Rich in Love Trumps Rich in Money

October 17, 2011 by ·

I have a new bloggy friend who feels like a kindred spirit, though I haven’t known her long at all. I met Dwija from House Unseen. Life Unscripted. through a bloggers’ group on Facebook, and if I hadn’t noticed her because of her name I certainly would have because of her blog. “We bought a house in rural Michigan sight-unseen off the internet,” reads her header. “My husband quit his job in California and we moved our four kids across the country.”

Heck yeah, I want to read this woman’s blog.

Then she friended me on Facebook and holy canoli is this woman funny. As in don’t-miss-her-status-updates funny.

Her story, as it turns out, is even richer than it sounds. (No pun intended.) My heart latched on to her history when she wrote Where I’m From. Several people, including me, asked her to share more about her background. Her response to that request – her humility, her hesitancy, her hilarious vernacular – captures so much about why I totally dig this woman already. (Plus, the post included a giant picture of a musk ox.)

She has started writing those stories, so go read part 1 and tell me you’re not hooked already. (And because you’re going to want them, here are the links to part 2 and part 3.)

So, um, anyway…before I spend a whole post rambling on about my new friend (and I could) I’ll tell you why this is important: She’s here today! And I’m at her place.

We’re doing a post exchange as part of the Friends You Love blog hop. I asked her if she’d play with me, she said yes, so here’s Dwija!

***

Five years ago I was still in my twenties. My skin looked great, I ran five days a week, I had two healthy little girls in pre-school and decent job.

And I was miserable.

Oh, we had money. We owned a charming little condo in Southern California and had two cars. I went out with my friends at least once, maybe twice a month.

And he was miserable.

We had everything “they” say you need to be happy and we just…weren’t. We weren’t happy. Because the one thing we didn’t have was each other.

I’ve read articles and “studies” lately that suggest the secret to a happy, or rather just bearable, marriage is to spend as much time apart as possible. Go on vacations alone. Talk badly behind each other’s backs. Drink a little too much. And then get some better meds.

My friends, if you are willing to endure that kind of painful existence, milquetoast at best, desperately depressing at worst, you are selling yourself short. You are cheating yourself out of the joy that everyone deserves.

When we had money and a house and perfect children in the Land of Fun, we rarely saw each other. We shared no hobbies. We went on no adventures together. He worked nights as a police officer, I worked days in an office. His days off were during the week, mine were on the weekend.

We stopped knowing each other.

So we stopped loving each other.

And you know what? That is not good enough. Not. Good. Enough. I wanted more, demanded more, because I deserved more. You deserve more.

And then the best terrible thing that could have happened to us happened – we foreclosed on our condo. Suddenly we had something in common again: a crisis.

Family of 6In managing that crisis, we had to lean on one another. We had to make tough decisions and remind ourselves of what our priorities were. Or ought to be. We clung to one another and our relationship and the love we shared for our children and suddenly our lives BLOSSOMED again. Into a two-bedroom apartment just 6 days before baby number three was born and we were filled with JOY.

The peace that washed over our hearts and lit up our days once we prioritized each other over money or “fun” or stuff was nothing short of miraculous.

And now we’re here, in a house we bought for $27K cash sight-unseen off the internet, not knowing when Tommy will get another job or if we’ll ever be able to fix those holes in the ceiling, and we are happy.

You are worth more than tolerable. You are worth more than it-could-be-worse. Believe that. Live that. Make your life and your marriage and your family your hobby. Your adventure. You won’t regret it.

***

Sigh. I love her.

So now that I’ve introduced (some of) you to a fabulous new blogger, please head over to Dwija’s to read my (not nearly so deep) post about the time we were moving my husband out to live with me and ended up giving all his worldly possessions to some strangers.

Friends You Love Blog Hop

Filed Under: Guest posts, Happy things, Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: , , , ,

Impromptu Gratitude List, v1

October 12, 2011 by ·

After spending the better part of the last week totally cranky, I decided it was time to force the happy back. I’ve been better in the last couple of days (and thank you so much to those of you who have checked in on me) and would like to take the time to note some things I’m grateful for.

Last month I started creating a gratitude list every night in my journal while taking Karen Walrond’s Chookooloonks Path Finder course. I liked ending my day that way, but then things got busy and I stopped for a bit. And then last week during the crankies, when I particularly needed to find things to be grateful about, I couldn’t. Or maybe I didn’t want to.

In any case, grateful is better than grumpy so here’s an impromptu gratitude list to serve as my reminder to focus on the good.

  1. My very clean and entirely clutter-free house. It was nail-breakingly painful to get it to this point, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts.
  2. A very good number of showings on above-mentioned very tidy house, which seems like a good sign.
  3. A dinner-time showing tonight while Connor was at my parents’ house, which gave my husband and I the chance to have an impromptu date night.
  4. Parents who willingly and happily help out.
  5. Finding a sale on jeans the same week I tore a very big hole in the knee of the only pair I have that still fit me.
  6. Discovering I still fit the same size jeans (even when not well worn and stretched out), which I also take to be a good sign.
  7. Chocolate ice cream (especially given #6).
  8. Cozy spa socks at night.
  9. Knowing there are people interested in our house but not feeling pressured to accept conditional offers at this point, giving me time to get over some of my sad feelings about selling this house.
  10. My intuition, which has never been a terribly good compass for me but seems to be doing better lately. Despite the hugeness of this change, I still think it’s the right thing to do. And I’m trusting my intuition again when it tells me a certain job, which I may or may not get offered, isn’t the right one for me. If I get the opportunity I’m going to decline and trust that doing so will keep me on the right path.
  11. Really amazing blog and Twitter friends. I must figure out what I did to deserve you so I can do it again in my next life.
  12. A couple of days where my little boy was very cuddly.
  13. Friends who bring me homemade cookies.
  14. Having a puppy for a shadow, especially one who is typically daddy’s boy.
  15. Being able to brainstorm an idea with my husband and plan a project around it. (Oh please, oh please let us figure out a way to make this work!)
  16. Winning a blog design. Whee!
I’m going to go back to writing a list (even a short one) in my journal every night. Do you keep a gratitude list? Do you find it makes you more aware of the things you’re thankful for? I’m betting it will for me.
Filed Under: Happy things · Tagged With: , , ,

On Steve Jobs and Living the Life You’re Meant To

October 6, 2011 by ·

There’s a For Sale sign on our lawn.

The listing for our house will officially appear tomorrow, but the sign is on our lawn now.

“How can you make a decision like this so calmly?” a friend asked a couple of weeks ago.

Calm? I’m not calm about anything right now (and evidently I wasn’t entirely prepared for that sign to go up).

I’m not calm about the stuff going on at work, and I’m certainly not calm about the fact that there’s a FOR SALE SIGN on the lawn of the house we’ve lived in for almost 9 years – since before we were married, since before we had our dog, since way before Connor was born.

As far as the stuff that happens next – big move, new house, new job – I’m excited about parts of it and, frankly, in denial about the rest. I’m almost 37 years old and I have spent most of my life living very near my parents. I’ve got really good friends here – pseudo-family kind of friends – I don’t want to leave. Both of those things make me want to barf.

But here’s the thing: I can’t stay here. Oh sure, in the literal sense I could. But in the larger-than-life philosophical sense, I can’t.

Last night as we cleaned and tidied and did the last few things needed for a photographer to come and take pictures of our house, I saw the news that Steve Jobs had died. I was sad; more sad than I would have thought, actually, but I’ve enjoyed revisiting his words of wisdom. Such as:

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

I think this is genius. We always hear, “Live each day as if it were your last,” which is romantic and inspring but totally impractical. If I knew tomorrow would be my last I’d hop on a plane for Hawaii. I’d go out for dinner with my boys and overeat to an insane degree and then have the most decadent dessert on the menu. I’d spend hours sitting by the ocean. I’d write a really, really long letter to my son. Some of those are things I could do today – or any day – but I can’t do them over and over and savour the moments as though they were my last. Life doesn’t work that way.

The brilliance of the above quote by Jobs is the “too many days in a row” part. Ignoring the little voice that says, “no” is how years go by until we realize we haven’t done what we want to do in this lifetime.

I certainly don’t have it all figured out and I’m not entirely sure what I want to do next. I know the general direction, but not the specific vision. According to Mr. Jobs, that’s okay:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

So I had my little cry about the For Sale sign. I’m not saying I won’t shed many more tears by the time this process is done and I’ve left my first house and the city I grew up in, but in my heart I know those things are secondary.

House for sale sign

Wanna buy a house?

Linking up with Just Write – The Fourth:

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: , , , ,

I Believed Once

October 5, 2011 by ·

I believed once.

I thought I could make a difference. I followed my heart and used my voice and put it out there. I worked. Hard. I worked through lunch. I worked late, came home, had dinner, and worked some more.

I wrote. I wrote and wrote and brainstormed because I believed. And because I believed I put my whole heart in to my work.

The path my life has taken over the last five years has made me who I am now. Some of that evolution is on this blog, but so much of it is because of my work – the absolute passion and dedication I put into it, the opportunities I’ve had, and the people I’ve worked with.

My work changed who I knew I could be, but it’s the evolution chronicled here that has changed who I am. It has changed what I believe.

It has changed what I believe I can do.

I believe I’ve done what I can do in my current job, especially because recent changes have taken the work in a different direction. Despite knowing this is what I must do, I do it with a heavy heart. I played a big part in building something bold, and because that something will inevitably change – partly because the organization has changed but also because that’s what things do – I feel as though I’m saying goodbye not only to a job and a team but to a piece of myself. When I pack up my desk the box containing my pictures will also contain the shadow of my contribution, exiting the building with me dressed in both regret that things must change and an attempt at preserving something that meant something to me.

It’s time for me to move on.

We’ve spent the better part of the last month sprucing up our house and on Friday a For Sale sign will appear on our lawn.

On a date in the not-too-distant future I will write a letter to my boss and sign a piece of paper giving my house over to someone else.

I’m leaving the work and the people and the organization that changed how I think about what work is.

I’m leaving the first house we owned, and the house I brought my son home to.

I’m leaving the city I grew up in, where my parents – and my son’s grandparents – are six minutes away.

I’m leaving who I used to be in order to find out who I can become.

Who I think I am now.

I believed once.

And I’m choosing to believe again.

Sunrise. A new day in the Canadian Rockies.

 

Linked up with:

cookies_chronicles_BOTB_button

Filed Under: Happy things, Hard things · Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

I’m Not Alone, You’re Not Alone

October 3, 2011 by ·

I’ve never struggled with depression.

Except… Oh wait. There was that time in the last semester of my first year of university when I spent a lot of time in bed. A LOT. I stayed there and didn’t want to get up, though I didn’t think much of it at the time.

Then when I was in my 20s, I got sick of feeling sad and hopeless all the time and started logging things. What I ate, exercise, weather – you name it, I put it into a carefully crafted spreadsheet, and it was all mapped against my mood. Eventually the sum of the things that made me feel better – getting enough exercise, sunlight, eating well – led me to feel better overall.

Those times, I wasn’t diagnosed with depression. I never even had a conversation with a doctor about it. I always hated that label. Oddly, though, I remember being asked to fill out a self-identification form for a previous job. “Are you a visible minority?” No. “Are you Aboriginal?” No. “Do you have a disability?” A very small voice in my head piped up. “Does depression count?” I knew it was there, though I was never willing to admit it. (I checked no.)

 

The excerpt above is from an essay I wrote about depression that appears in anthology called Not Alone: Stories of Living With Depression, which is now available on Amazon. (I know! On Amazon twice in one week! I’m feeling lucky.)

The book is edited by Alise Wright who, in my experience since submitting my piece for consideration, is smart, kind, and funny.

Here’s one of the endorsements for the book:

“When our journeys take us down dark and unfamiliar paths, we don’t need leaders with all the answers; we need friends with open arms. Not Alone brings together the voices of many such friends in essays that are alive with wisdom, honesty, humor, and grace. What makes this book so powerful is the diversity of the stories shared within it. No two journeys through depression are exactly the same, and yet no one needs to travel alone. What a joy it is to see such an impressive assemblage of smart, talented, and creative writers speaking words of hope into the world!” —Rachel Held Evans, popular blogger and author of Evolving in Monkey Town.

Isn’t that great? It totally makes me want to read the other stories.

I never thought I’d be writing this openly about Depression (with a capital D), but this book is about exactly what I know, since starting this blog, to be so important: making people feel less alone.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Better world, Happy things, Postpartum depression, Writing · Tagged With: , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »