i raise my glass to happiness {self-portrait challenge}

A toast to happiness.

The bracelet, a Christmas gift from my mother, has the phrase, “Choose happiness” stamped into it.

It is always a choice. All of it. Happiness, sadness, quiet, life, laughter, love, truth, anger, fear…all of it.

But to choose happiness; sometimes I think that this is the harder path. When you choose to live in your life with your eyes wide open, you see the other stuff…the ugly stuff. When you are wide open to it all, when your heart is wide open, you can be hurt. Over and over again. You feel things and understand things and notice things that others may not be willing to notice yet. When you are living in your life with your eyes wide open, you also see the beauty. The gorgeous moments. You see it all. And through it all, you have a choice. You always have a choice. This can seem so hard at times. So. very. hard. Yet, you have this choice. Which means, really, that you are on the path that is full and rich and alive. The other path, the one full of not paying attention, that is the one that is harder even though it feels easier.

And you can still choose.

To choose happiness, even in the midst of all that you know, even in the midst of the pain and the beauty...it is such an incredible choice. Full of light. Full of life.

So tonight, I raise my glass to happiness. To deciding to choose it a bit more often.

(to see other self-portraits of red visit self-portrait challenge)

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(And I want to also say this. The giving of presents is something I enjoy. I am always on the lookout for little gifts for my friends, family, people in my life. The moment when I find the “perfect” gift – the gift you know another person needs, well, that makes me so happy. And I love it when I can also be there when they open it. And I admit that I love, love it when someone gives me a gift that is so "me." But to put this note into context, I have to be honest about something: The bah humbug [whispering now…martyr] in me sometimes resents opening a gift and knowing that the person just simply didn’t take the time to think of me but instead just said, “crap, I need something.” Little do they know that for me, a hand-written note means more than another empty picture frame. I know, yes people, I know, this isn’t the spirit of gift giving, but I am willing to be honest about this. However…opening the gifts from my mom last night, especially this bracelet and a necklace she bought me…well, I just felt my heart sigh inside [in a good way]. These gifts mean so much to me. Gifts from someone who is seeing me and the path I am on. Thank you.)

continuing to seek the sexy {self-portrait challenge}

I look in the mirror with my brightened "redish" hair color and new bangs and wonder who the woman is in the reflection. I look different with bangs. I feel...of all things...sexier.

Sexier.

This was a bit unexpected. Especially because sitting in the salon wearing that cape that cuts me off at the neck (not to mention my hair in tin foil and then wet and stuck to my head), invites me to feel anything but sexy. In fact, I fight with myself internally as I sit there. Fighting the negative self talk that bubbles up. This afternoon, as I looked in the mirror, seeing my face, remembering all that I learned during the mirror meditation, I found myself smiling back at me.

And I thought, "I look cute and just a bit sexy..."

At the end of last month, I mentioned that I want to write and talk more about marriage/romantic relationships here on my blog. And bringing in the sexy...well, that is something most people in long-term relationships need to do more and more. Sometimes as the level of comfort increases, the need to bring in the sexy falls to the side as we stop "courting" one another. Yet, there is always this true need to feel desired and desire another. Why do we stop? Why do we forget? What are we afraid of? All questions to be examined on another day...

For now, I am just going to keep on the sexy red slip. Even if it is layered over jeans and under a sweater (it is December after all). Never know what might happen when someone comes home to see this sexy woman who is me working away on the couch in such an outfit...

(see other interpretations of the theme "red" at self-portrait challenge)

a life that is shifting {self-portrait challenge}

An imperfect person living in her life.

I grew up listening to Paul Simon. I have distant memories of Saturdays and my mom stacking several records on the turn table and hearing her sing along. I will suddenly know the words to a song and it is because of those Saturdays and that stack of records. I sometimes wonder how many songs I really know (and how I would not have failed chemistry in college if it had been taught in song).

Back in June, Paul Simon’s newest album, Surprise, was the first album I downloaded onto my iPod nano. And I listened to it over and over again. On an afternoon in June, I pretended for a moment that he was sitting on a stool singing to me. And somehow in that moment, with my eyes closed and my ears and heart absorbing every word, I believed he really was there. And he has been singing to me ever since.

I am still absorbing the fact that I saw him in concert last month because, well, you see, I really do think he is singing to me. His words have hit me in a way that forces me to stop and listen and reflect and navigate a bit differently. And now he is appearing to me in dreams. He is literally singing to me in my dreams now. I wake up and think, “Paul is trying to tell me something else. Better listen to him today.”

Last week, I was listening to the album Still Crazy After All These Years while I was working. The second time it was playing through, I has paused my work and in the deep breath of a moment, I was struck by the song “Gone at Last.” So I played it on repeat a few times and danced and sang and danced some more.

Gone, gone, gone at last
Gone at last, gone at last
I had a long streak of that bad luck
But I’m prayin’
it’s gone at last

With this song it is partly the beat that got me off my feet and got me to pay attention. But then it was these words that had me tearing up in that “oh shit, you so are validating all I have experienced, the crap and the good and the big crap and the fantastic” way. Those tears that prick at the back of my eyeballs because I know I am not alone in how I feel, how I “get it.”

Once in a while from out of nowhere
When you don’t expect it, and you’re unprepared
Somebody will come and lift you higher
And your burdens will be shared
Yes I do believe, if I hadn’t met you
I might still be sinking fast
I’ve had a long streak of bad luck
But I’m praying it’s gone at last

I cannot believe how much my life has changed in the past 18 months. I. cannot. believe. it. And although I believe I was on this path to begin with, I still know that things have shifted. And, it is only because of a broken heart, the deepest of grief, that my path shifted. I know I have written about this idea before, but I just need to say it again and again and again because it simply rocks me. That such sadness could bring such life and meaning to my world. To be given a gift of myself even when the grief claws at me. It is astounding.

In the song “Graceland,” Simon sings,

And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you’re blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow

I don’t think you understand what this means until, one day you do. Someone asked me recently if losing my grandmother was the first time my heart was broken. And I said yes. But the truth is that is not the case. There have been other moments where my heart hurt. However, this was the first time I understood. That is the difference. When my parents divorced, the pain was deep and confusing, and I didn’t understand. Other moments in my life have been like this, painful but I didn’t understand the pain.

When I stood in that funeral home, in one swift moment I understood. I understood all of it. I understood everything.

I walked into that room as one person and walked out as another version of myself. Though only one piece of my reality had changed, it was clear that this new understanding shifted everything.

Back in June when I closed my eyes and Paul Simon sat on a stool in my bedroom singing to me, the words to “Once Upon a Time There Was Ocean” sang in my heart because I knew the singer of this song understood this idea. Understood me. And so began my love affair with the poetry of Paul Simon’s lyrics.

I figure that once upon a time I was an ocean
But now I’m a mountain range
Something unstoppable set into motion
Nothing is different, but everything’s changed

taking things personally {self-portrait challenge}

When I was in high school I had a journal that had quotes from women throughout the pages. I often think about this one:

Women are repeatedly accused of taking things personally. I cannot see any other honest way of taking them.
Marya Mannes

It struck me then, and it strikes me now. That quote felt like a literal self reflection. There is a scene in You’ve Got Mail where Tom Hanks’ character says, “It’s not personal; it’s business.” And Meg Ryan’s character talks about how people say that, but if it is anything, it is personal. Life is personal.

I think people consider me someone who is emotional. I take things personally. I think this is one of my best qualities. Yep. I admit it. I love that I am emotional. I don’t mean dramatic (though I am quite sure I have my moments). No, I mean someone who isn’t afraid of feeling. Someone who admits to having emotions and feeling them.

I spend a lot of time sifting through my own “stuff,” the guts of life. The insecurities and past stuff. I sift and peel back and move through. As I do this I uncover, you guessed it, a lot of emotion.

When you are someone who sifts through things a lot, you become aware of your triggers. Why do I feel this way when someone does ____? Why am I angry about _____? Why do I feel like crying in certain moments? What is all of this really about? These are questions I am always asking myself.

The introspective me wants to know the answers. But the emotional me sometimes invites a feeling of searching for the answers through a bit of fog.

Last week was a week where several things collided at once. Just when I thought, “okay, I can figure this out,” I was hit from another side with something else. Over and over again. And even though I received support from some dear friends through this, the emotional me got a bit caught up in it all. And the “stuff” I uncovered began to cloud…well…everything.

I felt like I was on one of those rides at the fair. The one where it starts out slow, moving in a circle over a few little hills, but then it gets faster and faster and the music playing gets louder and louder. And you can’t stop it. When I was in, maybe, second grade, my father took a friend and me on one of those rides. I screamed the entire time. I kept begging my dad to wave to the guy to let him know I wanted to get off. The terror actually bubbles up a bit just thinking about that experience. A total loss of control.

It is a delicate balance. The emotional and the self-reflective. You have to check in with yourself, take your temperature, to figure out what is really going on. Because, the reality is, you are the only one who knows. You are the only one who understands why you choose to react the way you do. And figuring that out is hard enough.

Imagine if you start attempting to figure out why everyone else is doing what they are doing? Well, that can start to get really messy, especially because they are the only ones who can know. And they might not be in a place to really understand this.

Sometimes I wonder how we have any relationships at all. Truly. How do we ever successfully communicate with another person when we have a hard enough time communicating with ourselves? But, I believe relationships are part of the beauty of our time here. Connecting. Feeling. Finding our way through the emotional connections we have with others, this is a big piece of the journey.

Perhaps nestling into a life full of emotion can cause one to feel a bit blurry at times. But I think this is what we do: We make a commitment to feel, really feel deeply, so that we can live in our lives.

(to see other reflections on imperfection visit self-portrait challenge.)

the good girl {self-portrait challenge}

After I read Michelle’s post last week, I began listen to the whisper inside my head that said, “let’s not spend time with all those imperfections.” I have spent the last two months encouraging myself and others to spend time looking in the mirror to embrace the “imperfections.” And it feels not-so-healthy to spend time dwelling on “Look, the tissues with lotion I have been using for my cold have invited two nice little pimples to live on the end of my nose. All ready for Halloween kids.” and other such fun thoughts.

So I am tweaking this challenge a bit and continuing what I started earlier this year when SPC gave us the challenge of “all of me.” I am embracing the imperfections that make me who I am. Last week I started with envy: Admitting I feel envy and owning that I think envy is part of being human.

This week, I admit to you that I am…simply…the good girl.

This is a picture of me from high school*. As some of you know, I went to boarding school. We had uniforms and nametags and a leadership system where the girls were prefects (yes, like Harry Potter). I was a good girl in high school. I never got in trouble. Nope. Not once. This isn’t to say I was perfect, but the few times I “broke the rules,” I did not get caught. When I went back to work at this boarding school I didn’t tell my students that their counselor had been “one of those” girls who never received an infraction. (If only my dorm mother had noticed my “I spent the night with Kenny Rogers” kilt pin or the non-reg green henley I used to wear under my blue oxford. Scandalous I know.) Most of my friends were “good girls” too so it was pretty easy to avoid breaking the rules.

I remember a friend saying to me, “when you are 25 I imagine you pulling up in my driveway on the back of a Harley with some older man your parents would not so much approve of.” Well, at 25 I did pull up…but in Honda Civic…with an older man…who is a teacher, a science teacher. Still the good girl.

I don’t want to list all the things that make me the good girl because, well, you might think I haven’t lived much. I appreciated Neil’s post yesterday (that included a longer version of this meme). And I admit that I wouldn’t be checking many of those boxes. Nope.

In college, I remember sitting on the floor of my apartment reading SARK’s piece about how “the good girlfriend must die” in Succulent Wild Woman. It resonated deeply with me. She says, “The ‘good girlfriend’ always knows what to bring to a potluck…doesn’t say fuck…looks sexy, but doesn’t live in her body…makes sure things are pleasant…always has effortless and pleasing orgasms.” Society’s image of the perfect woman who does it all and does it with a smile on her face letting you step right on her because you don’t see her at all.

Is this being the good girl?

I have wrestled with this idea throughout my adult life. I can be very in touch with the anxiety that surfaces about bringing the right/buying the right/wearing the right/having the right “thing.” I can be quite the stress-queen if I spend too much time looking at catalogs or watching HGTV. Do I HAVE to have THAT to be accepted?

I push back against the idea that dinner should be waiting for my husband when he gets home and I should be in charge of making all plans and so on. This became especially true when I started working from home but wasn’t yet working full time. I was here. Why wasn’t I keeping the house clean/making dinner/going to the grocery store/paying the bills on time? My husband never said he had this expectation, but my fear was big enough to start making assumptions about my “new” role. I had to realize that sometimes I push back to an extent that I forget we simply do these things for one another because we love one another.

I am bringing up two different ideas, but I think they are intimately connected. When we are younger our parents want us to be good girls. “Please be a good girl,” they tell us as we walk into a nice store, sit down in a nice restaurant, get ready to visit the relatives. Be a good girl. And that was easy for me. I will be good, quiet, behave, sit where told, smile, listen quietly while the adults talk, not swear, keep my skirt down, and on and on. And as we get older, we start to realize society also has expectations for how we can be the good girlfriend/woman/wife/mother/professional and on and on.

Somewhere along the way, you realize that there are many shades to being the good girl. And one day you realize, you are really always the good girl. Even when you say “fuck,” or forget to keep your skirt down, or get really drunk, or inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings, or bring attention to yourself, or make a lot of mistakes, and so on.

I want to propose a new way of looking at this. A new understanding of what being “a good girl” means. I recognize that the term “good girl” may not resonate with everyone. However, I think it is a phrase we all know; especially when we hear the voice of a parent say, “Be a good girl.” Imagine if our parents had said, “Be your best self.” What would this mean?

To be your best self is to do the best you can each day and honor that sometimes the best you can do isn’t what you hoped to do but the best you can do all the same.
To be your best self is to listen to the voice inside you.
To be your best self is to push yourself to be more than you ever thought you could be.
To be your best self is to speak your mind and shares your feelings while being aware of others.
To be your best self is to invite yourself to let go of the expectations of others to realize that you alone must own your journey.
To be your best self is to make a lot of mistakes, and even wallow in the bad choices for a bit, but eventually try to identify the lessons and then go about learning from them.
To be your best self is to admit you are not perfect and then to set out on an adventure of acceptance.

To be your best self…

I ask you: What would you add to this list? What does this mean to you?

(*yes, i am leaning against a statue of an indian. statues like this are everywhere on my boarding school's campus.)

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updated in 2011: Self-Portrait Challenge (SPC) was a website that encouraged people to take and share self-portraits. I am sad to report that it no longer has an active website, so I have removed links that appeared in the posts connected to my participation in this project.