Desperately seeking Zen

Holidays bring different traditions for everyone. For me, it's getting a new wall calendar and updating it month by month. I love peeling off the cellophane wrapper and pulling out the square piece of cardboard in the middle. It's a personal process that takes place on my kitchen table. I am particular about my calendar as I have to look at it all year, and am partial to the ones with pretty pictures of faraway places -- Paris, Italy, National Parks of the U.S. We've had them all. For 2014, it was "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" (really it's only 12 places with 1,000 pictures of those places but it's still exhilarating to think about going to the Seychelles Islands or Nicaragua). This year, however, I chose "Ireland" -- stone circles, pubs, green pastures and names like Limerick and Tipperary.  Haven't been there yet but hope to someday. My favorite part of getting a new calendar is transferring birthdays or important events from ...

I think it's funny that I have not blogged since 2013. So much has happened in my life since then -- my transgender son going to college, my teenage daughter becoming her own person, my Dad being diagnosed with Parkinson's, and my own history with alcohol abuse and what might be hidden underneath. I also ran my first half-marathon, started plans to build a new house with my husband and led a nonprofit for two years while working full-time. So you see, I needed some help. Like many women today, I recently started seeing a counselor. Not for any of the challenges listed above but mostly because I need to figure out who I was as a little kid and who I am today. For people with confidence, power to you. But I finally realized that talking about myself for one hour a week and not caring about anyone else is great therapy. It helps me become a better person, mother, daughter, wife and colleague. My counselor -- we'll call her Mother T. --  is awesome! She has long, flowy blo...