"The French say that the best part of an affair is going up the stairs. Desire is almost always more thrilling than fulfillment."

~ Tom Robbins

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

(I found this post in my drafts folder and I can't believe I forgot to publish it 6 months ago. Oh well, it's never too late...being forwarned is being forearmed.)


If you see this girl...




...behind the wheel of any motorized vehicle, pull safely to the side of the road and wait for her to get outside of a ten mile radius surrounding you or anyone you remotely care about. She is now a licensed driver in the state of California and a menace on the road. The poor weak man at the DMV passed her just so he would never have to see her again. She hit three trash cans, a palm tree, and only narrowly missed a small child crossing the street because she was aiming for the three slower senior citizens behind him. Do not take this warning lightly. If you happen to find yourself in the greater Orange County area, proceed with caution. You never know when she's going to come flying around a corner on two wheels or run another red light because she was texting her girlfriend about where to score a six-pack.

Good luck...Godspeed...and remember...you can learn a lot from a Dummy.

dis⋅sat⋅is⋅fac⋅tion [dis-sat-is-fak-shuhn]

I love dictionary.com

I'm on it almost every day. There's always something I want to look up to make sure I'm spelling correctly, or using correctly.

This is my latest find...

"Dissatisfaction results from contemplating what falls short of one's wishes or expectations: dissatisfaction with the results of an afternoon's work.
Discontent is a sense of lack and a general feeling of uneasy dislike for the conditions of one's life: feeling a continual vague discontent.
Displeasure suggests a certain amount of anger as well as dissatisfaction: displeasure at being kept waiting."

Ahhhh....welcome to my world.

Everything about me is screaming to run. Everything about me is dissatisfied. Discontented? Yup, that's me. And displeased...wholeheartedly.

So why am I still here? Because I'm insane. We've all heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Based on this definition...I am insane. I need to run. Get the hell out. Get the hell away. I'm half way there. Half way further than I was before.

I see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm running towards it.

"Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'."

I came across this song while listening to an old CD (and by the way, who listens to CD's anymore? I'm pretty sure they'll be the next casualty of the new millennium).

Hearing it again made me wonder when I switched teams. When did I check out of the "your sons and your daughters" group and join the "mothers and fathers"? And no, it's not obvious. I was still practically a kid myself when I had my first child. I marched in the California Peace March, had a bumper sticker on my VW Bug that said, "Give Peace a Chance," I dragged my dad out to the California desert to participate in Hands Across America, raising money to fight homelessness and poverty (OK, so maybe my motivation for this one may have been that I heard Tom Selleck was doing it in Hawaii. I figured that this would be the last sign he needed to see how much we had in common and that we should be together forever, but no. He never called. I cannot be responsible for a man who doesn't recognize God's will for his life. But I digress...). I refused to eat meat before it was popular, and was a card-carrying member of Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund. Where did THAT girl go? Grew up I guess. Definitely on to what I think are more prevalent causes. But damn, I sure miss that youthful idealism.

Dear Complacency...

...it's over.

It was fun for awhile, but face it - you are no good for me. Oh sure, things were great for awhile. When I got laid off, you were there to pick up the pieces. I was a needy mess and you were there for me. I let myself get lost in your endless generosity, and in the contentment that only you can offer. I was depressed and you were my drug. You loved me through my financial meltdown, through my daughter's illness, and you didn't judge me when I stayed in bed for days. You made me feel secure, relaxed and fulfilled. And I let you. I loved you unconditionally and I thought it would last forever. You and I spent hours together just laying by the pool, reading the classics, practicing deep breaths - basically convincing ourselves that we'd had a hard few years and it was OK to take a break for awhile. When it was good, it was the best. Yes, I realize there was the smallest hint of denial. After all, by definition you're a downward spiral waiting to happen. But I was going to be the exception - I thought I could change you. I was so naive.

And now, because of the ferocity with which I embraced you, I can't pay my bills. My ability to support my family is failing, and my self respect is circling the drain. All because of this dysfunctional relationship we've both become so comfortable in. This is the ugly side of you that I refused to acknowledge, but can no longer ignore. And that's not all. I don't want to be unnecessarily cruel, but for the first time in our relationship, I'm embarrassed to say that we're together.

Please don't think you've done anything wrong. You're not the one whose changed. Trust me when I say it's not you, it's me.

I know this is sudden, and seems impulsive. But the truth is, Complacency, I've found someone else. A long lost love named Responsibility. Responsibility and I are finally reunited after a way too long separation. I realized that I've loved Responsibility all along and this time I am determined to make it work. Yes I know it's hard work. Yes I know I have to re-learn some old habits. But Responsibility has always been good to me and I'm willing to take the plunge for Responsibility's sake.

To quote a really bad Lionel Ritchie song - thanks for the time that you've given me. I will never forget you and you can be sure there's a part of me that will always love you. But please let me go. No drunk dials in the middle of the night. No calling my friends under false pretenses in an attempt to gain any piece of information about me that you can. That type of behavior would just embarrass both of us. You'll find someone else, just as I have. You have so much to offer that it's just a matter of time before someone else needs to be saved, and is sucked into your facade of instant gratification.

I'll never forget you and on some level, I hope we can always be friends. I might look you up next time I'm on vacation, or when my relationship with Responsibility finally affords me the luxury of retirement. But until then, I'll be putting every ounce of effort into my new love.

Take care,
Steph

Crossroads

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"

The picture is hard to see, but one road sign says YOUR LIFE and the other says NO LONGER AN OPTION. I love this. I found this picture many years ago, but it's proved to be relevant many times in my life ever since. How often are we brave enough to even know that one way is no longer an option? How do we know the road signs are facing in the right direction, and that the NO LONGER AN OPTION route is truly going nowhere?

This poem is one of my favorites. Frost himself says that this is a "tricky poem," and the more times I read it, the more I understand what he means. It's oftentimes interpreted as inspirational; a poem of self realization. But I'm not sure it is.

The person in this poem didn't make his choice lightly. He says, "long I stood" and he looked as far down that road as he could see. The second road he refers to is greener, it looks better - until he realizes that it really doesn't - and it's the road he ends up choosing. And even though he intends to revisit the first one, knowing that "way leads on to way", he realistically knows it won't happen. In the end, he makes no claim that the road he chose was the right one; just that it made all the difference - a difference that he does not define as good or bad. I think Frost's bottom line (the "tricky" message of the poem) is that choice is inevitable, but we really don't know what the impact of our choices are until they've been made and lived.

The person in this poem could have started down one road, and if it didn't please him, just turn back. We all have choices and sometimes those choices are not definitive - we can turn back. But do we ever want to go back to where our journey began? Has that ever worked for anyone?

What if we choose one road and spend the rest of our lives second guessing our decision? Or even just wondering? Is that even healthy?

How do we know?

Well, I guess we just do.
Intuition, discernment, gut feelings, divine intervention. We just know.

And today...I just know.

Thank God I just know.

Random Memory

I was in Newport Beach yesterday at a very expensive tennis club, liked you'd expect to find in Newport Beach. I was a guest obviously, and met a woman who like me had grown up sailing with her dad. There were a few flags flying overhead and the sound of the wind blowing the rope against the flagpole sounded just like when rigging on a boat hits the mast. If you've been around boats, you know it's a sound that you can't escape at the harbor. To me, it's music to my ears. It instantly relaxes me. Growing up, I spent almost every weekend at the harbor on our family's sailboat. The picture above is where our boat was docked. Beautiful, isn't it? I was so lucky to have grown up with such beautiful surroundings. We sailed to Catalina and took many day trips, but even if we never took the boat out, we would spend the weekend fixing something on it or cleaning it, etc. I should say my dad did that, while my sister and I laid on the dock getting suntans waiting for the BBQ to be ready. I have so many memories on that boat - some amazing, some not so great. One time, we sailed to Catalina and my dad dove into the harbor and found us some abalone for dinner which we cooked on the boat (seems I'm allergic to abalone, as we soon found out, but the experience was great!). My sister and I learned the hard way that Ban de Soliel orange gelee needs to be rubbed in evenly or you're likely to get fake tanned fingerprints on your legs. :)
When I was 10 years old, it was on that boat where my dad told my sister and I that he and my mom were separating. I remember thinking, "If you're leaving, why can't you take me with you?" But I never verbalized it. Not long after that, I remember sitting on the back of the boat with my feet in the water, and my Walkman cassette player on. My eyes were closed as I was listening to whatever new Elton John album had just come out, and in my mind I was lost in a song called Cold as Christmas. Every once in awhile, I hear a song that I would describe as "haunting". This was one of those for me. I remember thinking how it was so my parents, so much my family.

"The temperature's up to ninety five
But there's a winter look in your mother's eyes
And to melt the tears there's a heat wave here
So how come it's cold as Christmas in the middle of the year?"

I can't hear that song without going back to that boat, with my feet hanging over the edge into the water of Dana Point harbor. I can't hear the sounds of the harbor without remembering that song and that moment.

My parents divorce wasn't particularly traumatic for me, and neither was that moment. In fact, I remember feeling very peaceful then - the feeling of the water and the music and the sun so perfect. It does surprise me, however, the vividness of that memory.

Why I Hate Mother's Day...

I've said it before...I dread Mother's Day every year. For one simple reason - my mother is not normal. Trust me. She's so not normal that my brother and sister bailed years ago, moving 3,000 and 400 miles away, leaving me alone to fend for myself with our mom. Sure, every once in awhile they'll call me and thank me for taking it for the team, but it could never make up for the insanity that living in such close proximity to my mom brings into my life.

One of the problems with my mom is that she gauges how much I love her by how much I do for her, buy for her, spend on her, etc. on holidays and birthdays. I've been a mom myself for 18 years, but she manages to make Mother's Day all about her every year and never even mentions that I'm also a mom and may want to spend the day celebrating MY family. I always have to make plans that she thinks sufficiently spoil her, and she never even offers to pick up the tab even though I'm a mom too and deserve it once a year. Mother's Day every year entails brunch AND dinner at nice restaurants.

Last year, she was out of town for Mother's Day and my girls and I had the best day we'd had in a long time. We went to L.A. and window shopped on Rodeo Drive and then had a great lunch at one of the restaurants there. No pressure, no stress, no mom. The girls could feel the difference too and commented on how relaxing this Mother's Day actually was. The woman even drives them nuts. My mom got home about a week later and on the way home from the airport asked me what we were going to do for Mother's Day. Mother's Day was over! The not so thinly veiled message was, "I wasn't here for you to do anything for me on Mother's Day, so how are you going to make it up to me?" I had been laid off from my job two months before, money was tight, and did I mention - Mother's Day was over!! So I said, "You know Mom, the girls and I had a really quiet Mother's Day this year and since money is really tight, we didn't even go out to dinner. I know I usually take you out to dinner each year, but this year I can't really afford to, so if you want to (still) celebrate Mother's Day - a week later! - you're going to have to pick up the check for dinner." Her response? "NO! It's Mother's Day! If you can't afford to take me to dinner, you can just make me dinner." The fact that my mom has more money than God notwithstanding, her response just pissed me off. For me to say no would put into motion a chain of events that would be absolutely intolerable. It would be a relationship ending scenario. I've tried, not caring that I would finally have the albatross off my neck, but she gets weird by doing things like showing up to the girls schools to see them as if she's been banned from their lives, representing herself as the abandoned grandmother. Drama overflows during situations like that.

Yesterday, I ran into her while I was out running errands - shitty luck, I mean this isn't frickin' Mayberry! - and she asked about Mother's Day. It just reminded me again that every year I am stuck with dealing with this woman's expectations. I said, "Mom, this year is going to be different. I can't afford dinner, I can't afford anything. Sorry, that's just the way it is right now. So I decided for Mother's Day this year, you can come over in the morning and I'll make something small for brunch and we'll just be really low key at home." The beginning of her response gave me hope..."Well, Steph, you've always gone way out of your way for Mother's Day for me. You've always made great plans and taken me to really nice places and I can tell you've put a lot of thought into it in the past..." I'm thinking there's hope here... "So if all you can do this year is make brunch at home, I guess I would be OK with that." Argghhh..

Any suggestions? Do you know a guy who knows a guy? I know I need to grow a pair and just be honest. But really, if she just got a wild hair and decided to move to the east coast to be closer to my brother and his daughter, that would be OK, too.

The only thing that made me smile about this today, is of course, John. I texted him my frustration and he replied, "I'm guessing it has to do with the fact that you're the one left holding the bag on Mother's Day...no pun intended." HA! Love that guy!

Yeahhhhhh, babyyyyyy.......

Obama is in the White House and the Pittsburgh Steelers just won the Super Bowl.

'09 is shaping up pretty nicely so far!