I don’t think I can follow through with the things I’d like to resolve for 2008. I’d like to resolve to not be so fucking influenced by those around me and to take some damn control. Although how that can coexist with the whole, throw caution to the wind, who the hell cares if you get hurt, it’s worth it for the joy of life, I have no idea. I don’t know and I don’t know how to know and I will never get it right. Maybe it’s not something we can ever get right.

But fuck. Why can’t life be easy or make sense just a little bit for just a little while. Which is overly dramatic and ridiculous, I know. And I should just put on some heavy black eyeliner and listen to Depeche Mode or whatever the young kids are listening to these days and stop even pretending to be a rational adult.

Maybe I just let momentum get the better of me and I hope for too much. But I don’t want to have to curb my hope to be happy. Sometimes I’m strong and independent and I think, I can do this on my own. But then other days, I just feel it all crashing around me and I don’t want to do it on my own, don’t want to have to do it on my own, want something other than just my own.

Life. It’s fucking hard.

Independence is a long, hard road. And maybe we don’t ever get to the place where we don’t need people. Should we even want to get to that place? But there’s a balance (yes, balance again) between isolating yourself for self-preservation and being so vulnerable and open that you have no protection at all. A space between relying only on yourself and expecting all of your strength to come from those around you.

And I guess I’d like to think I could come to a place that I could drop every wall but it’s difficult to be disappointed, to be hurt, and I wonder, can I go through that again?

I’m reading this book on the skills of successful leaders and there’s an interesting point that while too much pessimism isn’t a helpful trait for a leader, neither is too much optimism. Sometimes the opposite of something negative can be just as negative.

But then, the thought of never throwing caution to the wind again is difficult too. Everyone needs passion in their lives. Don’t they?

The great organization event continues and tonight, I happened upon my box of scrapbooks and yearbooks. I have the usual pictures and ribbons and awards and “ice cream 90 cents” sign from the supreme court cafeteria that we all have. And I have a lot of notes. Notes, of course, are what we used back in junior high and high school for our heart-felt, emotional interaction. It takes maturity and growth to tell someone how you feel, so you practice by writing it down and leaving the paper on the person’s car, tucked under the windshield wiper.

I wonder if high school kids still write notes or if they just send MySpace messages.

I always think back to high school as being fairly innocent times, but I forget just how much I got around. I have notes from lots of boys. And cards from flowers.

My favorite note is probably from Eddie, who had recently been dumped by Missi (that bitch). We were making out one night and he called me by her name, and as you might imagine, that doesn’t sound very romantic to a 16 year old girl. I suppose it wouldn’t sound all that romantic now that I’m 35 either. Anyway, I was heartbroken, devastated, etc. and I don’t know how I am still standing now to tell the story. He wrote me a long letter, proclaiming his eternal love for me and only me. The letter was flowery and sweet and he swore that his love was deeper and truer than any love felt anywhere, since the history of the world and even included a handy table comparing all the ways in which I was better than the despised Missi. (The table was followed by a paragraph in which he promised he would never compare me to her because I was incomparable.)

You know how the story ends, of course. As soon as she gave the slightest inclination she might take him back, I never heard from him again. Well, that’s not exactly true. I was flipping through my yearbook and came across where he signed it. As Missi’s lovesick fool.

My (one of many) teenage tales of love and heartbreak. Forever immortalized in writing. Just like Romeo and Juliet. But with more Tears For Fears and fewer poison vials.

I feel as though I should write an introspective of my year. That I should look back and remember where I’ve been and where I’ve come and what I’ve learned (I won’t; I will remember without writing it down). For a long time, everything was the same and I was the same and looking back over a year, I could write this:

I did exactly what I expected and feel how I predicted I would. I am the same person now that I was a year ago.

I can’t write that anymore. Haven’t been able to write that for (happily) quite a while. There’s something to be said for the comfort of consistency but you know what they say about the foolish kind. I’ve had enough of foolishness.

Which isn’t to say I won’t continue to make dumb mistakes, but one of those mistakes will not be listening to my mom’s advice that a wife’s primary job is to make a happy and relaxing home environment for her husband. For one thing, I don’t even have a husband (anymore) and for another, I don’t really talk to my mom. So, I’m pretty sure I’m safe on that one. How things change in only five years.

The theme of this last year has been bittersweet, and maybe the theme of 2008 will be balance, although I get the feeling that next year may not have a theme at all. My goal? To discover joy at every opportunity.

Some things you never expect.

Getting divorced. Owning a Mac.

Earlier this week, I was talking to a friend about how all I wanted to do when I graduated from college was be a journalist. And I applied for every job I could find and was rejected at every turn. Hey, wait a minute. I’m sort of a journalist now. Go figure. When planning my career path, I could not have conceived of this one.

Walking back from Starbucks tonight, the freezing wind on my face, blowing up from the water, my fingers fucking cold, leeching warmth from my latte, I thought. Huh. I really like my life.

Balance is like a seesaw. Or maybe log rolling. Constant movement to stay afloat. Or even adrift. The opposite of being knocked off the seesaw/log/balance metaphor of your choice and thrown to hard, hard ground, because face it. Sure, you get knocked down and you get up again (so the song says) and you dust yourself off and get back on the horse and etc. But still. Falling down hurts like hell, so if you can avoid it all the better. And I know the more you fall, the more better you get, but I’m pretty sure that the falling will come often enough for learning, no matter the balancing act.

When to be selfish, or giving. To let go or hold on. Be confident or humble. Paper or plastic. Seize the day or wait for the right moment.

Sometimes you just have to shift your weight just so.

I used to think that we didn’t have any holiday family traditions, but today I realized that I was wrong. I sat with my sister, opening gifts from my mom.

She said mom had shown her my gifts earlier and she couldn’t wait for me to see them. They are the most hilarious items of clothing you have ever seen, she told me. Since the last time I got clothes from mom anyway, I thought.

“I didn’t even know they made clothes like that.”

I was holding up a jacket, or maybe a blazer. It had collars nearly as big as the jacket itself and several rows of huge metal buttons in what I could only call the upper left quadrant. They didn’t actual button anywhere. They brought military style to balance out the hippie factor of the bell bottom sleeves which ended in romantic-era ruffles. The whole thing was held together by a large belt and a metal buckle. Metal which in no way matched the buttons.

“What are you going to do with it? I always wonder what I”m supposed to do with these things.”

“I throw it all away”, I told her.

“You could at least give it to Goodwill.”

“I don’t want to curse anyone else with this. Can you imagine if some other mother bought it for her poor daughter?”

The next gift was nearly as good.

Black shirt. Completely covered in large bright yellow lightning bolts. With sparkly hot pink dropshadows. It looked like a web site in 1995 when people were first discovering fonts and the blink tag.

We looked at her gift.

“I think it’s a sweatshirt. An off-the-shoulder sweatshirt.”

“No, it’s a dress.”

“It can’t possibly be a dress.”

“Look at the skirt part.”

“That’s a skirt?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s that one? A coat with short sleeves? Do arms not get cold?”

Later, I talked to my mom on the phone.

“Did you like the clothes I got you? Your sister really loved them when I showed her, but I know you guys don’t always have the same taste.”

Oh we have the same taste. It’s called non-crazy. We prefer our buttons to be matched with buttonholes, our coats to have sleeves, and our sweatshirts to be skirt-free. And we rarely are in the mood to wear hot pink lightning bolts.

Well, maybe that one time.

Overhead, a woman on her cell phone. Her flight was on time. Could the person on the phone still pick her up? Yes? Who all was coming, then? Were they coming in to the airport or parking? What time was dinner going to be?

And to all of this, I thought, if I planned my life down to that detail, I would certainly go crazy. If the flight’s on time and someone’s picking me up, I figure they’ll be there, I’ll hook up with somehow, and I will likely eat at some point. Possibly at either a standard meal time or when I feel hungry. Of course, most likely of all is that I’ll rent a car or grab a cab. Airport pickup. Reflections of my life.

When walking by the airport bar: a woman drinking a beer at the bar alone. Large fabric antlers on her head.

When leaving the Alaska Boardroom, an instinctive turn right. Like that turning point when learning a foreign language when you start thinking the words rather than translating them. Alaska flies to Orange County from gate C20. And C is to the right. No looking at boarding passes or terminal signs needed. I was dropping off a friend a few nights ago. “Does it seem weird to be here and yet not getting on a plane, since you come here so often?” No, it just feels familiar. The airport is one of those places I know. Like my neighborhood or my house. I can walk around with the lights off.

Yet this turbulence I never get used to.

When cleaning out my storage closet, I happened upon this: one large box of porn and elbow braces.

Understand, when I say elbow braces plural, I mean an extensive assortment of padded braces, plastic braces, those molded specifically for a particular elbow, some with metal, some without. A variety of colors, sizes, and styles.

And when I say porn, I do not mean a Playboy or two, perhaps a soft core video. I am talking about edible paints, girl-on-girl comic books, and possibly a board game. A bondage board game. For 4-8 players.

As I am ruthlessly ridding myself of everything I don’t need, the entire box ended up in the dumpster. I considered Goodwill, but I’m not sure of their orthopedic medical supply policy.

The box ended up in my storage closet thusly. I had left behind a number of items in my previous house when I moved to this apartment. But that house sold and I wasn’t in town to dispose of everything before the new owners arrived. So I asked my personal assistant to sell, give away, or toss whatever was there and only to rescue things I might really want to hang on to. I’m finally now going through what she brought over. Boxes of tax receipts, a few pairs of shoes, and this. The box of medical braces and porn.

This, then, how I’ve represented my priorities. I feel pretty good about that.

A whole day, a whole life ahead. What better Christmas gift than that. A world of possibilities (verbs optional). Realization that every day is new. Sometimes, you have more control than you think. Even within the confines (not so much confined) of what you’ve been given and what you’ve made for yourself.

Take all of this, then, and do something with it. Something that brings joy (grab joy when you can find it, when it catches your eye, sparkling from rooftops and drifting behind clouds; reach up and catch the faintest corner and pull it down towards you) or contentment or peace. A gracious and still moment. Even though the chaos howls around you, whirling like brittle leaves in the fall.

Sometimes it’s easy. The pieces fit together like a puzzle and they snap in place effortlessly and you know. This, this is exactly how things should be. Those times are to give you strength when it’s hard and you wonder, when can I stop climbing? I can’t stop climbing or I’ll fall backwards, plummeting in the darkness.

Both ways lead you to a new day. No matter what path, what darkness, what light, the next day comes. And you gather up all the pieces around you (ye rosebuds, while ye may, before that smiling flower dies) and craft something entirely new with it.

I used to look at that as loneliness (she is the one who will have to rescue herself), but I was wrong. It’s freedom.

Long ago in a land far away, we all lived in caves or under trees or something and we collected rocks and twigs mostly so we would have something to throw at people who came to steal our tasty rat-meat skewers and on Saturdays, if it wasn’t raining, we played a game called “run from the lion; ha ha, I’m sure that growl is just for show”. I think. Something like that. I only took the one anthropology class in college and it was kind of a long time ago.

Things have changed.

When I moved to this apartment, I took absolutely nothing. It was refreshing and light and freeing and I don’t miss any of the clutter. And yet somehow I’ve already managed to accumulate more. I’ve been attempting to clean my office today — a room that has somehow become devoted to black hole of disorganization and chaos, with its boxes and storage bins and papers and electronics and clothes and who knows what else. Don’t let the fact that I am clearly writing on my computer and not organizing make you think I am not devoted to this cause. Everyone needs short breaks now and then. And naps. We all need naps.

But mostly, what I need today is to find a place for everything and to figure out why exactly it is that I have been making due with only three quarters of my living space to give room to the random and crazy things that I’ve apparently been carefully storing. I’m pretty sure I don’t need an empty Jimmy Jane box. Sure, Jimmy Jane has great packaging, but do I really need to keep an empty vibrator box forever? I did find an apparent bonus tube of massage lotion in the box, but I think the box itself can go.

And I may not need all those DS games, case, and accessories when I don’t actually own a DS anymore. And yet. There it all is, stacked nicely in my bookcase. I don’t have a tape player either, but that doesn’t mean I should get rid of my cassettes, right? Right? I probably even have a few records somewhere, now that I think of it.

All this abandoned technology makes me like my books just a little more. All you need to use those are your eyes. And all those hard drives, in various states of operation, four laptops (only one of which is entirely working) and one desktop computer makes me want to find some actual paper and write with a real pen. Of course, books and paper are the other two things that pile up, but those I don’t mind so much. I’d happily line every wall with bookcases full of books and journals. The walls aren’t too far off from that now, come to think of it.

Clutter like that makes me happy. Maybe I should clear out those cassettes after all and make a little more room.

I bought a new snowboard yesterday. It is the most beautiful snowboard in all of the land, although I feel a little guilty that I evened factored prettiness into the equation. Not so guilty I didn’t buy new bindings to best compliment it, even though I had perfectly good bindings already.

Buying a new board got me thinking about how I first into snowboarding. I didn’t do a lot of things back then that were athletic or hard or scary. I think I shunned sports entirely because my stepdad told me in the sixth grade that I wasn’t athletically inclined. And because I’m a perfectionist. Tell me I’m not good at something, make me think I’ll never be the absolute best at it, and my first thought is to go do something that I can be best at. My foray into snowboarding has really been realization that a lot of the childhood lessons my parents taught me were a bit fucked up and I am free from the struggle of carrying that weight around with me everywhere I go. And it has also been acceptance that it’s OK not to be perfect after all. Who knew snowboarding could be such a psychological exercise.

I’m better than I used to be, but somehow I don’t think that years after I’m gone, my legacy will “totally kicked ass at snowboarding”. But even so, I’ve stuck with it for five years, and I love it more every time I go out.

It’s been a crazy five years. When I look back on my life, I see it distinctly divided into two parts: when I did what I thought everyone else wanted and when I did what I wanted. The line is more like a hill than a cliff though, as the “did what everyone else wanted” part was hard to let go of and lingered on. It’s still lingering. In some ways, it’s easier to live life according to what you think will make everyone else happy and to sacrifice yourself. Those choices are clear. When you start to put yourself into the equation, you’re by default doing things less for everyone else and things aren’t so clear anymore. What’s the right balance? Life becomes a series of adjustments and trial and error.

Five years ago, I never would have guessed that I would be here now. Sometimes I feel exhausted looking back, and I know that the climbing just continues. But mostly I feel light and hopeful and free. Exactly how I feel when I’m snowboarding down the mountain.

Last night, I was taking a friend who was on his way home for the holidays and he asked me what I was going to do this weekend, since I’m not flying out until Monday and everyone else will have headed out by then. I thought ahead to the next three days and all that time alone in my apartment seemed like blissful peace. I love to travel and I love my friends, but I also love being at home alone, and that’s not something I’ve had much time for at all lately.

I remember back when I was married, and I would dream about having a small apartment of my own. I would have friends over; I’d cook for them; sometimes I’d just curl up in a chair and read a book by the fire. It was a long and convoluted path to that apartment. I got sidetracked along the way, but I think I’m finally ending up there.

It’s difficult to know when to not get distracted from your goals and when the distraction is something that you just never thought about before but might be even better than what you initially wanted. Sometimes, you have to head down a path for a while before you really can figure it out. And even though I’m still learning and making mistakes and will be forever, one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t have to fear choosing a path. You can always turn off onto another one later.

So, I sit in my apartment alone. And can think of nothing better than spending the next few days here, getting caught up on stuff, writing, watching the water. And I’ll go along this path until another fork happens along that’s worth exploring.

I don’t remember the last time I went home for Christmas. Not that I really feel like I have a particular “home” to go back to. I mostly think of home as the place I’m making for myself. The closest place I have to “home”, of course, is my grandparents’ house, and that’s where all the relatives tend to congregate every year. I’m not sure what’s going to happen this year. I was there last weekend and my grandpa said that he didn’t want a big party, although he certainly wants everyone to stop by. He wants to be around people. He’s just not up for a celebration.

So, I’m flying down on Christmas Eve and I’ll spend Christmas morning with my niece and then the afternoon with my grandpa and maybe see the cousins that I’ve somehow lost track of. I’ve given up feeling bad about not wanting to spend time with my mom. I just can’t carry that weight around with me anymore.

And I’m spending the rest of the holiday at home. My home. The one I’ve made for myself. Despite my therapy and growth and all of that crap that comes along with getting older, I still am conflicted about family. Part of me just runs from it. It seems like so much work and trouble and energy and strength. But then I see my niece and I think that some things about family maybe are worth it after all.

Sometimes I just want to make my own home alone, and enjoy the refreshing solitude. But then I wonder if I’m missing something else even better. And then I remember that I don’t have to figure it all out right now. I can enjoy this, and watch my niece open her presents, and spend time alone, and see what happens next.

• Walking to the bakery on a Sunday morning.
• Watching the water.
• Sleeping cats.
• Friends.
• The snow falling.
• A comfortable bed.
• Moments of happiness.

Sometimes I just don’t have a lot of words to write. Which isn’t exactly true because of course I always have infinite words to write. I could write forever and never stop and I would still have words left. But sometimes words are too concrete, with shape and weight and angles and sometimes I don’t want to have any of those things.

I think I like myself a bit better now though. And we should all like ourselves. After all, we spend a lot of damn time with ourselves. More than is good for us probably, which is maybe why we go through periods when we are so tired of ourselves we just want to stop talking.

One day, I’ll be OK with concreteness and heft and direction. But today, weightlessness and wordlessness is just fine by me. There are so many things I could feel and I could ponder and plan and feel slighted or joyous or any of a number of ways about any number of things. But I think I’ll take a break from all of that, at least for today.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll have more substantial words.

I was at a skateboarding park the other day (yes, I know I’m old, but old people skateboarding is not a crime!) and first, skateboarding is much harder than it looks. Look around the next time you see skateboarders and find the one who’s really terrible, who you think looks incredibly lame and can barely stay up, much less move in a forward direction. That person is probably a hundred times better than you would be if you tried it. It’s hard!

So, I was attempting to not fall over (I was very unsuccessful, by the way) and this little kid who was bad but probably a thousand times better than I was said, “the more you fall, the more better you get”. And then he skated around me and went down a ramp and generally mocked my inability to conquer a small piece of wood with wheels. But in a nice way.

I was with a friend who said he should be fucking awesome by now then. Me too. Not at skateboarding. I mean at life.

It sort of sucks that life is a practice round for which there is no other round. It’s like taking golf lessons but never actually getting to play a game of golf.

All I can do is keep practicing. And falling. And hopefully getting more better.

When I was little, and I wanted to crawl into a grown up’s bed in the middle of the night like little kids do, the grown up I picked was my grandma. I remember that she used to tease me about kicking her in my sleep. I’d wake up in the night and climb into bed between my grandparents and fall right to sleep. My earliest memories are living at their house — the first home I ever knew.

When my grandma cooked, I would drag a chair from the kitchen table over to the stove and stand up on it so that I could see into the pots and pans and watch how she cooked. The rest, of course, is history.

I never had a home. Home has always been my grandparents’ house. The place I could always go back to. They never locked their doors. You could stop by anytime and if no one was home, you could just hang out until someone got back. More often though, someone was there — a cousin, and aunt. You always knew you had a place to stay, no matter what. So many of my friends have stayed there. My grandparents welcomed everyone in.

I was just talking on the phone with my sister and she was telling me about the latest set of crazy behaviors from my mom that I guess I knew would come, but I was hoping maybe we wouldn’t have to deal with them so soon. “I just keep wishing she would act like… a mom. But I guess I can’t change who she is.” And my sister said that since we never really had a dad either, that the people who really most like parents to us have always been our grandparents. And it’s just hard to lose them.

My grandma had seven kids and she didn’t drive. Once her kids had grown up, she got a job at k-Mart in the cafeteria and she walked the two miles to work and back every day. She met my grandpa during World War II. He was at an army base in Ohio before going overseas and they met at a dance. he used to hitchike on his days off to go see her. when he got moved to a base in Atlanta, she took the train from Sandusky down to see him, with her mom as chaperone.

She loved crossword puzzles and my grandpa and the Virgin Mary. She went to mass every week until she and my grandpa got too sick and then my uncle would come to their house on Sundays to bring mass to them.

I have lost touch with my family over the years. I’ve been busy and I’ve needed some distance from my mom. I’ve stayed close with my grandparents, but haven’t seen most of my cousins for a really long time. It’s amazing to see my cousins now. We have all had the same shared experience with our grandparents, with their house, even though we didn’t have that experience together.

I stayed up late one night after the funeral, drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes with my aunt and uncle out on the back patio at my grandparent’s house. My uncle said he’s been thinking a lot about the one stable thing for all of us has always been that house. And once both of my grandparents are gone, what will happen to that house? And will there be another place that will bring us together or will we just fade away. No longer a family, just a collection of people with no common ground?

My grandma started getting sick a few months ago and it was everything I had dreaded my entire life coming true. It’s difficult to think of the one constant of your entire life going away and never coming back. I spent the night with her in the hospital two nights before she died. I can regret that I didn’t spend more time talking to her or that I didn’t do enough or think that I should have visited more or longer and I don’t know. You can’t look back on life like that, I suppose.

It’s still too difficult for me to think about it all too much. There’s so much going on that I can mostly stay distracted. Family is tricky. And when you mostly feel as though you don’t have one, you want to keep what you feel you do have. And sometimes there’s nothing you can do about that slipping away.