30 Days Until 40

i have 30 days until i turn 40 years old.  this is no small event.  as someone who likes to think i have a long and interesting (dare i say exciting) life ahead of her, turning 40 presents some existential crises that are hard to put into words.

feeling old.
feeling unremarkable, invisible.
being called ma'am by boys i would once have consider hot.
watching my body and face change rapidly, and feeling the ever intensifying pull towards old age.
looking around and ahead and finding there is so much still to be done, to be accomplished.
looking back and finding that, despite my best efforts, there were missed opportunities and decisions that could have been better.
remembering moments that are long gone, and wishing i could visit them again.
grasping at memories, people, songs and feelings that remind me of my younger self.
wanting things that seem somehow harder or further from reach for someone soon to be entering their 40's.

i know a lot more about myself now.  i also see clearly the areas where i could be better.  it is obvious to me the many ways i would like to improve, change and grow as a person.  and with time speeding up it all becomes very intensified and serious for some reason.

initially i thought i should take on a challenge of doing one new thing for myself in the next 30 days - to mark the milestone of 40 more poignantly.  maybe things on my life's growing to-do list that would make me feel accomplished. but then i realized that there are enough challenges each day, that being the mother i want to be,  making progress in my professional life (slow but sure progress), and trying to live a life that is happy and interesting and balls to the wall on a daily basis (particularly this month!) doesn't leave a lot of room for an additional 30 day challenge.  so for now i will look at this countdown with wide eyes and hope that something awesome and delightful hits me over the head on september 29th.

Sacrifice and Love

I was ruminating on the nature of parenting, and the challenges i face as an individual with deep and dramatic desires for adventure and meaningful contributions and travel and impactful work.  and i started to think that the word that best describes how i was feeling these past few months is SACRIFICE.

Sacrifice - an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy.

as a mother, i find that there are many things that i am choosing to sacrifice for the sake of something else more important - my son.  not surprisingly, i sacrifice some of the work that i value...i forgo certain projects and work less on things i care about in order to spend more time with him.  i sacrifice some of the things that i love, such as sleep and extensive travel, in order to be there for him.  i sacrifice time with my friends in order to put him to bed each night, and i sacrifice time getting ready in the morning (and as a consequence often sacrifice feeling good about how i look) in order to be sure to give him the attention he wants.  i sacrifice what i want to do a million little moments through out the day, because i happily give them all up for the sake of him.

its not something i need him to thank me for later on.  its something that is natural to me, and seems inherent in the position. its something that i can't imagine not doing, as he is always (and always will be) regarded as more important or worthy than just about anything.

i know the importance of being happy - and that a happy parent makes for happy children. believe me, i indulge my dreams and interests often.  i am not a martyr.  but i do see how critical and intrinsic the notion of sacrifice is to being the kind of parent i want to be. and its important to acknowledge how hard that can be sometimes.  its not that the rest of me shriveled away and died when my son was born and i no longer have the outlandish intentions and impulsive desires to act...those are all still there (sometimes straining to be unleashed).  it is rather that i, most oftentimes, choose to sacrifice my selfish impulses for something of much greater value.  and i am confident that not only am i happier for it, and he is better for it, but also that these pieces of me will be still be there when the time is right and selfishness over sacrifice makes sense again.  

Screw the Lemonade

So there is this saying, that may or may not still be around when my son is old enough to finally read this, which goes like this - If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Well I don't feel that way.  I never have.  I am more of the mind that if life gives you lemons then tell life to fuck off and kick its ass.

I have a low tolerance for wallowing.  This is true in how I view myself and at times even others.  I don't know what it is.  Its not that I lack empathy, I like to consider myself super empathetic and compassionate to others.  Its more that I don't have an enormous amount of patience, particularly for myself.  I know that time speeds up and life is shorter than we all think it is -  I don't have the tolerance for too much self-pity for my own disappointments and raw deals.

What I do have, when life doesn't deliver, is a fire to do something.  Perhaps it is an unhealthy desire to move on, a little too rapidly (I have noticed this on more than one occasion, that I didn't allow myself the time to mourn a loss or feel the sadness).  Nonetheless, when life screws you I say screw the lemonade.  Instead go out and find something else to do, something else to feel good about, something else to pin your hopes on, something else happy to focus on, somewhere else to go.  There is an infinite number of possible directions in life, and so my balls to the wall philosophy doesn't allow much time for stewing in sadness - it requires me to go out and kick life's ass by doing something exciting and wonderful.

This something exciting and wonderful for me is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro this fall.  Take THAT life.

The Dangers of the Back Up Plan

Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate disappointment.  I deplore it.  Generally speaking nearly any kind of disappointment, no matter how great or small, for me results in crushing heartbreak.   One of the ways I have adapted to this disproportionate emotional reaction is to always have a back up plan.

Back up plans have worked wonders in my life - providing meaningful alternatives to plans and hopes in the event that those endeavors don't pan out.  A perfect antidote to the high risk of disappointment, particularly in a balls to the wall existence.  And it keeps my life moving forward, always changing and progressing, with many wonderful twists and turns.  So what if that job I went for didn't come through for me, there is always an offer equally interesting waiting as Plan B.  So what if returning to New York isn't in the cards, L.A. is equally fun and something different.  Who cares if this project or that desire doesn't materialize, so long as there is some beautiful secondary option percolating in the wings.

But there is a downside to the business of the back up plan.  As I get older I come to terms with the fact that sometimes a back up plan provides an escape, an excuse to move on to Plan B before Plan A disappoints.  A cowardly alternative to putting all your eggs in one basket.

And more important than that, there is the issue of the power of putting things out into the universe  - visualizing something positive to help make it come true.  If you have ever listened to guided meditation tracks or anything goal-oriented in nature, they never say visualize what you want...and also visualize a Plan B in case what you want doesn't work out.  Nope.  They focus exclusively on visualizing your goal, attaining your goal, achieving what you want, and seeing in your "mind's eye" what you want to see reflected in reality.

So what of the power of positive visualization?  Certainly one can't focus on making one's true desires and wishes come true if one is also planning for possible failure and disappointment.  These are not mutually compatible actions.   The latter will always take away from the former.

While I remain skeptical about my own power to will things to happen, these days I am recognizing the possible benefits to focusing on one outcome at a time and the drawbacks of entertaining back up plans.    Though I still believe there are huge benefits to having options and staving off disappointment, when the stakes are right.  I also am open to entertaining the possibility that I may contain within me the power to make the things I want most materialize, by harnessing the focus of my balls to the wall attitude and effort.

We will see how that works out for me.  To be continued....

When We Get Older

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Jim Carroll - People Who Died

When we get older sometimes we can't help but look around us, and look back.  The allure of sentimentality and nostalgia are so great that in dark times, quiet times, monumental times, harrowing times, and lonely times we think of our former selves, and the people we knew.  Approaching 40 it seems natural to want to take a loose inventory of my life.

It strikes me that so many people I knew have died.  

I have a running mental list of them that I occasionally revisit to wonder about our merging and diverging paths - old friends, more than one former lover, sisters of my most important people, relatives, acquaintances.  All dead before I turn 40.  It is disturbing and baffling, and so senseless, to know this many people gone before their own 40th birthdays.


And then there are those who haven't died but our paths took opposite turns due to other reasons - homelessness, alcoholism, addiction... It is nearly impossible to determine which set of small (and big) decisions widened the gap between those friends and me.  But as we get older it becomes curious.  

Continuing to look around at those who are still in our lives in some way evokes deep emotions that seem only possible with history and the flattering benefit of time and distance.  It is visceral and crushing - that feeling when your high school sweetheart gets married and has kids with someone else.  Amusing when you find out that your prom date has five kids or that your junior high crush looks even better at 40 than he did in 1988.  Inspiring when your clean-cut friend-turned-heroin-addict-turned-felon-turned-clean-again becomes a responsible and loving father to his son.  Fascinating when your college boyfriend comes out with a book, your law school boyfriend evolves into a successful attorney with a remarkable wife and the best friend you traveled Europe with turns out to live just half a mile from you.  These discoveries are magical.

Without judging, knowing how the people we knew and loved and shared pivotal times with have turned out is part of looking back.  And looking around. Reflecting.  It is like another road map of how we got where we are, where we took a different turn, and where we might have gone, had things.... It puts our own lives in context while also showing the uniqueness of our own paths.  And, when the sentimentality passes and the losses fade again to the backdrop, I emerge back in the present and can't help but feel extraordinarily fortunate to be at the very spot I am right now.  And soon to be 40.

In the Company of Great Women

I am lucky.  I am surrounded by inspiring women of extraordinary talents and strength.  This Mother's Day I am thinking of women, mothers and non-mothers alike, who provide amazing examples of what is possible  - possible to do, to be, to become, to accomplish.  So many women who somehow find a way to make the impossible seem almost effortless and who show me the infinite levels of living (balls to the wall) ... as a woman.

From the women I know who somehow manage to raise smart and happy kids on no money whatsoever, without them ever feeling deprived in some way.  To the women who are changing the world with each day that they dedicate themselves to service and global development.  The women who are miraculously balancing their personal and professional selves, with or without kids, and contributing to the external world as well as their intimate personal worlds.  Women in school while working and raising kids, women raising kids in countries foreign to them and teaching their children to explore and appreciate the world and other cultures, women raising kids with their wives who have to endure ridiculous legal obstacles to fair and just treatment, women pioneers leading huge teams (of mostly men) in places like Afghanistan and Libya, women in shelters (often with kids) paying a high price to live a life free from violence, women raising smart and thoughtful human beings while juggling a thousand other relationships and obligations and demands, women following their dreams while simultaneously taking care of their babies or other people's babies, women who run marathons and break physical barriers, and women who bravely do what is right even when it is the hardest option.

This Mother's Day I am celebrating all women.  As a mother for less than two years now, I feel so fortunate to have so many examples of how to live; to have so many people to look to in order to remind myself of what can be.  It is easy to find motherhood full of challenges and daily heartbreaks - particularly when also trying to maintain a sense of self and contribute to the world in a positive way.  These truly great women (including my own mother) are important reminders to me of the incredible, unimaginable and outrageous world of possibilities that is open to me (to all of us) if I just fearlessly stay committed to living life balls to the wall.

And as I do that, as I stumble forward somewhat blindly but well-intentioned into all sorts of adventures and endeavors and travels and professional milestones, I know that I am being the best mother I can be.  One that continues to set the example for my own son of a live truly worth living.  One that is balls to the wall.

Decisions 2012

There are decisions that we have to make in life, and decisions that are made for us.  It is difficult to see which is which sometimes, and both kinds are challenging in their own ways.  Decisions that we have to make can paralyze us - knowing that the wrong choice can lead us down a path we may regret - and yet action is critical so any choice is better than no choice at all.   Making a decision on something important can be gut wrenching.  But a decision that is made for us is equally gut wrenching - having the choice out of our hands and not being able to decide what will happen next is a different kind of painful process.

Sometimes it is easier to be the one to decide where to go, what to do - then there is no one else to blame if things don't work out.   Sometimes it is devastating when the decision is made for you, as it can close a door you had hoped was open. Other times it can be fantastically freeing to have the choice taken out of your hands - it can serve as wonderful protection.  If you have to choose whether or not to take a job - that can be harder than not having the job offered to you in the first place.  A relationship ended by someone else can be heartbreaking, but sometimes less so than having to decide if it was good enough to maintain.

There are positives and negatives to decisions we make verses decisions that are made for us.  And both come in ample supply in life.  The important thing is to accept the decisions we are faced with, the choices open to us, and to act on them.  Fear of making the wrong choice, when one is presented to us, is never a viable option for a life lived balls to the wall.  And when we are given a break and a decision is made for us, well that too is a gift that should point us in another direction of pursuit - to the next fork in the road.