Next week, I’ll have 8 months sober. As a good friend reminded me recently, once you’ve put in significant time working on something, it would be a mistake to toss it all away over an old pattern, or person, no matter how alluring.
The thing about paying attention and trying to live more honestly, is that you have more accountability to yourself. It’s a good thing, but it often interferes with that old fun of “following one’s heart” (translation: doing whatever the hell you want if it makes you happy).
I’ll not claim anything even close to improvement or clarity or life is perfect, but I will say that sobriety and following a spiritual program is something I cherish now… sometimes even more than having fun, or following my natural inclinations and instincts.
Plus? I’m getting too old for this shit.
Today at Babble: When Parents Talk ‘Street’
When we were in high school, my older brother and I shared a 1972 bright blue Ford Pinto. It had ferns growing in the backseat, and you could see the road through the rusted out holes in the passenger side floor.
My brother was extremely popular… One girl fanted when he graduated (I kid you not) and other girls pretended to befriend me just to be near him “Hi Rachael. I want to come over and hang out. Is your brother there?” His powerful beauty and charisma spilled over to the Blue Pinto so this car became cool by association.
I was a band-nerd who didn’t talk to boys until I was 19 unless it was about God, and unfortunately hanging out with my beloved (if at times indifferent) older brother did not have the same cool-by-association effect on me.
But the Pinto was different. It was an automatic and it could go zero to 35mph in under 30 minutes. It was a love machine.
I have a warm place in my heart for junkie cars that you can pay for with cash. I was raised in a series of beaters each given names like “The Blue Bomber,” “Mystic Sea,” and “Gloria.” These were cars you could really connect with… The kind you could talk to when they failed to roll their windows down properly. The kind even 12 year old younger brothers were allowed to drive around neighborhood parking lots.
The days of driving cars with more character than safety are long-gone… but the love lives on…
I’ve just received some wonderful news. I’ve got an official book contract with a small publisher from San Francisco. I’ll be writing a book about parenting in early recovery and it will come out next Spring.
To get paid to do something I love is an honor I cannot completely fathom.
Thanks to all for the ongoing love and support.
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In other wonderful news, my beloved younger brother Mark and his beautiful wife Rebecca have a brand new healthy gorgeous baby boy! Welcome little angel!
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Also, a reflection on Memorial Day and LBJ’s Great Society
Where the men are silent and gorgeous, and the massages are free…
More on Wayward Mothers at Imperfect Parent today… For perves only.
Like many families these days, ours is lowering expectations and attempting to simplify our life. We’ve had our house on the market for a few months now… and other than proving that people with 3 children under 7 can clean their entire house in under 3 minutes, not much has come of it.
We bought the house when we were both working full-time and had enough to put down on the house our mortgage ended up being pretty reasonable.
Fast forward a couple of years, and things have changed. I’ve embraced freelance work full-time and have a greater desire and commitment to spend more time with the girls. We agreed it was a higher priority to live in a smaller house or rent for awhile than for me to go back to work full-time.
But like so many other families, healthcare costs, student loans, and a few poor money-decisions leaves us turning a little pale at each month end.
I can’t help thinking… “I’m almost 40, shouldn’t I be financially secure by now?”
More about the reasons our generation is falling behind our parents, today at Babble…
5 Reasons We’re Falling Behind Our Parents
I had my very first school Mother’s Day celebration and it had everything a mama could cry over, including beautiful artful creations by her beloveds, a sweet song about mamas by the class, and loves and hugs from my 3 beauties.
Life is good.
Today at Babble: 5 things you swore you’d never say to your kids…
Who knew joking about (snarking on) Mother’s Day was such a controversial move?
This Babble post on 5 Mother’s Day Do’s and Dont’s was intended as a jokey gift-guide anti-Precious Moments commentary. But the smoke is coming out of their ears, people!!
Clearly, mothers should be glad of any gift they’re given and just be quiet already.
Note to my 30 readers… I’m taking some time off of blogging here to work on some other projects. Thanks for reading… and I’ll be back soon.
You can find me in the meantime at Babble and Imperfect Parent.
Sometimes I feel like a transvestite trapped in a straight woman’s body. Heels? They should be high high high. Makeup? Sparkly, heavy, and colorful. And dresses? Yes yes yes.
There has been much talk on the ’sphere lately about women who deign to write personal things on blogs about their children, or feelings, or political beliefs… About how the act of creating art is so devalued and fetishised in our society that anyone who even dares use the word “art” or “muse” is chased with sticks.
Especially in a day and age where the Internet cloaks people in enough anonymity that they feel free to let loose their mean subterranean rage. Don’t believe me? Check out the rage this little opinion about $4 gas evoked…
Self-expression, whether sparkly gaudy makeup, religious beliefs, writing, or spouting opinions is a dangerous and necessary act. If one has the courage to speak from the heart, after the kids and the marriages and the mortgages tell us we better shape up and act like a lady (or at least act “mature), the pressure to keep it all tamped down is pretty strong. But let’s not fool ourselves, also scary as hell.
So today I dare you to do something that is from your heart. For you. Some small secret place you’ve been waiting to open up and tell someone about.
Do you dare?
If nothing else, go share her wonderful news!
