"The In Between"

The other night over dinner conversation with my BBF and her husband, my HH (Hot Husband) began discussing middle age health issues asking his counterpart if he too questioned his own vitality. HH said each ache and pain he felt did just that! In his thirties, he just brushed off such things now it plagued him, so much so, lately he began reading the obituaries focusing on the age of the deceased. Noting the age of the deceased were getting closer to his in some cases. My BBF who had a serious condition years ago said she too felt like that each time she felt malaise. Agreeing with her, I said for the past year worry filled me too. I had pain in one of my breasts. I chuckled for the first time revealing the pain I felt was from the under wire in my bra, different bra, different pain in addition my recent weight gain was the culprit. Did I mention my cleavage and wonderment at my breast size, I'll save that for another time.

Then one of the most touching things I heard came from my BBF's husband. He cautioned HH not to think of life like that and gave a version of life that I will always hold dear to me. Here goes, his version goes something like this: he said we come into life and leave life the same way; in a pile of shit hoping someone will clean, it's a fact of life and death that the two are inevitable. So, don't waste your life worrying about the things you cannot change: birth and death, enjoy the "in between". He recalled a time while driving his Dad, who recently died, somewhere and his dad said his life was crap now that he was sick. That it was not so, he accomplished so much in life and pointed it out all the things "in between". How could he say that, it was not true, he lost sight of the fact that his life was full. So BBF's husband told Hot Husband enjoy the "in between" because you know the ending, you don't know the date, but you knowing the ending so enjoy the "in between".

Those are words to live life by.

"Just What I Needed"

Yesterday, as I stood in my kitchen a great lightening bolt moment came to me for a post, I intended to write it down but was lost in the chaos of leaving for the water park with the boys. So a great story is somewhere in my kitchen for me to catch one day. But always with something to say or share here is an inspiring and uplifting book I came across by fluke and truly struck a chord within me. I read this great book, from cover to cover, on a ferry ride across Lake Champlain the other week titled "Just Who Will You Be?" by Maria Shriver. I seen her on Oprah on the odd day I lay in bed in the afternoon. She spoke about her upbringing in the Kennedy clan, her commitment to contribute to the family legacy and striking out on her own in a career as a television journalist. Then she got to the part that made me sit upright and listening more closely. It was at the time her husband became the Governor of California and her world started to crumple. She was fired from her job and felt completely lost for the first time in her life. No longer was she something of substance. Her children reminded her she was unemployed and just a stay at home mom and in public, she was the First Lady of California and so on. With no career she felt identity"less". As a driven person most of her life, she was now fifty-two, label"less" and lost. Then her nephew asked her to speak at his graduation, after numerous refusals she relented and spent sometime trying to figure out what to say. In that time she discovered she was finding out about herself too. She asked "Just who will you be?" to the graduating class but more personally to herself. After fifty-two years, she was surprised to asked a herself that very same thing. There is a time in every one's life they ask that same question, I felt elated that I was only 43 years old and had a good ten years on Mrs. Shriver. However, fundamentally, I was awed that she felt that too. I spent the last couple of years asking that question to myself, albeit, in other words. She to needed to reassess her life just like me. What a powerful and thought provoking read for anyone in the midst of a career change or life change. Although, I felt okay questioning my existence and pretty darn sure at the time on the ferry what I wanted to do, her book gave the "more power to you" feeling and it was "Just What I Needed".

Summer Vacations

I survived!! It's hard to believe there are less than two weeks left of summer vacation and I am here to write about it. As a freshman of sorts, staying home with my boys for the summer is one of the best things I did in my life. I spent the first part of the summer trekking back and forth from the local pool, dodging the rain each day. Hot husband had a four week vacation that began week two of summer vacation. By the final week of his vacation we were close to divorce. Spending every waking hour together was nerve racking and tense by week three of his vacation. Let me say I was happy to have him home and happy to see him back to work. Next summer, I plan on spending two weeks at home during his vacation and the other two weeks out of town. One month into summer vacation, my boys were getting bored and on my nerves. I was running out of things to do and wondering if it was too late to sign them up for camp...... One day I had a brilliant plan to spend the day on the waterfront downtown and enjoy some of the attractions, we were taking the train into the city but missed it. So already behind schedule, I raced to the waterfront and paid dearly with a speeding ticket bigger than my monthly car payment and more demerit points than I wish to share. None the less at the end of the day, we had a great time and all was forgotten about my traffic violation. Next summer I know to plan better for activities and consider summer camp for the boys to hang out with kids their age. Here's to the last days of summer, surviving, and to my sanity.

Fudge

There's this cute saying on a fridge magnet I bought for one of my sister's that went something like this: "Families are like fudge, very sweet but with a few nuts" I tend to agree. Don't get me wrong, I love my family as much as the next person but I can understand why many people move away and just start their own life. Family is a constant, a given, friends are chosen. I like many moved away physically and until recently, emotionally. No harm intended but a well deserved vacation from my reactionary emotions when I am around certain family members.
I had this friend in college who had a tenacious relationship with her parents, she just thought they we at times awful. I recall one time over dinner she accused her father of loving me more than her, I could have crawl under a rock than be put in the middle of her tantrum with her family. She was at the time twenty! I thought how immature was that and feeling quite mature. Aha!! Twenty years later, I see her point and I completely understand. Like Maria Shriver's book title :"Just Who Will You Be" when you grow up. She was fifty-two, I was forty-two. Just who will you be when you grow up. I will be a person with an opinion, a person with a priorities of her own, a person who will decide what she wants to be not what is expected of her, a woman with a career she loves and best of a great wife, mother, sister and person.