Are you getting excited about 2006? I am! As I look forward to the new year, I see nothing but possibilities and promise. I know it will be a year of challenges and triumphs, opportunities and personal growth.

Before I sit down to plan, I often like to look up choice words from wise people to provide a bit of inspiration. This year, I am sharing a few thousand of my personal favorites with you…

Continue Reading 12 comments December 28th, 2005

THIS WEEK: TEN NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

10. Continue discovering more about who I am
9. Find safe ways to be a bit nicer to people
8. Work toward becoming a better friend
7. Add a few new cohorts to the lineup
6. Conquer some more of my fears
5. Finish reading all those books
4. Study the Bible more often
3. Learn how to love better
2. Cause more laughter
1. Wear sunscreen

5 comments December 27th, 2005

There’s a universe of difference between being childish and childlike. The former I have in spades, but the latter could use some work. Over the years we suffocate our best childlike qualities, believing instead that our defense mechanisms will protect us, when all they really do is make us weak. It’s a great big lie that we seem to swallow whole.

Children don’t have our pathetic hang-ups. They lack sufficient fear. As such, they’re always ready to play, quick to forgive and forget, and best of all — They don’t understand limitations. It was in that final area that today I saw a glimmer of hope that some day I might finally strip away the mess I built and regain the purity of heart I once had.

Continue Reading 6 comments December 11th, 2005

When am I going to get it through my stubborn noggin that whenever I am intially suspicious of a person, it only means that later on they’re going to turn out to be one of the most awesome people I’ve ever met?

You’d think that after as many times as it’s happened I’d be wise to this game. Unfortunately, I’m still longing for the day when at this first impulse, instead of testing a person and shying away, I become excited and dig in to get to know them a little bit better.

16 comments December 8th, 2005

After all the bad press I’ve given my aunt lately, it’s time I balance the scales and tell you why I keep Martha around. Other than the fact that she does love me somewhere under the nonsense she spews, there’s also the fact that she’s been through a lot in her lifetime, and has some valuable wisdom to share as a result.

Case in point, one of her famous phrases:
The way people treat you tells you how they want to be treated.

When she first told me that, it sounded odd… Overly simplistic, even. But it turns out that after referring back to that tidbit now and then, it actually changed my life. I’m not even exaggerating. I used to think that the way that I treat people is entirely predicated upon who I am; that I should always behave in a manner befitting the best of my character. This often left me in situations where I was treated poorly while continuing to respond with kindness. I wound up empty and exhausted.

Since really meditating on this concept and working it in, I’ve found new freedoms. There are people whom I will love, but whose behavior prevents me from expressing myself to them. My parents are a good example. I have to keep them away because they’re just not safe. The way that they treat me really does show me how they want to be treated, and when reciprocal action is not in line with my personal standards, sometimes distance is the only acceptable response.

Thanks, Martha, for the good stuff… Like that.

9 comments December 7th, 2005

Had a good time in Orange County staying with my now-infamous Aunt Martha last weekend. It’s been quite a while since we did a whole weekend thing… We had some great moments, but something always goes wrong, and it’s inevitably my fault. Of course, this visit was no exception.

For those who have read about the pressure she foists upon me to be Hollywood thin, you may be curious to find out how she responded to my recent weight loss. The answer is: She didn’t notice! I suppose fifteen pounds, amounting to a 12% reduction in my total mass, doesn’t show. Later on she did admit that I looked a little better somehow.

Where she got me real good was during some idle chatter (which with Martha is nearly always about herself) she made the casual assertion that she’s still thinner than I am. Now, as a scientist (shh, let’s pretend) that offended my sense of truth. She’s easily wearing twenty pounds more fat than I am, and I’m not a bitch to notice. It’s a simple fact.

The smart thing would have been to let it slide. And for a while I did so, but the next day during yet another conversation about her, she was lamenting her current state of fitness (or maybe unfitness) and I let out the following remark with a great big welcoming smile: “Aren’t you glad you have a chubby niece to make you feel thinner?”

She popped me for it later, and it would be to her credit if she did so in a way that made some kind of sense. Not the case. Instead, I had the joy of being accused, for the umteenth time, of competing with her… Talk about projection! I had to hold my ground on that one and tell her she’s way off, but as always, her opinion rules… Gotta love family!

12 comments December 5th, 2005

Now that I’ve pointed an angry finger at my gender, it’s only fair that I examine the fingers pointing right back at me. An obvious issue is my mouth: I use my tongue like a sword. My brother sweetly mentioned so this week, and though it was not a new piece of info, the fact that my words would ever wound him begs for an urgent remedy.

The kid is right. I’m ashamed of how easy it is for me to cut people to the marrow. Devastating words fly from my lips with heartless precision. Like a shark during a feeding frenzy, my eyes roll back in my head and I wake when it’s over, viewing the resultant carnage as if it were created by someone else. Not very ladylike, is it?

We all have strengths and weaknesses, but it’s sadly common for talents to be perverted (taken too far) until they become a defect. Self-expression has always come freely to me, but my sharp tongue is thereby unsheathed too often. Once those harsh words are out there, they can’t truly be taken back… The damage is done.

I want my lips used to build, not destroy.

12 comments November 20th, 2005

Worse, actually… I did something so convoluted that only I could come up with it. Somehow I decided I was too sexy for my dreams… They weren’t aspirational enough for me.

Admitting this for the first time just now doesn’t make me feel any better, either. More like I need to do something about it… Which sucks.

At one point, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my career, but I never shared the details with anybody. Least of all my family, who would completely freak out once they stopped laughing. After all, my father’s sole interest in me from day one involved making sure I would not remain a financial burdern to him.

So I judged myself and ruled that my desires were lacking… That this ambition was frivolous, and that pursuing it would be admitting to something my mother accused me of so often: Sitting on my brains. Psycho to English translation: I’ve been blessed with an extra measure of intelligence, and should therefore use it to its full potential.

Maybe they’re right, I thought. After all, I had to make a living and survive in this big, scary, adult world. Money doesn’t grow on trees, and fun jobs don’t pay much… Right? Where was Joseph Campbell when I needed him? Wonder where I’d be today if I had followed my bliss instead of those transplanted fears.

The good news is that I didn’t stray far. Although at one point I was an Accounting major (right on track for a future in alcoholism and suicide) eventually I couldn’t resist the allure of something better aligned with my natural aptitudes, and with some luck a career developed.

I’m a lot closer to my dreams than I deserve to be…
But it will take one more leap to get there — Yikes!

14 comments November 10th, 2005