In many ways, I regret the surge of frantic energy around work, as if we have to make up for the past 15 months right now. RIGHT NOW! There is no making up for it. It was both a lost and a blessed period of time. I want to hold on to the gentle, quiet pace. My safe little bubble, where I joyfully lived for these past many months, is being forced open. I'm watching my hopes and dreams, routines and patterns dissipate out the open doors and windows, and try as I might, I'm afraid I'll never catch them and bring them back close to me again.
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Now I’m married to an American?
I hurt his feelings terribly one day when I said, "Become a citizen, but you'll never BE American anyway." What I meant was that he will never have our Manifest Destiny propaganda, I mean spirit; he'll never tromp through the world with our sense of clueless, boisterous entitlement. He'll always have a sense of empathy for the underdog because his dad had to sleep on a park bench when he first arrived in England because no one would rent a hotel room to an Irishman. He'll always be comfortable with multiculturalism because, for all their ongoing struggles with race, England does seem to better embrace it than America does. He'll…
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Life Lessons from afternoon tea
You will find yourself reflecting often on that three-tiered platter of exquisitely designed sandwiches, scones and desserts. Engage in small shifts in thinking, intention and action and you will find the same thing: these are experiences that change you, in small ways at first but, taken as a whole, in ways that stay with you long after you've moved on.
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I double dog dare you…
And I had that awful, slow dawning of understanding that I have been holding on to this for the entirety of my life because it has "served" me to cast myself as a victim. When I use an oft-repeated phrase that I heard growing up as the reason why I can't do this or that; when I allow it to hamper the deep intimacy I have ever had with any man, including my husband; when I give it more credibility than my intellect, my accomplishments, my spirit, heart and dreams, then whatever failures I have had or might have if I take too big a leap can be passed off…
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6 months, 182 days, 4,380 hours ago…
So the Hamlet analogy can only go so far since the ending is not something to aspire to, but the point of hesitancy is something very real to consider. How do other people make bold moves with so little certainty of the outcome? And what is it about the potential of success or failure that I'm afraid of?
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Going in for a trim
Like my haircut, most people won't even notice we've been unconnected. We're all busy in our own lives, managing (or attempting to) our own obligations. One friend fewer, one missing social media feed, is unlikely to raise alarms in anyone's life, but what it's already done for me, how I'm feeling, is infinitely valuable.
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Stepping out of the shadows: a (re)birthday reflection
Yes, I loved celebrating Dr Marry's 48th birthday with this joyful post and a fun party. But I love today a million times more because we no longer live in secrets. We feel no shame. We have overcome something that, incredibly, isn't even really the tiniest bit unique.
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February 1st was our second chance at life and love
In many ways, I did become a widow that night. I did lose the husband I had had from May 31, 2008 to February 1, 2017. That man began a six-week journey of dying and being reborn simultaneously, Phoenix-like. And, actually, I did, too.
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7-card stud, Texas hold ’em, 5-card draw…
In keeping with my last post/commitment to growing my network, I want to share this not-so-small victory. I was scrolling through LinkedIn earlier this week and came across a picture of an AA chip. sidenote: Isn’t it funny what matters to you after something happens in your life that you would never have paid any attention to before? I wouldn’t have even recognized an AA chip four years ago, and now I stop to read the accompanying success post of every single one I see. I didn’t know the man who posted it, but I saw that we had four tenuous connections. I sent him a message to see if…
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A potential shooter, curtains and my early morning habits disrupted
But as I reread the emergency alert, I wish for one half of one second that we had curtains. And I hesitate to even write that because Dr Marry will use that sentence against me for the rest of our lives together. But it's true.
