That's Life

So I was babysitting my friend's three kids tonight and we played the board game "Life." Remember that one? I always joked how I chose money over kids when I played it years ago. I loved choosing the career path.

It was eye opening to play it with three kids under 8. There were all those 'forced' stops along the way - to get married, buy your first home, decide on college or career, choose family or fun. And each time, when faced with a choice - by that ominous orange space - the young boy would ask "Which one's best?"

Ah, if only there was an answer! Or at least the kind of simple answer he - or we - would prefer. There is no easy answer.

Then we came to one of the final choices - taking the 'risky' path or the path for 'family time.' I didn't hesitate - because in the board game of life, the risky path doesn't really have any negative consequences. You just win or lose - but get to pack it up and pull it out to play again some other time. This time, I actually won big taking the risky path (but of course, only by filing a lawsuit against said young boy).

I haven't taken the risky path in real life in a few years. When I have, the rewards have been big - but usually years away. Lots of heartache and tissue boxes away. Spending a summer in DC. A summer in Florida. I gave my two weeks notice at a job in Moses Lake after 2 weeks it was so bad. Left Bellevue to move to the Tri-Cities for a man. Married the man. Left the man. Sheewh!

But here I am - walking my path a bit wiser with amazing people and opportunities around me. Wonder where the other paths would have taken me?

All three kids refused to take the risky path. I don't think I was able to describe it - or its potential rewards - in a way that satisfied them. They took the less risky path. In the end, I was the one who won the game ironically.

So what lessons did I try to explain to them when we were done? I mean, that three kids will actually hear and understand? That sometimes you start out planning on one career but end up with another - and in the oldest girl's case, her final career was the one she truly desired.

That how much money you make doesn't really make a difference in the end - though by the end of the game, they were all sucked into snickering about how little money the others had. I tried ...

What else? That sometimes you don't get what you want. Or in the order you want. But, if you keep going and playing the game, you can get what you want some day. It will come in time.

Sometimes, it sucks. And that's life (well, I didn't necessarily say that!)

But what do you say when they say they didn't want to get married - guess the game of Life hasn't met the feminist yet. Or the woman who has a child of her own. Or same-sex couples who marry and may have children of their own.

Either way, there's always an orange spot on the path of life that forces you to choose - this way or the other way? And regardless of which you choose, you have no way of knowing where you'll end up.

No way of knowing which path is best.

We just don't get to pack it up and put it away for another day.

Our greatest fear

This poem was shared with me today - and I thought it was worth sharing. Definitely worth pondering. Read it aloud - that had a profound effect on me.

Our Greatest Fear

it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.

—Marianne Williamson

Someone asked me last week to do something that would have meant me "shrinking" - being less than myself. I'm so glad I resisted. I knew it wasn't good for me - I just hadn't realized why or how much until I read this poem.

I love the thought that by us each shining as brightly as we can, we help those around us do so.

Those silly building blocks

Are you a control freak? I am in so many ways. More than I want to admit. I like to have control - know what something will be like, make it the way I want, be able to predict people's behavior. Especially when it comes to love - give me absolutes, will-love-forevers, happily-ever-afters. Whatever. Just give me certainty.

One of the most profound passages I've read in the last few months was about not having that control - and it made me laugh. In a "yep, ain't that life" way. And it really made me question just how much control I should ever expect to have.

Author Thomas Moore writes about the passion of a relationship, and how when the soul is involved, you have no choice but to follow your heart. To just go with it. To stay close to the fantasty of all it represents to you. Because you just never know.

Then he says "You can trust (those emotions) - not to arrange life the way you want it - but to arrange the elements of your soul in a way that will offer rich life in the future."

Think about that - you're not going to get what you've dreamed of, but you're going to get a soul that will make it possible to have the best life ever.

It made me laugh because I used to be there - I thought he was THE ONE. THIS IS IT. I was arranging life the way I wanted it. Into a neat, tidy package. With no thought to my soul.

I was so naive. I was so hooked on that fantasy. That package. And yet, when it burst, and after the aftermath was over, those elements of my soul - building blocks - started falling into place and creating a new structure. A newly formed soul.

Isn't that just how life is? When we think we have control, when we think "ah, this is it!" -- that's when it nails us, smacks us upside the head. And we realize the goal is not a tidy package. The goal is a well-structured soul.

I truly doubt I have much control over how well-forged my soul is. How well those elements fall into place. I might arrange them one way, then the fates might re-arrange them.

I don't see this as a problem - just a new reality. Instead of focusing so much on controlling how things are or how we want them to be, should we be asking - how do we make each of those elements stronger? So that no matter how they're arranged, it's a solid structure?

As much as I laugh at that passage, I really do like it. I laugh at it because, in spite of me and my attempts of control, it's true. Regardless of how much I worry, there are forces beyond my control. And that sometimes, when I think life has just smacked me upside the head, maybe it's for good reason.

Because I look back at where I was several months ago - when I had it so neaty arranged in my fantasy - and I see how naive I was. How little I understood. About us, him - me.

And now I can just sit back and feel those elements being re-arranged. Moved around. Creating a stronger structure. In spite of myself.

Forgive me for not forgiving sooner

It was odd, filling out the Facebook "I have come to realize" Notes and coming across the statement about my dad. Off the top of my head, I simply wrote "I have come to realize my dad ... was just human."

And, with that, I forgave him. Let go of the anger. Finally realized that after years of angst, pain, disappointment, whatever I thought he was - he was just human.

I wish I'd come to realize that before he'd passed away. That was last summer - on the day he died, I actually wrote in my journal that I didn't know how to have a conversation with him. He was 20 feet away waiting for me to interact with him, and I struggled. There was just too much baggage. And it was too complicated. A shared episode of Stargate or Star Trek was the best we could do to connect (which might explain my love of sci-fi).

It's actually kind of funny - for years I railed against he and my mom for not doing better. For abandoning our emotional needs. Thousands of journal pages on it. Hours and hours of talks with girlfriends.

And, in the end, it was ironically simple - our parents are just human. They do their best. And it might suck. Be far from what we really needed. But in the end, it was their best.

It was when I saw him in that hospital bed that I realized how fragile he was. How maybe all those negative feelings were misplaced. The tallest, biggest man I'd ever known, and he was broken. It was when it was over that I finally asked questions. Really tried to understand him.

And you know, thank God I never had as hard a life as he did. Or as my mom did. Here I write about trying to find meaning at age 37 - yep, I'm lucky it's my biggest problem. And by my age, my mom was bankrupt with three kids, no education, an ex living on the other coast, and a boyfriend whose ex chased her with a gun. I'd better be careful how much I judge.

When my dad was 3 or 4, his mother told him to just play with the dog all day - the dog will make sure you get home, she'd say. Really? Talk about a need to call CPS. Of course he didn't know how to interact with people. He pretty much had the dog. He still found a way to be funny and ornery. By 37, both his parents had died, he'd watched two dreams screach to a halt, had three kids when I'm not sure he ever wanted any. And was divorced.

The great thing about my dad - though of course I couldn't give him credit for this until now - is that at some point in his life, he realized he'd fucked up. He hadn't loved enough. Wasn't going to find any love if he kept going down that same messed up path.

So he changed. It pissed me off actually - why couldn't he change sooner? Why couldn't he be with us like he was with his new wife?

But, you know, at least he changed. I could continue to carry all that anger and tattered baggage, or just say Thank you, God, that he did change. At least he knew - even if he couldn't verbalize it - that his life could be better. He could be better.

He never asked forgiveness. Maybe he didn't care if he got it. Or he hoped by being better and different, that it would come in time.

At his service, I heard people who saw him every day at work talk about his big personality, dry wit and tough demeanor. Some of the things they said he was best known for - speaking his mind when no one else had the courage to - are the traits in myself I am most proud of. I just hadn't realized where I got them.

And actually, it reminded me of older men at my work who I have incredible respect for - maybe subconsciously they reminded me of the man I never knew well enough.

So regardless of what people can give us or what we can give others or what we expect of ourselves or others, we really are just human. It's not an excuse. It's not meant to trivialize.

But, ironically, at a time when we flail about looking for meaning and purpose and answers, maybe some answers are as easy as 'we're just human.'

Summer of Secret Service

Do you have one of those summers when you were younger that seems almost like a movie? When you look back, you feel this longing and pride, all at once? Mine was the summer I turned 21. I was in DC on a fellowship taking classes at Georgetown and interning in a Congressional office. I was euphoric - I was the only kid west of the Mississippi to get the fellowship, so of course my ego was huge! And I was young, thin and single in a powerhouse town.

It was the summer I dated a Secret Service agent. Almost caused an international incident, according to some. And it's the summer I look back and think of one word - audacious. I was audacious - bold, unafraid, alive.

I also was pretty stupid - not very aware of my own issues, my own insecurities, my own limitations. I had my challenges in my life by then, but I'd come out of them stronger, not beaten down.

But, man, how good that summer was for my ego! I practically glided across the Capitol every day as I headed to work.

The highlight was meeting Chuck. My Secret Service agent. He was 40, handsome, funny. He made me feel so important - protected. When we walked together, he always had his arm around me, almost pulling me in at the same time he was pushing harm away.

So romantic! At the time, it was just so cosmopolitan, almost, to say I was dating him. It was so cool! But, honestly, he taught me a lot about life.

The first lesson was how a simple exchange with a stranger could brighten both of your days. When we walked along the pier, he'd comment about people's boats to them, ask how their day was. I now realize - if in his job, he rarely interacted but only watched, did he try to make up for it on his off hours? We can feed off of those interactions if we let ourselves. Invite more life in.

I also learned how important confidence is - and how visible it is, or isn't, to others. Chuck once commented that I walked so confidently, like I always had a destination and a goal in mind. A place to be.

I did. I had big dreams at the time. And I could feel them pulling. I'm not sure what happened. I think I might have chickened out. Maybe just let the easy life take over. Do what everyone else did - even if it wasn't what I wanted or needed in my core.

And the night Chuck called to cancel our last date - my last night in town - he told me to never stop smiling - because I had a beautiful smile.

I need to remember all of those lessons - to make the most of the little moments, to walk confidently and always have a destination in mind, and most of all, despite the 'life' that will happen, to never stop smiling.

I know I haven't lived up to those lessons. Maybe to varying degrees. But I was thinking of Chuck last week and remembering how much he believed in me. And how much I believed in myself at the time.

I was so audacious - walking up to him in that bar and delivering my famous line "What've you got in that attache case?" Dancing with a prince from the Middle East (yep, that was the beginning of the 'incident'). Acting as if I owned that town. Passionately debating big issues. Stretching my mind in class. Meeting people from around the world.

I miss her some times - that audacious girl. Though she comes out every once in a while still. I think the challenge as we age is how do we hold on to some of that boldness - the courageous, not stupid, part - while being more mature? How can we be wiser without being wimpier? Childlike yet confident without cynical?

I wish Chuck had taught me that lesson. It would be nice to have an easy answer now.

Boundary-worthy

I've never been good at setting boundaries. Even recognizing that they need to be set or that they're lacking Instead, I go along in a relationship - love, work - and at some point, I become frustrated - sick and tired. And it's usually because in my heart, there was a line I didn't want someone to cross - and they crossed it.

Yet I never told them the line was there. So I gave in, didn't make a big deal out of it. Never set those boundaries. So there went more time. Then came more frustration. And it hurt us all in the end.

Boundaries represent how we see ourselves and what we're worthy of. -- what define us in some ways. They tell people who we believe we are and want to be - and how we expect to be treated.

I've rarely set them. Certainly not proactively before someone crossed the line. At those times, I've given in - given up my independence, my spontaneity, my self-respect, my health, my pursuit of meaning. I became a shrunken version of myself - willing to compromise on so many things (big and small) that I couldn't recognize myself.

In my last relationship, I was so afraid of losing him that I never set boundaries. I compromised on so many things that really were important to me - even when he didn't ask me to! It's almost like I did it eagerly. Like it proved how much I loved him. Unselfish, right?

I made the preservation of my relationship more important than the preservation of myself. Of who I am at my core. I get how wrong that was. I'm realizing how much time and energy it takes to find myself again.

I have come to realize that I'm worthy of boundaries - and that they will actually help, not hurt, my relationships. They won't limit me or those people in my life. They'll provide enough structure - and clarity on what is most important to me - that we should be able to flourish within those boundaries.

It will take time - and work. I have to identify and understand what boundaries are most important to me. And what it will look like when someone crosses them. And how many chances they get before they're 'out' for good.

I guess it's like parents with children - you set those boundaries because you love them. You know this requires more work but it's what will make them the best people they can be.

Since I'm ultimately responsible for myself (I can't ask my mom to baby me anymore!), I have to do the hard work of setting and enforcing boundaries.

It may not be fun or easy but it's what I'm worthy of.

A lion's roar

I've been doing hot (Bikram) yoga for more than four months now. Yoga is counterintuitive to begin with, at least for those of us in modern society. While it's supposedly the natural movement and range of motion for your body, it's crazy. And then make the room 100 degrees, and you have a group of insane people.

And I'm one of them - who is all the more crazy because I find an incredible amount of self-awareness and peace when I'm twisting like a pretzel balanced on my toes with sweat pooling in my ears.

So I was in one of these insanity postures a few weeks ago when a swell of anger crashed through me - anger at my last love. The one who left me - who wasn't strong enough to make us work.

I was screaming at him in my head. Cursing at him. The anger was overwhelming.

But honestly, I wasn't mad at him. I was angry at me. Ticked off at myself. Furious. Fed up.

Furious for being so crushed when he left. Weak. For not seeing it coming. For spending the last year of our relationship more focused on making it work than on asking why it wasn't. For doing the same thing in my marriage - believing it could be more. For not setting boundaries - not telling him he couldn't call me a bitch. For not leaving him when he did.

I'm angry at how long it took me to see the light - and how much pain there was along the way. That I could have avoided. If I'd just been smarter. More insightful.

This truth hurts. But, the other truth is that rage can be a catalyst for improvement. If we can channel the anger, we can make good from it.

That is what I'm hoping to do.

I love the quote from Susan Anderson's "The Journey from Abandonment to Healing" where she talks about the mighty roar a lion gives when he feels threatened. She says "Baring his teeth, the lion masks this fear as strength. His roar is an assertion of power, signifying his expectation of triumph."

I absolutely dig that - the expectation of triumph. It speaks to confidence in one's capabilities - that in a fight, they'd have superior skills. And it implies a faith in the outcome - that heart of the lion you hear about.

So - if I want to channel anger toward action, I have to know: what do I fear? and what expectation do I have?

I fear more lost time. I am afraid that I'll repeat my mistakes - and that truly would be a mistake.

I fear not progressing. Not becoming the best person I can be. Of looking back and knowing I didn't do everything I could to forge my soul. Of not contributing all I can to this life.

I do fear not ever finding that someone who I believe I will spend the rest of my life with. And, I fear not being strong enough to be alone if that is indeed my fate.

I fear I'll never repack my baggage to be lighter. That it'll only get heavier, if I don't manage it right.

With that said, what do I expect? What does triumph look like to me? When I roar (I am a Leo, you know), where is my heart?

I have an expectation of myself that I will learn from my lessons (I can't call them mistakes if they truly were part of my journey). I expect that I will continue seeking answers. That when the answers come easy, I'll make sure I'm not just fooling myself. I expect my soul will become a beautiful, solid, vibrant core that is much like the heart of a lion.

I do expect to find someone I will fall madly in love with - I'm too much of a romantic to not expect it. But, I will make sure when it does happen that I will work hard for a balanced, boundaried relationship.

And because it could be decades before it happens, I won't sit and wait. I expect to live as much life as I can every day. To appreciate every small moment - how fallen leaves look like a sheet of gold on the grass. How precious the unconditional love of a pet is.

Finally, I expect to triumph over my baggage. It IS mine, after all. It's mine to carry. I can't leave it behind. But I can repack it to be smaller. I can make my soul so strong that the baggage feels much lighter to carry. And I can let it make me smarter. Stronger.

Mightier, like that lion.