Desperately seeking Zen

I recently read an article in Oprah about an affirmation book called The Year of Yes . I had to smile as I've lived that life and what I found was professionally or personally it wore me out. Maybe it's because my own Mom was on a zillion committees and always volunteering (for the most part that was her job, along with raising us). Or maybe it's just in my nature as a "pleaser" to try to make sure everyone else's needs were met before my own. Whatever the reason, I've decided that next year will be a year of non-commitments. My own The Year of No . This is really hard for me because in general I'm a very positive person, but over the last couple years I have become more negative. Ironically, I think it's because I forgot to do things that made me happy. As women we are raised to be nurturers. From babysitting to baking to breastfeeding, our society at least in the last century has done it's best to try and convince women that their place is...

Snapchat experiment A few months ago I colored and cut my hair. It was darker, flippier and made people look at me twice. "Did you darken your hair? You look so different." "I didn't recognize you!" "Love your new look (winky, winky. OK I made that up. Nobody but a weirdo or my Mom winks at me anymore. I'm 47 for God's sake!) Anyway, in my world, change is welcome -  no matter how small. All this "live in the moment" and "being present" talk exhausts me sometimes because frankly, I'm bored with the moment. I've been working at the same job for 10 years. Married to the same (wonderful) man for 25 years and living in the same house for 22 years. At 32 I must have been going through something like this because I got a tattoo. An astrological and now graying tattoo that to this day I forget is there until I see my drooping backside in the mirror and think, "What the hell was I thinking getting a tramp stamp?...

 A couple weeks ago my 16-year-old daughter proposed her birthday present to me: to have her boyfriend over for dinner. Now, you may scoff "what a self-centered teenage thing to do," but consider the backstory....I had been encouraging her for months to have this fella over more. They had been dating for at least five months (though there was some passionate first love drama a couple years back) and she was always going to his house to hang with his family and watch movies. They were obviously the chosen ones. I was the stepmother. Seriously though, I had myself believing "doesn't every teenager want to have their significant other over all the time to hang out with their parents?" HellaNO! But for whatever reason, this she did. This was the second time the young man with the deep voice and swagger had been to our house (at least that I know of), and while a boyfriend of few words, he was polite and treated my daughter with respect and answered my...

What do you do when you realize life is just a blip in the Milky Way? Do you a) pull the covers over your head and refuse to get out of bed? b) take chances in all you do and say "yes" often because we're all gonna die anyway or c) sit back, take a breath and be grateful for all you have? I have been in stages of life where all these choices have made sense at the time. The trick is to keep rotating and not go to one extreme or another. I try to err on the grateful side as lately there are so many people I know who have come upon hard times due to illness or circumstance beyond their control. This doesn't make my own sufferings or conflicts any less important but it helps put it in perspective that as humans, we all suffer. Then we help each other up and keep moving forward. Or at least moving! Let's examine:  In the last month I have learned of a baby cousin with RSV in intensive care, a student hit by a car in a crosswalk, one colleague with a brai...

There are several things I hold sacred: my family, Saturday morning yoga and my girlfriends. I have different circles of girlfriends. One friend, Nikki, I have known since I was five years old. She taught me to ride a bike and how margarine in a tub is so completely amazing on white bread toast.  Another, Louise, has remained steadfast since our daughters started 1st grade together. She is a devoted mother of three, speaks with a British accent (which I sometimes unknowingly adopt when I am with her or talking about her) and has the uncanny ability to remember every accessory gift I ever gave her and wear it when we are getting together. I have friends from high school, college, summer camps, book clubs and past jobs. They all hold a special place in my heart and life for different reasons. Then there are "the girls." Formally known as the "Mandeville girls," for the town where I moved my senior year of high school. While I had no trouble being the new kid, I...

Yesterday was a good day. I read my new Jenny Lawson book in bed and chuckled out loud, I went to yoga. I watched reruns with my daughter. I took pleasure in organizing piles of paper into more -- though smaller -- piles of paper. Pictures my children had drawn for me. Pictures other people's kids had drawn for me when I babysat them 25 years ago. One of these kids, Mairead Case, is now a Ph.D candidate in English and Creative Writing with her own first novel, See You in the Morning . I am very impressed and hopeful that maybe in some small way I contributed to this genius (or not). Either way, I now have her brilliant signed novel and original childhood art and writing to match. Maybe when she wins the National Book Award some day it will be worth something on Sotheby's. Speaking of art, I recently resolved to try more new things and take chances in 2016. I've been in slow motion most of the past year, doing yoga and reading books about co-dependency at the advice of my...

It started with an email. We were all minding our own business watching some TV and having chill family time while multitasking on our phones (of course) and I saw an email from my daughter's tennis coach (paraphrase privilege here): WANTED: Host family for a Muslim female student from Kazakhstan. Her original  host family didn't work out as they have six cats and this student has a cat phobia.  She plays tennis and will attend our high school next year. Arrives next week!  We went on to read her sweet bio about how much she has always dreamed of coming to America and has a brother and sister and loves hanging out with her friends...and we were hooked. Convincing my husband was another matter.  You see I have this habit of wanting something very badly, wearing him down until I get it, then flitting off to the next thing. I admit this freely but this time I knew I had to carry my part of the bargain. For three days we negotiated. It wasn't that he didn...