The meaning of life, from an unexpected source

I had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of Oprah Winfrey's program last Monday. Her guest was an author, Geneen Roth, who has written a book about women’s relationships with food and their relationships with God. The premise of the book is that if you get things right with yourself and with God, then you can probably structure a healthier relationship with food; you will have less of a tendency to fill up the emptiness with food.

Oprah had read the book, clearly believes in the content, and along with Ms. Roth, was enthusiastically offering her commentary and taking questions from the audience.


Several members of the studio audience asked questions about family mealtimes, dieting, busy schedules, etc. One particular question was a bit unstructured. The viewer seemed discouraged that she was never quite able to get ahead professionally. The question may have also had an underlying inquiry about food, but I don’t recall that now.


I was busy putting dishes in the dishwasher and as Oprah started to answer this question, I stopped to listen. Then I walked closer to the television. It was a watershed moment: Oprah was giving this viewer the essential answer to life. Right there. In person. And everyone, including me, got the added benefit of receiving this important piece of information too.


It may sound like I am dismissing Oprah’s communication as a bit of trivia, but I am not. Quite the contrary. The secret that Oprah shared is a fundamentally important lesson and while a lot of people know it, it is still elusive. This knowledge becomes easy to misplace in the multi-tasking, multi-threaded, deadline oriented lives that we lead.


Oprah told her viewer, point blank, that the starting point for her (and all of us) was to humbly give thanks to God for the many many blessings in her life. Live in that place of gratitude. And be thankful for the things that are yet to come, including the experiences that will teach us lessons. You are not to cast about comparing your life with what you perceive as bounty in others’ lives. You do not know the burdens they carry because you do not walk in their shoes. Look at your own life, connect with God in your heart and walk forward in joy.


Now, I’m not trying to put words in Oprah’s mouth. There are no quotation marks; she didn’t say this exactly, but it is what I heard. This singular all-important message. The central meaning of life. The key to human happiness.


I doubt that this viewer, who showed up at the Harpo studio earlier that day, had any inkling of the gift that was she was about to receive. A gift that has the ability to change her perception of everything. I didn’t expect to receive it either, randomly tuning in to see Oprah’s program for about the third time in my life. But it is a miracle that I did and I am ever so grateful.


Thank you Oprah.

Green jeans

The day after my great-grandfather died, my great-grandmother moved into her daughter’s home. That was long before I was born, but I spent many a summer day in that house as a young girl. It was a small 2 bedroom, 1 bath house with a clothes line in the back yard and a washing machine in the basement. My mother was a teen-aged girl, in high school. And just like that, she had a new room mate.

I remember the bedroom they had shared with its chenille coverlets on twin beds, pine floor, ruffled curtains and parchment window shades that had crocheted pulls to lower the shades when the sun became too intense. No air conditioning in those days. The thing I most remember was the containers of African violets my great-grandmother perched on the window sills, each resting in a saucer. Their soft, fuzzy leaves and delicate flowers in shades of purple and lavender.

All these years later, I find that I’m a window sill gardener too. Not of the African violet variety, but any plant that will live in a glass of water and hopefully develop roots. I find a generous amount of pleasure and satisfaction in taking a clipping from the landscape, trimming the lower foliage and lovingly placing it in a jar of water in the bright kitchen window near the back door. I check often for signs that roots may be developing and my pleasure is redoubled when that evidence becomes visible. Then I continue tending to the cutting until the roots appear to be hearty enough to sustain the plant in a new home of soil.

My mom used to tell me stories about her grandmother’s gardens, tended by her grandfather year-round. My great-grandmother loved the blossoms, kept cuttings in the house, and donated blooming seasonal arrangements to her church every week.

It must have been hard, heart-breaking, for my great-grandmother to turn her back on an independent life and leave everything behind. Bringing only a window sill garden of African violets. The social customs of the time that predicated that decision are now lost on my generation and those that have come after me.

But the simplistic beauty and joyful task of tending to plants on a small scale, on a window ledge, is a part of my daily life, a trait happily handed down through the generations in my family.

Practical application of transitive equality

I was going to write this post for Tuesday (RTT), but it's way late. 3 days late. But whatever. Last time I checked, there were no rules on the internet.

Early last month Cristy had a birthday and I just am about the world's worst at finding the definitive gift. In most cases, I seem to find a little something that I absolutely adore and then think, "wouldn't so-and-so just LOVE this?" So then I purchase it and the gift recipient is left wondering what motivated me to buy this big chunky bracelet that I'm eagerly hoping to borrow when I should have known the recipient is unlikely to ever wear it.

I don't know why this happens. Projection. Lack of coffee. Who knows.

But maybe, just possibly, on this past birthday, I inched slightly closer to that divine place where I selected a gift meaningful to the recipient.

I ordered these two custom stepping stones from K-Dub Designs. They are adorable and made to order to resemble your own dog or cat. The artist behind K-Dub (Karen) is sweet and creative and so easy to work with.

Cristy LOVES mosaics. And she LOVES her two cute dogs. So, by applying the transitive property of equality in mathematical logic, it stands to reason that Cristy would LOVE the mosaic portraits of her two pups.

I think she might. I hope so, anyway.

Here they are.

A full collection will soon follow. After all, we have a house full of 4-legged companions along with the memories of those recently departed. More on that later.

Language of love

In ten days I will recite a vow and make a heart-felt promise to my beloved Cristy, witnessed by the members of our family and our closest friends. I will vow to travel the journey of my life with her, seeking that path and finding our way together. These words, our promises, will communicate the strong sense of love that we share and cherish.

Planning for this wedding has been an interesting project and as we get closer to the date, the activities we are involved with on a near-daily basis are steeped in minutae.

The wedding will be in our home, and we are transforming it from an already lovely residence into something even softer and sweeter. Swirling with pretty paper heart garlands and shining candle lanterns. Sprinkled with dozens of simple bouquets of flowers and greenery. In every way, the layers of detail that will form the backdrop for our wedding are an expression of who we are. These elements too, will communicate, more subtly, the gentle tenderness with which we move through our days and nights.

This combination of words and personal expression is indeed, the language of our love.

Rhythm

There is a rhythm to our lives. Activities, relationships, interests. These things seem to emerge and we fold them into our lives. And then, sometimes, they fade. The strength of the relationship diminishes, and acknowledging this, we allow the cycle to continue, unfolding that part of our life as needed. Other interests, previously dormant, seem to emerge. Other activities surface that need our attention. We refold again and again.

And so it is with this blog. While I have found it an outlet for an enormous amount of creative energy, the natural rhythm of writing has ceased for now. It may begin again at some time, but I prefer to follow my inspiration in the other directions where my creativity continues to blossom.

Thank you for sharing this little part of my life and for offering so much inspiration through your photos, essays, poems and stories.

Homemade

2nd vein.

I’m turning into my mom. Part of me, anyway. Not the casino-slot-machine-diva part. The homemade-buttons-and-bows part. I know I’ve written a couple of blog entries about my foray into homemade things and craft projects. It’s a far cry from the way I would have envisioned spending my time if you had asked me ten years ago. But now it just seems genuine and personal.

Cristy brought home a little pot of daisies from the store last night. It is a welcome gift from a group of colleagues for a coworker returning to work after completing a treatment protocol for breast cancer. Cristy wanted it to be sweet and special, so I offered to make a little bow for the plant and thankfully, she agreed. In five minutes I had made a little bow out of cotton fabric layered alongside a smaller bow of raffia and string with a couple of beads attached to the ends of the string. I tied the bows to a little plastic card holder and anchored it into the soil. It doesn’t look spectacular, but it does look personal. It looks like this woman’s coworkers cared enough about her to make a homemade bow for the pretty potted daisies.

I will probably turn into one of those women who troll the clearance table at JoAnn’s, picking up remnants of lace, ribbon and pretty patterned fabrics to adorn greeting cards, packages and gifts of all sorts. Just a little touch to make them personal. That’s what my mom always did.

More thriftiness

Sailing on the success of last weekend’s thrift store outing, I have continued on the quest for dinner forks and buffet plates this week. Monday’s target was a rather upscale thrift store in the heart of the Montrose. It is staffed with a hefty supply of volunteers that resemble museum docents. My journey rewarded me with a set of 7 dessert plates in a modern floral design, shades of orange, pink and yellow. Quite festive and only $10.

Then yesterday, on the way home from work, a little voice urged me to pull off and dash into Dillard’s clearance center store. I had been there 2 or 3 weeks ago and doubted that the inventory would have changed much, but I heeded the voice. And the reward was worth the extra time. Open stock china priced at 99-cents. Only three patterns available, and mostly saucers without cups, but I was fortunate enough to get an armful of pretty bone china salad plates for under $20.

However, the fork shortage still lingers in the shadows of my thoughts. So today I went to the Salvation Army family store in the Heights on a quest for dinner forks. There were a lot, just not a lot that I liked. I prefer a dining utensil that feels weighty in your hand, so the stamped metal utensils, the kind that are plentiful in thrift stores, don’t exactly do it for me. Thankfully there were a half dozen that met the minimum criteria and at 20-cents per piece, who can complain, right?

I casually glanced at a few other items, but with not much time to spare, I made my purchase and headed back to work. Future thrift store outings will continue to be part of my future as I move down the list to other items queued up in my mind’s periphery.

Scenes from the weekend

Plenty of activity punctuated by brief escapes to the yard, full of blooming plants. Projects included phase 2 of the photo gallery project (phase 1 picture at left), doggy-door barracade, candle-lantern groupings for the trees, making a birdbath, hanging a bird feeder, and adding storage hooks for the pool tools. Full agenda.

Another weekend project

I asked if I could use her cordless drill and she said yes. I had high hopes of completing a little project on my own. I wanted to convert an unadorned vestibule in our home into a photo gallery. I had found some ledges on sale at Target and had plans to use these ledges as the basis of the photo gallery look I was seeking.

The plan seemed easy enough. Theoretically. Still, I was a little apprehensive. After all, I was about to drill some holes in our walls.

I got my supplies together: eyeglasses, snowman pencil, measuring tape, level, manual screwdriver and drill. When Cristy saw the snowman pencil she knew I was serious. She decided to evacuate to a place of relative safety where she would not have to observe my palpable nervousness.

I marked, measured, drilled and successfully hung the first ledge. I replicated the process exactly and hung the second. My confidence soared. Feeling that drill move the anchor into the dry wall was incredible. It felt secure. Why had I been so nervous? I would have this project knocked out in 10 minutes, tops.

Then there was a tiny bump in the road. The fittings for the third shelf didn’t match up with the anchors I had installed. Hmmm. I had done everything exactly like the previous two. I kept hoping for a miracle, trying to get the ledge to fit, badly marring the paint in the process. I was sweating.

I stepped out onto the back porch to admit my power tool deficiencies and solicit advice for proceeding. The first thing she said was: Isn’t hanging shelves fun?

No. It isn’t. I hate the bastards who invented shelves.

Plan B – install two new anchors a half inch over from the previous two. I measured the openings on the rear of the ledge again and verified that the measurement was not identical to the first two ledges. I needed to modify the distance between the anchors.

I don’t know whether it was my escalating panic or just a case of bad luck, but Plan B failed too. On to Plan C – half inch over in the other direction. Triple measure, mark, triple measure. Success.

Five more went up quickly after the setback. The gallery is far from complete, but the visual anchor is in place and the second round of photos will probably go up next weekend.

I need some recovery time.

Smile

I subscribe to an industry newsfeed and some days I’ll click on the embedded article and read it. One day last December, the article title grabbed my attention: 10 Reasons Why Your Blog Sucks. With mounting trepidation, I clicked and braced myself to read the harsh facts.

I pondered this realization, along with a few similar articles that came my way through the months of January and February. I considered taking the blog private to rid myself of the shame and embarrassment of having such a sucky blog.

But I haven’t yet done that. Still treating it like the journal I always intended it to be, and still posting when I’m inspired and have the time.

And then joy of joys, last week two fabulously creative and inspired bloggers shared some blog love with me in the form of an award. I love me a little bling, so these sparkly awards are just what the doctor ordered to banish that suckiness.

These two bloggers truly inspire me. Fullet, an artist and writer with an enormous depth of creative energy, first captured my attention when he wrote about the curiously amazing Christmas tradition in Catalonia surrounding the Tió, a sort of yule log. I was hooked. But when he started his second blog and posted an animated clip of one of his own collages, I became a devoted fan. I must have watched that clip a dozen times. Please click over to his two blogs to fill your morning coffee mug with delightful inspiration: Secret Forest and Collage Drawer.

Suzicate, a blogger, poet and quilting artist tells stories in a pure voice. Her writing style is so startlingly personal that it almost seems I can hear her narrating in my head, although I have never before heard her voice. Sometimes that voice is chattering and laughing, and sometimes it is nearly trembling with emotion. Besides being a prolific writer, she is a dedicated reader of literally dozens of blogs. Suzicate’s wonderful blog is The Water Witch's Daugher.

I am grateful that Fullet and Suzicate find the time to click over to my blog now and then. Thank you both for your internet friendship and for reminding me that my blog doesn’t really suck.

And now, the awards. Just like opening presents, one of my favorite things.

The Happy Blog Award, from Fullet, comes with a request to list 10 things that make me happy:

1. a sunny day
2. coffee in the morning
3. my animal companions
4. my human companion, Cristy
5. pretty shoes
6. shiny objects (pretty things of all sorts)
7. prayer
8. creative pursuits
9. the seashore
10. other people’s smiles.

And in appreciation, I am glad to share the Happy Blog award with a few blogs that always make me happy too.

Gropius vs. Eddie, a fabulous portrayal of life in words and photographs

IslandRoar, a collection of insightful, clever and amusing reflections

The Art of Chrissy Marie, a sweet celebration of nature, photography and art.

The Golden Award is from Suzicate and I am inspired to share this with a blogger who writes from her heart: Stephanie at Chocolate and Whine.

And finally, just because I feel like it, I'm picking up the Circle of Friendship award from Suzicate too. Blogging is more fun when you share, so if you are reading and would like to take this nice award, please do!

In light of this heavenly avalanche of bloggy sweetness, I think I just might trash those 10 reasons about my blog sucking. I'll bet that guy (Edward Khoo) has never even read my blog. But y'all have. And I so LOVE you! Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment now and then.

Observations from the weekend

Lately, I have developed a habit of assembling a collage of photographs taken over the weekend and making that my Monday post on the companion photo blog. But this past weekend I took my camera out only once to document the completion of a little project. No collection of images from which to build a pretty collage.

So I thought I would instead assemble a collage of words. Recollections of the weekend described in words rather than visually portrayed in photographs. Not as pretty, but perhaps an adequate reflection nonetheless.

Driving through the neighborhood on the north side of downtown where I deliver food once per month, I almost always see something unexpected. This particular Saturday morning was no different. In a vacant residential lot, I noticed a handful of ground-feeding birds, grackles and doves. And among them, a green parrot. You surely don't see that every day.

Shortly afterwards, I drove by a house with a tall fenced yard and noticed a man riding a horse in the yard. A pretty brown and white paint horse. Another rare spectacle. Then shortly after that, I dropped by the house of one of my clients to deliver their food and joined them in the backyard to play for a few minutes with four baby chickens. Now this scenario is not so rare these days. But the babies are usually only around once per year.

I would have loved to have captured those moments with a photographic image, but all the same, the images are thankfully still alive in my head.

In addition to those, I probably would have captured a few others along the way. Some rather simple images from the ordinary weekend.

Drinking cups of hot tea on Saturday to stave off the chill of the last (hopefully) coldfront of winter.

Gracyn curled up in her little dog-basket in her new favorite place, the floor of the kitchen pantry.

Browsing the aisles of Barnes & Noble.

Ringing the “excellent customer service” bell at Kroger in hopes that the very helpful cashier would forgive my absent-minded behavior.

The thing that stands out for me, from the weekend, and the thing that I would not have been able to capture in a photographic image is the sheer joy in my heart then, and even now. The joy of sharing an ordinary weekend with the person that makes my heart leap for joy. The person whose smile lights my life and whose voice is the sweetest sound I can imagine. The joy of sharing the moments of my life with her while we do chores, watch television, eat a meal, play with the dogs, hold hands, hold each other. Bliss. I am humbled with gratitude.

Asking for what you want

Yesterday was rodeo day. Couldn't have been a nicer day. Sunny, warm and perfect. As a result, over 100,000 Houstonians joined us for the event. Just a tad bit crowded, but we adapted, like the survivors we are.

In preparation for the day, we brought along two cameras. Photo opportunities abounded. As an added bonus, some rodeo attendees added a layer of green to their already colorful cowboy attire, in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

I spotted one particular rodeo visitor among a group of her friends, purchasing a souvenir coin. She was wearing shamrock eyeglasses. I deparately wanted a photo and tried to conceal myself next to a nearby glass cabinet housing some artwork to cleverly capture to candid image. But to my dismay, she kept her face turned away from my lens.

The two guys next to me caught wind of my quest and they pulled out a camera too, with no better luck than my own. Finally, as they gave up and walked off, one of them suggested to me that I just ask her to pose for a photo.

Such a brilliant idea, and so much easier than my futile method. So I did. And she said yes. One of her friends joined in the fun and these two lovely ladies gave me one of the best photos of the day.

Why didn't I think of that?

Life's busy season

Sometimes life has a busy season. Odd though, it’s been busy for as long as I can remember. That’s the baseline, but for the past 12 months the pace has accelerated. Almost nonstop. Leaping from one large-scale activity to the next, one holiday or social gathering to the next. A treacherously long list of items crossed off, one at a time. Cross off one, add two. Cross off two, add four.

Thankfully, we’ve lately crossed off more than we’ve added, but there is a very large-scale activity looming in the near future that will have a ripple effect on our list. These individual tasks haven’t really reached a critical junction in terms of an impending deadline quite yet. We’re planning a wedding. This June. 3 months away. That critical junction will soon be here.

On the one hand, it’s not a big affair, no significant fanfare. But on the other hand, it’s our wedding, for goodness sakes! We want it to be special and memorable and lovely. We’re doing almost everything ourselves: hand-drawn flourishes on each hand-written invitation, home-made decorations for the house, in-house catering (courtesy of the sought-after Cristy&Diane catering co), arranging our own hand-tied bouquets, even holding the happy event in our home.

From here, about 100 days away, it seems as though it won’t be a problem.

OK, perhaps not. But let’s look at it from another perspective. Factor in a handful of additional activities that will hit the calendar over the next 100 days, but are not on our current list: 6 birthdays, 2 graduations, 1 school choir performance, Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day.

Uh, well. I’m still optimistic.

I think it’s just the tempo of life. My hypothesis is that when I was younger I had less of an appreciation for the level of effort involved in keeping a balanced life moving forward smoothly. I’ve had to re-calibrate my baseline, or maybe just adjust it to compensate for this realization along with the possibility(?) that my ability to multitask has diminished through the years. Hmmm. For some reason, I seem to be OK with that.

Thank goodness I still drink coffee.

Red carpet moment

I’m going to be 49 soon. In one week. If I were to consult an actuarial table, I would be certain to learn that more than half my life has already passed.

Since I started writing this online diary and reading others’ blogs regularly, I’ve tried to keep an honest perspective about a variety of circumstances that weave through my daily existence. And then a bit earlier today, I read an essay by Katrina at Ordinary Day Journal. It made me recall a watershed moment in my life that opened my vision to see an alternate path. One that I eventually took years later.

As a youngster, and even as a young adult, I had the feeling that I somehow stood apart from the rest of the population. And not in a bad way, like I had body odor, but in a secretly special way. As though I had some unique talent, skill or intelligence that one day, the world would acknowledge. In the meantime, I worked really hard to accelerate my career. Honest to goodness hard work. But, I don’t know, in the back of my mind the thought was always there – what I was doing now was merely a resume entry for the grandeur that would surely come next.

However, one day it occurred to me that my life was exactly as it appeared to be. I was not being considered for a Nobel Prize, was not an esteemed author, a notable composer, nor an accomplished entrepreneur. The word that bounced around inside my head was mediocre.

Mediocre.

It sounds considerably harsher now than it felt at the time. But it was as though an old fashioned alarm clock had started ringing. Noisy and persistent. Pay attention—this is your life! I had a middle-class American life. Nothing to either brag about or feel ashamed of. But since I was subconsciously waiting for the proverbial red-carpet moment for my life to begin, I let my days slip past without much notice. Until that alarm clock bell.

I don’t have all of life’s answers, because I am still learning, still finding the questions along each day’s journey. Like Katrina, and so many other bloggers that keep my perspective in check, the best I can do is acknowledge the present moment steeped in as much gratitude and joy as I can locate in my heart. And thankfully, I find that it is overflowing with both. Gratitude produces joy, which produces more gratitude.

As I read in a birthday card once, the gift of this day is the day itself. So, bring on 49. I am almost humbled to tears that I have had so many days to live and breathe, walk and talk, smile and love. And my gratitude escalates with each additional day.

On a mission

One of the few times I watched Jon & Kate + 8, a topic on that broadcast, discussed somewhat incidentally, was the fact that this family had created a mission statement.

[Note to self: please refrain from indulging in judgmental thoughts about the probable level of family collaboration involved in creating the aforementioned mission statement.]

I was impressed during the broadcast at the concept of actually taking the trouble to formulate and verbalize a family mission statement and I decided to do a little research with my best friend, google. What I learned was not surprising. A number of family therapists cited in the search results recommend that couples (my research was limited to couples since I’m not a mom) not only participate in the exercise of creating a mission statement, but also define the values that guide your lives, both as individuals and as a couple.

I love methodology and in one of my previous volunteer assignments, led a few organizations through strategy building workshops similar to this. The participants begin with some trepidation, but quickly gain confidence and make rapid progress. It always sounds more difficult than it really is.

Anyway, Cristy and I took the time last year to explore our values in life areas such as faith, social pursuits, daily home-life, financial management, holiday and family celebrations, professional-career pursuits, etc. I think we defined 10 or 12 general categories. The values we verbalized were those beliefs we held about who we were as individuals in the distinct life areas and how we each felt we needed to participate as a couple in order to feel whole, validated and cherished.

Not all of our opinions were aligned, but we tried to negotiate through some ideas about behavior that would meet some important needs for us both.

It was useful. Performing that exercise together made us feel as though we had established a broad set of basic agreements for the way that we would interact in these areas of our lives. Because we had made agreements, a large degree of ambiguity about who we were as a couple evaporated. It was as if we had completed a private rehearsal of sorts. While I cannot predict the future, I feel my chances of being blindsided by something unexpected that conflicts with one of my core living values, is greatly diminished.

Nothing is guaranteed. Disasters can happen, garbage disposals can erupt, as ours did this week. We only hope that the practice of finding common ground around the values that are the most important guiding principles of our lives will help us combine our strengths in times of stress, sorrow or sickness. The practice of negotiating behaviors in advance will help us feel empowered to ask for the supportive behavior that we need from the other to offer that extra support when we’re not quite feeling whole. The practice of exploring and envisioning will open our minds to the possibilities that exist for enriching our own lives as well as the lives of others with whom we interact.

All things considered, I’d have to say that Jon & Kate, or at least the producers of Jon & Kate, set a very good example for which I am truly grateful.

Chick flick

I’m a chick flick sort of girl. I like movies where the central themes are about building human relationships and making peace with yourself. If the characters are somewhat fashion minded with great shoes and accessories, that’s a big plus. I like intelligent dialog, sweet sentimentality and a good, old-fashioned Hollywood happy ending (sniffle, sniffle).

After all, with the price of movies these days ($19 for two tickets before 5pm thank you very much and $5 for a small popcorn) I don’t need to add an artificial layer of stress to my current existence. I don’t want anxiety, loud bangs, aggressive personalities or dark suspense. I’d be emotionally wiped out by the time the movie is over.

So, dear filmmakers, I realize I might be among a rapidly declining demographic, but please keep making chick movies. Thank you.

Bonds of love

I don’t remember the last time I spent an evening out on the two teen-aged boys. Probably because I’ve never done it before. Cristy’s nephews, and really, mine too. One 18 and one 17. We drove downtown, laughed, acted silly, took dozens of photographs, mingled with the other patrons, and surprisingly, as the evening was winding down, had a rather serious adult conversation. I didn’t see it coming.

I don’t know if it matters so much, the precise words spoken. The fact that they were spoken is merely a reminder that at this juncture of their lives, on the cusp of branching out into another direction, that their loving family is there to cheer them onward. And we will be there too, if the choices in the adult world seem overwhelming and they want to talk through their options. Or even just find a place of refuge for an hour or two.

I don’t know what will unfold for either of them in the next year and I am not clear whether they, themselves, have envisioned their own futures.

We will be here to witness their accomplishments and trials and to remind them that we love them through each step of their journey.

Battle with love

When I was a little girl, 6 years old, I thought I was fat. One of my school classmates said it out loud, so I thought it was true. I was ashamed. It never occurred to me that she was wrong. When I look back at school class pictures now, I looked the same as all the other children, but the damage was done. Something changed at that precise moment with the way I felt about myself.

In my teen and young adult years, I wanted badly to have a boyfriend, but I never really did. I did not understand the intricacy of getting to know someone and letting them get to know you. I thought the love dance was merely superficial: labeling the status of a relationship, going out to parties as a couple, acting like you were in love. But I didn’t understand what it felt like to be loved or to extend love. And I strongly suspect this was a result, in part, of the many years of self-loathing that began in the first grade.

This blog is a diary and the thoughts and feelings are my own. It has never been anyone else’s responsibility to make me feel one way or another. There is no blaming or no credit to be assigned out. For most of my life, until recently, there has been a barrier between me and love. I hated love and I grieved over love. It was a battle.

I was able to verbalize it to a therapist a few years ago. Shortly after my marriage ended and I discovered that my life was, in fact going to continue, I realized in order to live it effectively, I’d probably need to solicit some help. Enter the therapist. She asked what I wanted from a love relationship. To my surprise, I was able to answer succinctly: I want to participate in a love relationship where I feel cherished.

That was my first victory in this lifelong battle with love: naming both the obstacle and the desired set of circumstances. My therapist said that was a realistic expectation. Seemed so to me too.

However, in my experience, feeling cherished was not high on that list of feelings with which I identified. More commonly, they would include things like compromised, diminished, marginalized, disappointed. Again, understanding completely that I am solely responsible for my feelings, it is all about my choices and they way I elected to participate in relationships. Relationships with my parents, with myself, with love interests.

Then Cupid flew by my house one night and sprinkled love dust in the air. I awoke the next morning knowing my heart would reopen. And it did. And then it broke again because I fell into an old pattern of behavior. But I saw it and understood. Finally. It was my second victory in my battle with love. That most painful awareness where I stopped applying scotch tape to the gaping wound in my chest. I looked at that wound, ugly as it was, and then tended to it.

Cupid came along again, as he does, and sprinkled more love dust in my direction. I am so fortunate that Cupid led me to my valentine, the love of my life, this place where I feel cherished. It is true, what they say. I had to assign value to myself in order to feel cherished by the person who loves me. And she does. And I can feel it. And it is the sweetest thing I can imagine.

I love you.

Equal time

On the flip-side of the real-life customer service experience, it is only right to describe the good, since yesterday was all about the not-so-good. And by good, I mean, delightfully and surprisingly wonderful.

I am inspired by a woman named Carolyn who was a former colleague and friend. Unfortunately we lost touch many years ago, but I have always remembered her stories. She was an astute manager and adhered to several effective techniques for managing her staff in a productive way. One of her techniques focused on dedicating more time to communicating about good things than bad. Some members of her team had a tendency to walk into her office with complaints. While she wanted to offer an ear to true problems, she did not want to create an open-door policy for idly airing grievances. One of her policies was that the person sitting across her desk could verbalize a negative observation about the workplace only after giving two positive observations.

So here is my equal airtime, ala Carolyn’s method. I just reversed the order.

First place goes to CVS. Their automated customer service line gives me a call approximately 10 days before my prescription runs out and by pressing a few buttons on my telephone keypad, I’ve just submitted an easy-easy refill request. I am the type of person that forgets to call until I’m out of medicine, so this proactive customer service benefit is astonishingly simple, but truly appreciated! I don’t even mind that it’s an automated system calling and not a human.

Second place goes to the friendly staff members at BBVA-Compass Bank and Amegy Bank. They must have some sort of banking competition going on, because I noticed after recent visits to both (in the lobby) that a staff member of each bank made it a point to offer a personal, cheerful greeting, complete with eye contact and a genuine smile. It was such a nice feeling and I will probably make it a point to go inside the bank next time I’m there rather than the drive-through.

Share the love

Many years ago I read something in the Ann Landers column about her participation in Valentines for Vets, a program that distributes valentine cards to patients in VA hospitals across the country. Apparently any kind of valentine was appreciated. I thought it sounded like a worthwhile effort and decided to give it a whirl with homemade valentines.

Perhaps I was remembering fondly the homemade Valentine’s Day boxes my mom helped me make for school, or some other homemade valentine lovely crafted from red paper, doilies and pink sugar hearts. The project of making the valentine was all about love and sharing that time with my mom.

I think I made about 12 valentines for the vets that year. Large format red paper with a white crepe ruffled edge, glitter painted greeting on the front and a hand-written note inside. The fact that I remember these valentines so clearly is significant proof that I loved that project, creating the pretty cards. I don’t remember anything else about Valentine’s Day that year, but I remember making those homemade cards and mailing them off to their destination.

So this year I think I am going to resurrect my creativity and assemble a few pretty valentine greetings, using the supplies I have at my disposal at home: ribbon, buttons, paper, elmer’s glue, pencil, fabric remnants, needle & thread. Surely the results of my efforts will be at least as good as any Valentine card I might find at the Hallmark store. But the big plus, is that it will again connect me to those precious valentines memories, expressing love through simple creative expression.