I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Friday morning. You know the saying that, in the midst of life there is also death? I've been thinking about that this morning as I wrestle with my responsibilities at VLSCI and for my team.
Happiness at the holidays is what's expected, what's "supposed" to happen, and we feel so let down when our life doesn't work that way, but isn't that a little naive? There is no experience - ever - that is wholly happy or wholly sad. Even at funerals, there are usually moments of joyful reflection on memories that make us smile or even laugh. At weddings or baptisms, there are still some in the assembly who feel left out, as if it will never happen to them. Happy/sad, life/death, plenty/lack...they are all tied together and you can't have one or appreciate one if you don't have the other.
I mention this not to bring the party down but because it's been pushed right in my face this morning. Last night TCB and I had a fabulous time at the Poinsettia Bowl (Way to Go, Navy!!!), I've gotten lots done around the house, my fabulous house cleaners are scrubbing and polishing away as we speak, and several products (work stuff) that I didn't have a good feeling about are (apparently) going to ship right on schedule. Then I came in to work and, on the way in, I saw a dog that had been hit by a car just lying on the grass as though it were asleep. Once I got here, the other CASA for Alcott's siblings called and there's something really horrible happening with one of the kids. Right before Christmas. Finally, one of my team members called and told me that his dad hadn't had the stroke they'd thought but, rather, had a tumor on his brain stem and was losing control of various body parts. His father. At Christmas.
What I wanted to do was cry from the sadness, the injustice of it all - why do things like this happen at such a wonderful time of year? Why can't we just enjoy the wonderful things surrounding us without having to stop and deal with the sadness? That's when it struck me...the balance thing. Why wouldn't tragedy strike at the holidays? This week is no different than any other on the calendar so there will still be traffic accidents and robberies and children being abused, it's the fact that there is so much joy intermingled with the everyday swirl of life that makes it special.
And that, truly, is at the heart of the matter: celebrate with abandon those things that are good, special, and wonderful, mourn deeply those things that are tragic and horrifying, and then use the latter to help you appreciate the former even more. The bottom line is that there is no magic Wonderland but it's still a really Wonderful Life.
Thursday afternoon. I like this very much. I don't care what Target says or Walmart either, for that matter. It does bother me that the Salvation Army bell ringers were banned from some venues for being religious (I like the bell ringing because it reminds me of the line from It's a Wonderful Life) but I've never been outraged enough to stage a boycott or whatever. Can't we all just get along?
Anyway, tonight TCB and I are going to the Poinsettia Bowl, featuring Navy and Colorado State. Given TCB's profession, you can probably guess who we'll be cheering for. I'd tell you to look for a short girl in a Navy sweatshirt next to a guy with nearly no hair, but that will probably describe most of the crowd. San Diego has always been a Navy town and, even with the defense cutbacks, that's still the truth. Everyone's either in the military, retired from the military, or has a friend in the military. We go about our lives with the roar of the planes from Miramar MCAS and North Island NAS in the background. Our airport approach gives you a great view of Carrier Row on North Island. Camp Pendleton is the only stretch of California coast line not developed or part of a national/state park. (Even the Marines are going because their corpsmen are Navy and many of their officers are Annapolis grads, too.) So I feel mildly sorry for Colorado State tonight because, unless they've shipped the whole state in, they're going to be sorely outnumbered. That's OK, though, because we're quite neighborly and there's certainly room for some friendly competition!
I'd better go because I'm meeting TCB at my house around 5:30 and I've got to do a few more things around here before leaving. In closing, I'd just like to leave you with one, simple thought - GO NAVY!
OK, so I've never been a particularly daring person and so, perhaps understandably, have not taken a lot of risks in my life. Or so I imagined before I gave it some thought. No, I haven't skydived or worn low rise jeans with belly bulge (GACK!), but I've done a few ballsy things:
* I ended a marriage of five years to my dearest friend which most people thought was the most perfect marriage ever. (Of course, none of those people was inside the relationship, but that's beside the point.) Result? He's remarried and incredibly happy with a woman who is yin to his yang and I've started on a journey of loving myself without reservation or consideration of what a man might think
* I left a position I'd had for ten years to manage a team of people who do something I cannot do myself with processes I'm not familiar with. (Without a pay raise.) Result? I've become a lot more comfortable with the phrase "I'm not familiar with that, can you show me?" and I now know that it's not impossible to keep up performance and project management meetings with ten people on a bi-weekly basis
* I've made myself emotionally vulnerable to a teenage boy and am acting as his advocate in the foster care system. Result? My life has purpose and meaning beyond my own little dramas and I've realized that my words and actions really do make a difference. (I still can't believe that someone thought I was worthy of this boy...have they seen the state of my laundry pile???)
* I have talked about some of my deepest, darkest secrets here...things I've never told a single soul. I worried that I'd lose anyone that might be reading me but I worried more than being dishonest or not completely open was ripping me apart. Result? I've never felt healthier emotionally and I no longer feel like a piece of nasty scum because I made mistakes in my past. Binge eating is not necessarily the worst of the coping mechanisms I've employed to make the hurting stop and I hope that working through that issue will help in every area that needs mending
So, definitely not your average risk-taker here, but who wants to be average anyway?
