start to rehearse it.

I don’t know yet. It’s a hard judgment call, you know? I asked my friend, What about having to work your way up the ladder, and take shitty jobs at first? She pointed me back to those three questions. Where are my values?

Is my hesitation to drop out about my having a lead role, so I can feel pride? Pride over a notation on my resume? Pride over something that I’m not proud of? Is it about status? Is it about feeling this proves that I’m worthy; that I'm good?

How can you feel worthy about something you’re not proud of? That doesn’t compute.

I’m meeting with another actor friend of mine tomorrow to run lines for this play. I’m hoping to get insight in conversation with him – if it’s really as awful as I think it is.

But, I already know it is.

What my friend told me was that I should audition for everything, but don’t go to callbacks if it’s a terrible play!

I’m reminded, once again, of the dating/job interview corollary: It’s great to say Yes to the first date or interview. But after that, you’ve garnered enough information to know if you want to try it out again or not. I don’t have to show up a second time, if I’m really sure this is not a fit.

So, yes, it would be really great to say that I’m the Queen of the Amazons. It makes me feel worthy and proud and like I'm not making a huge mistake in going after this dream. But isn't the mistake not respecting what really want, and settling for (way) less, just so I can say I have a lead? Isn't the mistake I've been loathe to make in relationships settling for less than I want, just so I can say I have a partner? 

Wouldn’t I rather be somewhere where I’m excited and learning something, instead of just clocking time? 

"Only Her Hairdresser Knows For Sure!"

I am likely not the only woman to tear up at the sighting of a gray hair on her head. But I may be one of the few who wells up with tears of gratitude.

Yesterday, during my morning primping, I noticed a gray hair. I usually don’t pull them out; this isn’t the first I’ve noticed. But this one, I decided to.

About 5 inches of silver, shiny, light-catching hair. 5 inches that have grown back since it all fell out from chemo in late 2012.

Call me crazy, but I’ve never been scared of going gray. I had none at all before cancer, and several now. But, even before then, I always thought of it as a rite of passage. As a crowning achievement, really. You’ve made it. You are alive to go gray at all. You are passing into the stage of life that is for richness, boldness, satisfaction, self-esteem and a greater degree of self-assurance.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from reading about aging generations, it’s that so much of our self-questioning begins to fall away once we reach “a certain age.” We begin to think less about how others see us, and more to question what we want to leave as a legacy. And this brings with it so much reflection and truth-finding.

Who wouldn’t want to age into that category?

Surely, you don’t have to turn 50 to begin to assess your values and your desires for the remainder of your years. Like me, and surely others, you can do that at most any age. But it helps to have some experience behind you to make those choices from a place of peace, not fear.

The first memoir I ever looked at, I didn’t read.

I saw it on a shelf in Borders (when it still existed) about 7 or 8 years ago. I noted the title, looked at the flap, and went on with my day. But I never forgot about it, and last year finally picked it up to read.

The title? Going Gray: What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters. A woman’s exploration of what that means to “go gray” in our culture and society. A lifelong hair dyer, she made the decision to give up the illusion, and embrace whatever lay under the chemicals, for better or worse.

Author Anne Kreamer looks at the history of dying our hair; goes “undercover” as a woman trying to reinvent herself to re-enter the workforce to see if image consultants will tell her to dye her now growing-out grays (none do); and comes to discover that with her new look comes a new clothing color scheme, and a new confidence.

She also doesn’t purport the superiority of letting her hair grow out. She talks with successful women who do and don’t dye, and let’s them have their experience. All she can speak to is her own.

Surely, it helps that she goes gray in a “nice” way, with silvery and dark chrome strands. Which is much the way I anticipate I will.

With my dark coloring, I imagine that I will go silver, instead of stale gray, or as my mom describes her (dyed) fading blond: dirty dishwater.

So, that "beauty in the beast" helps my acceptance, I’m sure.

But what brought me to tears yesterday as I stood there, admiring this newly-found strand, now plucked and held like a precious object in my hand, was the reality and giddy reminder I feel every time I find one: I made it. I am alive to have gray hair.

I’m alive to see what will happen with it: if they’ll turn out all spidery texture and I’ll lament I ever praised finding them. If I’ll consider dying it after all. Or if I’ll love every single thread of life these gray hairs represent.

I tear up when thinking about this, because it’s true. Because, like someone admiring a sunset, or their sleeping child, or the taste of a food never eaten, it means I’m alive. Which itself means I have a chance and a choice to make my life whatever I want it to be.

My gray hair represents possibility, transformation, and authenticity.

Who wouldn’t rejoice?