I want to live like I am on vacation.

My daughter, who is living as a college student, sent me a text message the other day; "I feel like I am on one long vacation and I have had enough!" Funny, I understand that feeling and remember vacationing myself at a wonderful place several years in a row for the typical one week vacation. Finally, one year I planned for my family to go for two weeks. What I found out was 10 days was "just right." (I purposely avoided use of the word "perfect" here, questioning whether such a concept actually exists. I am sure that the author of Goldilocks and The Three Bears had some reason too for using "just right" instead of "perfect.")

I called my daughter and applauded her for knowing herself well enough to know when "enough is enough." Like the game "Say Uncle", many of us don't know when to "Say Uncle," indicating that we surrender or have had enough. We seem to endure so much in our life before we are ready to make a change. Why is it that wanting change and creating change are so far apart? And wanting it, is not enough to create it. My daughter, although not throwing in the towel on her social life by any means, is able to identify that boundary line for herself. I am often amazed at her insight and wonder how many young adults know their limits. I for one didn't at that age.

Today though I have titled this reading "I want to live like I am on vacation," not because I want to see if I have the courage to cry out "Say Uncle" but rather because I want the lines of my life to not be so distinct and separate. I want my worlds to blend more joyfully. How many people live to work and spend their nights fretting over their next day? Too many. Working with my own Life Coach, my life blends more easily from morning to night. I have learned how to make the moments count, not count the moments.

Somehow we lose too many days waiting for the good ones to come- those days like we are on vacation. People tell themselves that when they are on vacation they will do something fun or meaningful, and in the meantime will continue to endure each day, knowing that they are losing precious time. Time had always been something I raced against. For years I believed that if I didn't sleep, I could fool time.

Yes, there are some who bound out of bed in the morning calling out "Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero!" (Translated, "Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future."). Perhaps I am looking too closely for "perfect," yet I am not concerned that I will not reach it. I use it only as a guidepost to achieve that knowing feeling of, I have loved enough, played enough, and yes, worked enough, just for today.

At the end of a day on a vacation, I reflect on the day asking myself if I have savoured the day living, exploring, learning, loving, giving, eating, and resting. Although, I excitedly anticipate tomorrow, I have had enough for this day. I want this everyday. At night, when I close my eyes, should it be my last waking moment, I want that knowing feeling that I have had enough, that my life is just right.

First Impressions

Like many, somewhere ingrained in the back of my brain is the saying my parents repeated to me, "You never get a second chance to make a good first impression." As a result, I spent many moments over my lifetime agonizing about what I looked like, what I would say and perhaps even who I would be.

Received for it's simple message, the saying has impact and value: check your teeth for remnants of your last meal, smell your breath, make sure your clothing is secured, don't chew gum or swirl your hair, speak clearly and make eye contact. These are all tidbits of behaviors I consider if I am wanting to make a good first impression.

So, when creating my website I have done what is familiar; I have agonized about the first impression it would make. It has been a work in progress for quite sometime. Without the people in my life who kept me on task and pushed me along, my website would be another souvenir stored in my memory box filled with the things in my life I have only dreamed about accomplishing.

Looking inside my memory box, I see it contains half started adventures of both a professional and personal nature. Somewhere after the ideas arrived, a reality of sorts would follow the same pathway in my brain that included: "You never get a second chance to make a first good impression." Somehow the saying translated to a language that I heard as, "Failure might be visible to others if you take your dreams out of your treasure box." Fear of failure, embarrassment, or feelings of inadequacy or inferiority have kept my treasure box not only closed but tucked away under my bed where I could not see it.

Today my reality includes something like this thought: If I am not afraid to fail at my first impression, perhaps just maybe, I have been able to make an impression at all.

So, I introduce to you my website, flaws and all and offer you this saying instead:
You might not get a second chance to make a good first impression but you just might get a second chance to make a positive lasting impression.

Happy Independence Day

I realize that it is no coincidence that our nation has just celebrated Independence Day. It is a time to honor autonomy, self-rule, self-determination. This is a celebration of freedom. It is perceived as a joyous occasion. I, like my country, have been liberated from oppression. I take comfort in the promise that this new freedom brings forth endless possibilities, as a way to quell the overwhelming feelings of loss that come over me like a rogue wave on a still sea.

Reading the words that John Adams wrote to his wife of the event, this period of self-rule might just be one of the most memorable epochs of (my) history. Although my new independence may not "be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival" it just might be honored by all men and women who have themselves experienced liberation of this magnitude. Clearly, "it ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty." Although resistant, I find myself kneeling in prayer upon rising in the morning as my solemn act of devotion to God, believing that somehow in my offering there exists a means to barter away my fears and grief that come with my liberation. The irony is this offering seems to bring comfort.

Thinking back over a lifetime there are many celebrations of independence. This is the essence of life, to be free. An early struggle for freedom is witnessed by the unstable steps taken by a toddler learning to walk without the hand of a parent. Before long, that child, now an adolescent, exerts their autonomy by obtaining a drivers license, followed by the ultimate power of independence found with having a car at your command. At sixteen, my license and my car became my lifeline to independence.

As an adult I now appreciate a different kind of freedom: a freedom to voice my opinion; to choose what I would like to do. There is also a freedom that comes from integrating your mind and body, so that any negative thoughts and anxiety can not dominate your well being. And there is freedom found in the complete surrender to a belief and practice that I am not alone in this life.

Although I may exhibit qualities of self-determination to ensure my future success, I do not see this as self-rule. Believing that “self-rule run riot”, instead I am surrounded by my “magi” for guidance. These are people of greater wisdom, courage, strength, perseverance, faith and love than me. My oppression was the absence of the ultimate connection, love. My liberation will open me up to all the love that always surrounds me. Happy Independence Day.

Life is a series of firsts...

For me, right now, each day has become a series of firsts; things that I must do for the first time within my new identity. I am a single mom now, a divorcee who does not yet know how to place the accent mark above the first e in "divorcee," as I create my first blog. I do not want to take the time today to learn and become bogged down with the mechanics. I will learn and make my way each day, just as I will have to learn to make my way in so many other areas of this new life. (I must be honest though. Technically I will not be divorced for a few more weeks; another technicality that I do not want to become bogged down with.)

Creating this blog seems like an accomplishment to me. Waiting to see what will appear on the final screen is simultaneously frightening and exciting. Once it is "posted", will I be able to erase my words from space, if I should later see them as juvenile or too bare for others to see? I am reminded that vulnerability is considered a weakness, not attractive nor viewed as intelligent. I want to be strong, intelligent and attractive. Since one of my identities is that of a lawyer, I have no choice but to be all of this too. Why isn't being vulnerable considered strong? It takes courage to share your heart, or to trust. I am grateful to Adrian for giving me the courage to write this blog. Her blog holds her words that together are smooth and engaging; she writes in a style that connects to my mind and heart. She writes about real places and real things. I tell myself if she can do this, I can too.

I did take the time to check with the online thesaurus to make sure that divorcee was really a word; as if, if the word didn't exist, I might not either. My eye caught the first word that I saw, what I thought for a moment was the peculiar definition for divorcee, "divine being." My heart paused at the thought that somehow I had transitioned into a divine being just by becoming divorced. Then I noticed, in fact, what the site was telling me was that the word "divorcee" did not exist and the words listed below were only alphabetical options that I might choose instead.

Luckily, my handy Second College Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary confirmed that I do exist. In fact, following the chain of definitions I am led to the fact that divorce can be defined as, "A complete or radical separation of things closely connected." That is clearly what I think has happened to me. I have been ripped apart from the identity I had become closely connected with. In this moment of time I feel as if I am hurling through space without a plane ticket to a destination, and I am holding in my hands precious cargo. I will not be able to use my hands to brace my fall. Landing on my feet is my only option.

So today, I choose to identify myself as a "divine being," some sort of superwoman who has survived the loss of one life and is brave enough to blindly walk forward into the next. In this new life, I will not let my thoughts win. I will not lose site of my heart and all that I have believed in: love, family, friends, connection, kindness and most importantly, living life fully, happy, joyous and unafraid.