Planning A New Life

I have been bogged down for several weeks now with planning the mundane details of home remodeling, packing up 23 years of life in Texas and coordinating my new apartment in Chicago. But now that much of my work in those areas is complete, I finally had a moment to catch my breath and think about the deeper question: once I get there, how will I make sure life is different?

I ask this because I realize that geography isn't everything. While I think it will be nice not to drive by "Welcome home, George and Laura" signs on my way to work and to live in a city that has culture out the wazoo, I want my daily life to be structured so as to help me become the person I want to be. So far, that means: (1) quality time with dogs, in the form of walks; (2) quality time for me, in the form of working out regularly to lose weight and be more healthy and making an effort to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones, too; and (3) last but not least, recapturing my organized self at work, which lets me operate at my best.

I have fifteen hours of road trip in which to think about this. I am really looking forward to it!

The Valley of the Shadow

My dog Kip came into my life in September 1996. He was my first dog of my very own, and the first dog I had since my childhood pet, Lady, died when I was in eighth grade. I had intended to get a dog ever since graduating from law school two years earlier, but had never found the timing to be just right. It was only when a dear friend from law school was killed that September that I asked myself, "What are you waiting for?"

I answered that question by going to the Houston SPCA in search of a beagle. While scanning the cages without finding one, a golden-colored puppy who looked like a tiny lion without a mane caught my eye. I asked the SPCA staff to let me get to know him by playing with him in a room reserved for that purpose, but I'm pretty sure Kip had my heart even before those minutes in which he frolicked about, showing me the same mischievous spirit he has today. Nothing would have stopped me from bringing Kip home with me after that.

During our fourteen years together, Kip and I have weathered many storms--job changes, a fire at my house from which firemen rescued him and the death of my father when Kip was just a puppy. Kip went home to Illinois with me for one of my last Christmases with my Dad and I cherish the memory of them spending time together, of my Dad telling me that whenever I left his house that holiday, Kip waited in the room closest to the front door for my return. Over the years, I have shed more tears in Kip's golden fur than it would be possible to measure, and the comfort, delight and unconditional love Kip has given me add up to so much more than I have ever given him.

So tonight is hard. Tomorrow I will find out if Kip's blood test shows it is cancer or another serious illness that has caused his weight loss. He is fourteen and I think he has had a good life. I have been preparing myself for moments like this for the last few years, knowing that my time with him is finite. But nothing could have prepared me for the fear and despair I am feeling tonight. I don't want to lose my Kip, when ever it happens. He is my heart.

Update: Kip does not have cancer or any other serious illness. He has some heavy duty arthritis, but there are things we can do to help him with that. I am hugely relieved, but realize more than ever that my beloved Kip and I are operating on borrowed time. For now, though, our time together is truly sweet.

An Announcement

The last of the three doors opened to me this week.  I am transferring to my firm's Chicago office sometime before the end of the year, marking the end of my nearly 23 years in Texas.  I am thrilled and scared and ready for a new phase of my life.

I know I haven't posted here very often lately, but that's partly because all of you who read my blog have become "friends in real life", or at the very least, Facebook.  I would not have had the courage to make this change if not for your encouragement over these last years.  Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart.

Hi, blog, I've missed you.

Because it's been so darn long since I wrote, I'm going to go pure stream of consciousness on you.  Ready?   Set, go!

So, no official word yet on the potentially state-changing news.  Will keep you posted!  In the meantime, one of my best friends in the office has accepted another job, which makes it even easier to move on if that is what fate has in the cards for me.

In the meantime, I've been in a whirlwind of preparing my house for the possibility that I may sell and leave it (not necessarily in that order).  This is a time-consuming endeavor that brings up all kinds of emotions.  Chief among which is: why didn't I do this sooner so I could enjoy my house while actually living in it for a while!?!?  Seriously.  My potential realtor-to-be solved my bathroom update dilemma in all of five minutes, and it took me only a few days after her visit to find and purchase a new vanity for said bathroom.  What was I waiting for?

One of my house-purging tasks is to get rid of the desktop computer I have not used since moving in 10 years ago.  I finally summoned the courage to turn it on, then realized I had somewhere along the way tossed the only mouse that would work with it (the kind with an old-fashioned round green plug-in rather than a USB).  So my tech-savvy friend was nice enough to borrow a suitable mouse from his work, and I'm back in business!

The key thing I wanted to get from this computer is the backup file that holds the bit of geneaology work I did a decade ago.  I'm having some trouble copying that file from the big old computer, but was happy to discover it on one of the disks (not CD) that I had with the computer.  Now: to find a computer where I can transfer it from that disk to an actual hard drive.  Sigh.

While researching Family Treemaker to find out about how to use this old data (assuming I find a way to copy it onto a device invented in this decade) in a new version of the software, I ran across a Family Treemaker community blog.  The topic at the beginning was how to account for unmarried and childless family members in a family tree.  For some reason, as I was reading that post, I had the most bizarre thought about how ironic it would be if I died just as I was reading that and someone found me with this laptop in hand, with that topic on the screen.  Well, at least they would know instantly how to list me on the family tree.  Dark, I know.

I have this fantasy of beginning life in a new (old) city as a perfectly organized person.  I used to be that person.  Is it possible to go back to being that person?  Perhaps new geography, combined with 2/3 less living space, will help me leap back to that old self.

As is also true regarding the question of whether this post is a harbinger of a more regular posting schedule, time shall tell.

Truth.

This isn't my secret, but it could have been.

Promising News

I heard some promising news today and yesterday.  Should know more next week!  Trying not to get hopes up, which this time last year led to serious heartache.

Please send good vibes my way, dear hearts.  I feel as if I'm waiting for life to begin.

Things are a-brewing, they are.

A recent confluence of events has oddly pointed a big huge arrow to Chicago.  I don't know if it will work out.  If it doesn't, it will be the cruelest joke of the universe ever.  But if it does work out, it could be fabulous.  We'll see.  Right now, I'm curious what will be found behind door number 1, door number 2 and door number 3.  That's all.  Not optimistic, not pessimistic, just curious.  And hopeful.

All good vibes welcome.

Beyond that, I'm really excited to see two of my favorite kids this weekend.  I jokingly refer to them as my mother's "fake grandchildren."  They are her best friend's grandchildren and they visit her for a week each summer, no doubt providing the grandparent experience she is missing due to the childless states of my brother and me.  I've invented a sort of Eloise at the Plaza scenario in which the three of them will take the train into Chicago, meeting me at my hotel.  We'll do some fun things about town, spend the night in a cool hotel and then do more fun things about town the next day.  I hope they have as much fun as I think I will.

The Light Dawns

For the last few weekends, I have imposed a work moratorium.  In doing so, I realized that giving myself the space to do other things or to do nothing at all stimulated my creative juices and also freed my mind to entertain "life thoughts."

In these moments of clarity, I had an epiphany.  I have stuck with my current job due in no small part to feeling that to leave it would be to waste the hard work of my parents, who gave me the foundation that let me later attend law school.  They wanted something more for me, especially my Dad.  He worked his whole life in a job I don't think he ever enjoyed and for which he was far overqualified, only to be laid off when the plant downsized 10 years before he was ready to retire.  But that isn't the epiphany.

It is this: for me, my current job is no different for me than my Dad's job was for him.  I am pretty sure that the feeling of dread in my stomach on Sunday night and each weekday morning, the stings inflicted by a certain jerk in the workplace and other indignities suffered in exchange for a salary are similar to my father's experience.  I realize my job offers many perks my Dad would have really appreciated.  But do those things matter when the psychic pain of achieving them is unbearable, causing severe weight gain, personality changes and thoughts of things even more serious than that?  I don't think so.

Realizing this made me feel free.  I feel free because I know my Dad would never want me to have these feelings or thoughts, no matter how great the vacations.  This isn't what he wanted for me.

So now the question is, what to do?  So begins my quest for a position with challenging and meaningful work, which may or may not require a law degree, and colleagues who are kindhearted human beings.  I'll keep you posted.

Oops

I have not actually restricted my practically dead blog to invited readers only.  Rather, a friend of mine recently began a blog, which is really good.  I decided to post a comment on her blog and realized after I did so that she and her other readers (some of whom are also my friends) would be able to just click on it and find my blog, too.  I have not told many "real life" friends about this blog, and wasn't ready to have my worlds collide in that fashion.

So, I temporarily restricted this blog while I figured out how to delete my comment and confirmed no link-skipping was possible.  That now feels like a lot of trouble for a blog that's practically dead anyway, but there you are.

When is spring coming?

Good things I did for myself today

I'm working on starting new habits and breaking old ones that impede my ability to be who I want to be and do what I want to do. This is what I did so far today that was good:

1. I went to bed at a relatively decent hour (12:15). Not as early as I would like, but an improvement. This will help me be better-rested and accomplish more today.
2. Before going to bed, I read a book rather than surfing the internet. Not for as long as I would like (only about 10 minutes, with net surfing until then), but again, a good start. I believe this will help me fall asleep earlier and bring the pleasure of reading back into my life.
3. When I went to sleep, I shut off my computer and did not leave a movie playing, as has been my habit. I believe the silence will give me more restful sleep.
4. When my alarm went off this morning, I hit snooze only twice and then got up to take the dogs out without logging onto the internet. I lose a lot of time in the morning to getting sucked into checking email, looking at the news, etc., without ever leaving my bed, and I want to get an earlier start.
5. After letting the dogs outside, I began drinking a glass of ice water. The early hydration is supposed to be good for the metabolism; it also helps me wake up and avoid the temptation of returning to bed.
6. While I was writing this post, my iPhone vibrated a number of times, signaling the arrival of new emails. The last few times it did so, I kept writing and didn't stop to check emails. I am concerned that I am being multi-tasked to death, in areas where nothing bad will happen if I attend to the second (or third, fourth and fifth) task later. I am concerned that this over-multitasking leaves me unfocused, unproductive and overwhelmed. So this was a tiny first step toward "one thing at a time."

Not a bad start for the Midnight to 8 am time block! Let us see how the rest of the day plays out.

Turning over a new leaf . . .

I have been in a funk lately, and have been wracking my brain for ways to break through it. Tonight, what seems like a fairly simple concept came to me: during each minute of each day, I will ask myself if I am somehow making my life better with what I am doing. That may take the form of exercising or eating healthfully, or doing work that needs to be done, or reading an engrossing book, creating my own art or taking in a movie that will inspire, charm or cheer me, or simply going to bed at a reasonable hour so as not to feel exhausted the next day. I feel excited about this plan and interested to see how it will work out.

Two posts in a week, also titled, "I'm on a roll!"

I'm pretty sure that every reader of this blog, or at least most readers of this blog, are now "in real life" friends, too. Which is pretty amazing, if you think about it. Some of you I have actually met and spent time with in person; others, so far, I've just had the pleasure of meeting by phone and/or email. It shouldn't be any different than meeting people in life, I guess--you randomly stumble upon many, many people, and the ones who are kindred spirits tend to stick around so you can get to know each other better and help each other through life. But it seems just a little more miraculous for it to happen here, on a humble little blog.

Anyway, I'm feeling appreciative and wanted to say thank you for your friendship!

(The photo is one I took through a window at the Adachi Museum in Yasugi, Japan.)

Gosh, does this mean my blog is abandoned?

I mean, I don't think I have ever gone a full two months without posting. This has been partly caused by my time spent on Facebook, and mainly caused by my scrambling to work, work, work, in the weeks before and after a two-week vacation that is one of the best I have ever experienced.

I have been thinking about what to do with the blog, and haven't decided yet. I miss the discipline of writing here, and the introspection that doesn't fit in a Facebook status update. Just writing this little non-post of a post feels good to me, so perhaps I am not finished. I think I am a little embarrassed and a lot frustrated that, despite several years of writing about this "new life" I had in view, I have made so little progress toward making it happen. Sure, I reached out for a change this summer, but as soon as those efforts faltered, I crept back into my protective shell. The phrase "all talk, no action" comes readily to mind.

I don't want to be writing here three years from now about my yearning for change--I want to be living that new life! While the first step is identifying the problem, I think the only way to work through this is to draw up concrete steps to be taken to move forward. Funny that I would use the word "concrete"--maybe the better word is "definite" or "measurable."

Anyway, I'm jumping back on this change horse and will be back in just a bit to jot down my roadmap.

Tears on a Plane

Written yesterday evening:

This is probably not the time to make a serious life decision.

I am on my way home from Atlanta, having spent another few intense hours in conversation with a man, now my friend, whom I briefly dated twenty-one years ago and with whom I became reacquainted at a college event last fall. Among other things, we spoke of life dreams, and my uncertainty about whether I will or should have a child of my own. This still-strikingly handsome man from my past asked the kinds of questions that got me talking about that, but I couldn’t tell what he thought about my answers.

We are not romantically involved, he and I, nor do I expect we will be. He is the kind of man who deserves a wife of the "genuine trophy" (inside and out) variety. But I care about what he thinks.

I am now sitting on the aisle on this American Airlines flight. Across the aisle, one row up, sits a middle-school aged girl with very blonde long hair. On my side of the aisle, one row up from her, sits a little boy, probably around two years old (I am not good at judging these things). A few minutes ago, the boy extended his arm toward the girl, with his small white sock with blue stripes covering his hand like a sock puppet. She reached out and grasped his outstretched, sock-covered fingers, and they gently see-sawed back and forth for a few moments. They appear to be strangers.

Watching this, I realized with as much certainty as I have ever had regarding anything, that I really want to have a son of my own. That is when I started to cry.

Back to the drawing board . . .

I would hate to leave you with the impression that I have life sewn up in every area other than professionally, as that certainly is not the case! I have spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about what would bring me peace, if not total fulfillment, and two prime areas for work are my physical health and the health of my home. I'm curious about how much happier I could be at work if I was satisfied with other areas of my life.

Thoughts about my physicality came to the forefront in the last week, when I had a chance virtual encounter with a gorgeous 23-year old man. (Purely fun, not sexual, you must believe me--we traded photos of our environments on Photoswap, an iPhone app, and then found ourselves exchanging pics of handwritten notes, then texts, then phone calls). It supremely enjoyable and innocent and sleep-depriving all at once, given that he is a bartender working a schedule that is the precise opposite of what mine is (or should be). My feelings were mixed, however. I was pleasantly surprised at my ability to reach back to youthful playfulness while keeping him engaged as well. At the same time, I was brutally honest with myself regarding the fact that my physique simply is not that that a beautifully fit 23-year old man will find attractive. Anyway . . . apart from the delusion that a 23-year-old could be mine (ha ha), I know that I will be able to live more healthfully and happily and energetically if I shed these excess pounds and resume life as a fit person. I was inspired by my discovery of this woman's blog--check out these photos of her progress! Besides feeling inspired, I actually attended a yoga class today for the first time in forever, which was a great kick-off to making daily physical activity a habit.

The other area I will be working on is my physical environment at home. It is no secret that my house has needed a number of repairs for a while--porch leak repair, kitchen leak repair, etc. But during a recent spate of real estate browsing, I realized that while I love the potential in the spaciousness, porch and yard of my house, I want a simpler, more modern look. And today I realized that I can get that look with relatively simple changes--updated windows, dark stain on the light hardwood floors, replacing all the multi-paned French doors with more simple, modern doors, etc. I'm excited about these changes and can't wait for the upcoming meeting with my architect.

Here are some of my ideas:

Maybe this for the front door and something like this for the French doors out to the porch and (see below) patio off the dining room.

The hardwoods downstairs need refinishing in some places and I fear they are too worn down to refinish yet again. I have been admiring ebony-polished hardwoods and am thinking of changing this:



to darker floors, like this (yes, I see the comments about maintenance difficulties) or this.

Instead of these windows to the back yard from my dining room, I would like to install glass doors that open up to a newly designed stone patio with a pergola above it:



Just some beginning thoughts . . . I like the idea of clean lines that maintain the current charm of the house while updating it a bit, too.

Disappointment and Resolve

This week, I experienced a profound disappointment. I won't go into the details here, but suffice it to say that I reached for a professional brass ring and missed. Given my lack of religious belief, it is tough to convince myself that this was "meant to be" or is part of some "greater plan." If there is a bright side, it is that I decided I wanted something and took a risk to try to obtain it, giving it my all. You can't expect to win them all, and at least now I won't have to ask myself "what if."

But I am left at a crossroads, trying to decide whether to go after what I wanted in a different way. What I do know is that I am unhappy with the status quo and need to continue to think seriously about what it will take to find contentment.

What if . . .

I was just thinking today about the fact that less than a year ago, it was possible that Sarah Palin could be a heartbeat away from the Presidency of the United States. I shivered, then felt grateful and realized perhaps there is a God.

I can't sleep, so I may as well post.

As you can imagine, it is a special event in the career of a lawyer when that lawyer brings in her first client. I remember mine: It was 1996, and I was flying from Dallas home to Houston after having attended a seminar, and I was exhausted. Someone on the Southwest flight bought drinks for everyone with his drink coupons, and I wondered aloud if he had just won a big case. Before my seatmate could guess otherwise, I started laughing aloud at myself for assuming he was a lawyer and that his celebration was law-related . . . he could have just become a father, or just won a lottery or just have been having a good day. My seatmate laughed and we began talking in the way that people do on a short Southwest flight home on a Friday evening. As it turned out, she was the president of her own company and had just flown to Dallas to get advice on an employment law issue, but didn't really click with the lawyer she had traveled to see.

I represented her in that matter and a number of others. When the day ultimately came that her business took a turn for the worse, I was the person she called at midnight at my home in Dallas, where I had moved, to talk through the hard decisions together.

She was a role model for me, my first client. She was in her 40's and was smart and brave and determined to follow her vision to do the work she enjoyed and make a living at it. I learned as much, if not more, from her as she learned from me.

We ultimately lost touch with each other, my client and I. Her business shut down and she did not need my advice, and then my father died and I basically checked out of the world for a few years. I have thought of her from time to time and wondered how she was doing, but no longer had a good phone number or email for her and wasn't able to find good contact information for her. I regretted having fallen out of touch.

So you can imagine my delight when I came home one night this week to find I had a voice mail from my client. The next day, we had a wonderful time catching up on our personal and professional lives for the last 10+ years, and I'm helping her with a new matter. Besides being happy to catch up with an old friend, it was immensely flattering to me that my client was determined to find me because it is my advice that she trusts.

Anyway, a cool thing.

Letting Go of the Papers

I have embarked upon a major simplification effort, one in which the first step is tackling and purging the physical clutter that surrounds me at work and at home. To assist in my efforts, I have been reading organization books for tips. I was struck by the fact that nearly every source I have read advises one to throw out any object that carries negative emotions or memories.

This has been really hard for me. There are a number of documents I have held onto that I thought I needed for my own protection. They serve as documentation of certain things from the past. Every time I run across them, they make me feel angry and hurt and victimized all over again, but I hold onto them out of fear regarding what might happen if I need them one day and don't have them. Today I spent a few hours de-cluttering my office, and I threw away a garbage-can full of papers. Among the papers were some notes of mine that were very emotionally charged, and I let them go without regret. I do worry a little that I will need them one day. But I was able to throw them away today because in the calculus of my mental health, I now believe the price of hanging onto those documents exceeds the price I may pay for letting them go.

Short Sightedness and Hind Sightedness

The other day, I stopped in a Subway sandwich shop to buy dinner. I rarely go to Subway, but was following a whim and trying to eat healthfully. Apparently, a man had been hanging around outside the shop that day, asking people to buy him a sandwich. He was tall and extremely thin, so much so that it seemed obvious he was in need of a meal. I noticed the man when I walked up to the store, but did not know he had been requesting sandwiches, as he did not ask me for one or approach anyone while I was nearby.

While I was at the counter ordering, the man came in with a 20-something guy who waited near the register for the man to order a meal. The man wasn't bothering anyone, just standing in line to place his order. But the girls behind the counter apparently believed I was buying a meal for him and started to warn me. Then the manager walked up to the man and, in front of everyone else in the store, loudly warned him not to demand sandwiches from his customers. The man tried to explain that the guy near the register was buying him a sandwich, but the manager was intent on berating him.

I was so upset with how the manager had publicly embarrassed the man that I explained I did not wish to patronize the place if that is how people are treated there and walked out. Having had the chance now to think about this more, I really wish I had done something more significant to help the man, who as I drive away was tucking into his meal outside. In retrospect, I should have purchased a gift card to another restaurant that he could have used whenever he liked without being publicly humiliated.