Thankful November, 17-30

Since the last installment, we had a difficult two weeks.  It started, as usual, with work and the horrible schedule where my husband works early mornings and weekends.  Add to that the chaos of birthday/Thanksgiving/Hanukkah all at once, and on top of that, all three of us were sick at the same time.

Then I got the crazy call that a friend  and former coworker was dying.

All that has made it extraordinarily hard to find things to be thankful for, but I've been trying.  Ultimately, the hardest part was finding the time to write the words down.  So here goes:

17.  I am thankful for modern technology.  I said before that I never, ever want to live without a washer and dryer.  Add dishwasher to that list.  I am so thankful to not have to do those chores by hand.  And the computer and cell phone? I can't even think about how much easier they make my life.

18.  I am thankful for pie.

19.  I am thankful for the Trader Joe's jarred cranberry sauce.  It was a definite upgrade over the canned variety.

20.  I am thankful for my nephews and niece.  I am looking forward to seeing all of them before too long.  This year, I am extra thankful that my daughter is an age where she will get to have fun playing with her cousins.  Many of my fondest childhood holiday memories involve times spent with my cousins; I can only hope that her memories are even better.

21.  I am thankful for vacation days spent with my family.

22.  I am thankful for going back to work after vacation -- because so much time off with a toddler hardly qualifies as such.

23.  I am thankful for my daughter's school. They take such good care of her there.  She really likes going, even on those days when she really doesn't want me to drop her off.

24.  I am thankful for the many years that my mother woke me up at the crack of dawn to do Black Friday holiday shopping.  It was exhausting, and at the time, I was your typical grumpy, frustrated, teenager -- but now, I am glad to have the memories of being her trusty sidekick.

25.  I am even more thankful for the internet -- and thus, the fact that I never have to subject myself to the Black Friday hordes again.

26.  I am thankful that most of my holiday shopping is already finished.

27.  I am thankful for the birthdays that have passed, the experiences they've left behind, and the person that they've made me.

28.  I am thankful for the birthdays yet to come.

29.  I am thankful for my dad.  He is crotchety; he is peculiar; he is anti-social. He is weird and strange, and occasionally funny, too. In some ways, he is a horrible parent and grandparent -- he is non-communicative and not very present or involved.  But in the ways that are important, like being there when you need him and helping however he can, he still always manages to be a very good dad.

30.  I am thankful for my husband.  Each and every day, even when it takes all we have just to get through the chaos that is work and baby, I am always thankful that he's the person I chose to take this journey with.  Everything is so much easier when the partner by your side is also your friend.

New Year, Resolved.

Before my husband and I got married, we discussed our vows, and agreed that the foundation of our marriage is that we both promise to try to not be an asshole to the other. When we looked in each other's eyes on the beach while repeating back the minister's words, that is what we meant. We may have said a lot of words, but that was our only promise. It's a promise that we can both keep.

That brings me to New Years' resolutions. I hate them for that very reason: they are promises that are not likely to be kept. I've said so before. But every year, better judgment notwithstanding, there are always a few things that I promise myself that I am going to do better.

This year, there are three of them: (1) Be healthier; (2) Be better with money; and (3) Try not to accumulate things that I don't need.

There's some overlap. If we eat healthier, home-cooked meals, we are likely to save money. If I don't buy things we don't need, we will also save money. Still, all of this is a challenge.

My husband and I have been good over the past eight days. We've made healthy meals, gone out less frequently -- and ordered more salads when we have. I think I've eaten more vegetables in the past 8 days than in the past 8 months! And, other than a cute outfit for the baby (on clearance at Babies-R-Us!), a toy or two for her (now that she's almost 6 months, the toys are way better!), and some (clearance!) ornaments for our Pagan Winter Solstice Shrubbery, I haven't really bought anything that was not addressing some kind of immediate need.  I mean, maybe we didn't need quite so many boxes of oatmeal...but they were on sale and we will eat it, sooner rather than later.

I'm also going to try two different approaches to save a little bit extra cash. In one savings account, I am going to save $1 per day, for a total of $365 (duh!). In another, I am going to save $1 the first week, $2 the second week, $3 the third week...and so on, for a grand total of $1378. Not sure yet what I'm going to do with that $1743, but I hear that college will be very expensive in 2030. (Sigh.)

Wish me luck.

Stereotypes and Self-righteousness

As one of the editors of IndieInk, I agreed to participate in one of its weekly writing challenges. This week, my challenge was from Sir: “He/She placed the stereotype on the anvil and began hammering it into something sharp and deadly that could be used to open the minds of the self-righteous.” And, while that’s poetic and all, it doesn’t really fit with this blog or my writing style. But it does lead into the idea of stereotypes and self-righteousness -- and, with that, a story.

When I was in my last semester of law school, I worked as an unpaid intern in the county public defender’s office. (I've mentioned it before, in passing.) I had great, lofty goals about what I would be doing there – the kind of lofty goals that only a 22 year old with no real-world experience could have. Mostly, they were along the line of defending the wrongfully accused, reforming the criminal justice system, abolishing the death penalty, etc., etc. Oh, the naïveté of youth . . .

The internship was jointly supervised between the assistant chief of the office and one of our criminal law professors. We had a classroom session each week, where we learned, essentially, the basics of how to practice law as criminal defense attorneys. And during the week, we were required to work a certain number of hours at the office. In bigger cases, we were required to work under the actual attorneys – and generally, they were busy enough to be thankful for whatever help we could provide. In smaller misdemeanor cases, the clients could agree to let us act as their lead attorneys, with assistance from the supervising attorneys.

Early on in the semester, the professor asked us what kind of cases we were uncomfortable with. My answer, as an upper-middle class sheltered suburban girl was easy: I wanted nothing to do with domestic battery. I didn’t want to envision a world where men hit women, where families were anything less than happy and stable. And, of course, if a fight escalated to the point where an arrest was made, in my mind it was clear that the man must have hit the woman. Accordingly, I, perhaps self-righteously, did not want to defend those men.

Of course my professor saw that as an engraved invitation to assign me to a pretty horrible domestic battery case. And lucky for me, the defendant had agreed to let me be his lead attorney. Worse yet, even though it was a misdemeanor, my client had been sitting in jail for days, because the arrest was a violation of his probation, and if he plead guilty or lost at trial, he was facing mandatory jail time.

My client was a stereotype: a young black offender with a history of violence and drugs. I remember going to the county jail to see him. I was frightened out of my mind. I remember the security, the sound of the doors closing behind me, the fear as I was led to a private interview room where I was to meet with my client – alone, without any of the guards to protect me. When my client was brought to me in shackles, I was scared to death.

I finally relaxed enough to start talking about the case with him – whether he would be interested in a plea deal if it meant that he would have a reduced sentence. But he kept maintaining that he was innocent. I didn’t believe it, not for a second. Not with his violent background. Not with the photo in the case file of his cute little girlfriend with bruises on her face and arms. I firmly believed that his desire to fight the charge was posturing, or a fear of having to do real jail time.

But then I remembered that I was there to do a job. I also remembered, from our classroom sessions, that we needed to examine the facts of the case carefully, avoid responding instinctively and jumping to conclusions, and instead, use our intellect. And so, I started digging through the files, interviewing witnesses, piecing together a defense. First I researched my client's alibi for the night of the attack, but it was a bit shaky.

But then the tide turned: I found out that the alleged victim, my client’s ex-girlfriend, was also the mother of his child, and that she had been pressuring my client to sign away his parental rights to the child. I also found out that the officer that helped her fill out her statement was her new boyfriend. The officer-boyfriend had taken the photo of her injuries, handwritten the affidavit detailing the fight, had her sign it, and one of his co-officers witness it.

After I interviewed her, the prosecutor dropped the charges against my client.

Do I think that the ex-girlfriend was a victim of violence? Unequivocally, yes. After all, it was before digital cameras, and the police report had that horrible, horrible picture in it. On the other hand, do I think that my client was innocent of the charges? I’m still not sure, but I am firmly convinced that the outcome of the case was correct.

If I learned anything from the case, it’s that not everything is what it appears to be. And I am certainly glad that I opened my mind enough to prevent stereotypes, prejudices, self-righteousness and biases from getting in the way of doing my job.

Watches and time

I had just gotten out of the Metro train onto a very crowded platform, when I heard the sound of something hitting the tile. The older woman in front of me had lost her watch.

I stopped to pick it up, to the great annoyance of all of the people behind me, who pushed their way around me, to the escalator. All the time, I was shouting, "Miss! Miss! You lost your watch!"

She didn't hear me.

I ran up to her -- high heels be damned -- still shouting. There was no response until I tapped her on the shoulder. Finally, she acknowledged me, and took the watch. She hasn't heard me because she was wearing earmuffs under her jacket hood.

She thanked me profusely. I meekly said it was no trouble and headed up the escalator.

I have no idea how much the watch was worth; I barely even looked at it. (I do know that it was silver and, by feel, it was somewhat dainty.) Instead, I thought about the watch that I've been wearing day in and day out -- the cheap watch that was once my mother's. I thought about the nicer watches in my jewelry box at home that I don't often wear. I wonder if that watch meant something to her, like my watch means to me. I hope it did.

I wonder why no one else stopped or tried to get her attention. I wonder why everyone just pushed ahead, trying to ignore it. Are those five, ten, maybe fifteen extra seconds really that valuable?

Bad luck or bad karma?

I almost never write about dating. There are many reasons for that, but they probably all boil down to the same central concept: I am no good at it, and I don't want to give my friends any more ammunition than they already have. Still, sometimes there is a really really good (read: horrible) story that just needs to be told. Today, the merit of the story outweighs my general rule.

A few months back, by happenstance, I met a guy. Right age, right religion, single, liked a lot of the same things, worked in a similar job, similar background, had interests outside of being a lawyer . . . in other words, he was perfect on paper. (Of course, the last time someone was perfect on paper, he wound up dumping me in the IHOP. I should really know better.)

Anyway, the guy and I hit it off almost instantaneously, but because of work, we didn't go out right away. Instead, we spent a few weeks getting to know each other through long email conversations. Eventually, we went on a first date, and a second. I even told my best friend about him, which is something I generally don't do unless I've been seeing someone for a while -- like a month or more.

Anyway, then we went on what was our third or maybe even fourth date. To a relatively early movie, on a random midweek evening.

For those of you who don't know, I like to watch movies. I pay attention. I think about plot twists and acting and cinematography.

I am also not a teenager. This is an important detail.

So, the movie started, and about five minutes in, the guy started pawing at me, like we were sixteen years old and sitting in the back of a theater in a suburban mall -- instead of mid-30s professionals sitting in a downtown art house theater. I politely pushed him away.

He did this on and off for the next two hours, to the same result.

Now, granted, I can occasionally be cute, but I am not that irresistible. And I expect to have my boundaries respected. So by the time the movie was over, I was really annoyed and felt more than a little violated.

He sent me an email that night telling me how nice I was. I ignored his email, and several other attempts at contact over the next several days. I thought about responding and telling him what I was thinking -- and if I were really a grown up, I would have explained and given him a second chance or something -- but ultimately, I am a child, and in that moment, I lacked the desire and motivation to communicate. So, instead, I continued to ignore him and instead concentrated on work -- which, in my defense, was really busy. Not being a total and complete dumbass, the guy eventually got the message and stopped pursuing me.

I thought this was the end, but still, had an inkling that it wasn't. I mean, we don't work with each other, but we run in some of the same circles. I understood that, eventually, my luck would run out, as it always does.

Which brings me to last week, when I was looking for concert tickets on Craigslist and ran across an interesting personal ad. I pretty much never respond to those things. Really. But the ad was interesting and funny and witty and my curiosity got the best of me. So I wrote a quick note in response to the ad.

Of course, it was him. And rather than ignore it (like I would have), he decided to write me back, making a joke about trying to figure out what etiquette dictates. And what would Emily Post or Miss Manners do? Well, they wouldn't have responded to a Craigslist ad in the first place. So now, here I am, completely mortified. FML.

Veruca Salt

I understand -- really I do -- that if I were to get everything my greedy little heart desires that I would be utterly impossible to deal with. I would feel entitled, that I deserved what was coming to me. And then -- lo and behold! -- I would be bored with it all and I would need more, more, more, faster, faster, faster. After all, I am human. I exist. I crave. I want.

Je veux, donc je suis.

I am trying, really I am, to embrace the Buddhist philosophy of abandoning desire. Be happy with where I am, what I have. Be in the moment.

And yet, still, here I am. Wanting just a little bit more than what I have. Trying to figure out how to have everything. It can't be that hard. Just a little bit more, really. Just. A little. More.

Anger

On Sunday, it will be four weeks since I've spoken to my father. I haven't heard from my sister since about a week before that. This might be nothing to most people, but it's a big deal to me. Together, they represent approximately 50% of my remaining family -- and my father is my only living parent. So considering that neither of them seems to care enough to check to see whether I'm alive or dead . . . . I am angry.

It's a growing anger. Every day, I get exponentially angrier and angrier.

Today I am furious.

I am owning up to this feeling. I own this feeling.

I am not letting this feeling own me. Just admitting, out loud, that I am angry, and not having anyone try to invalidate my anger or dismiss it or talk me down is enough right now.

Q&A

Q: If you could go back in time 10 years and tell your younger self something, what would it be?

A: Don't necessarily work so hard at work, and work harder at your relationships. Because in 10 years, the work will still be there, but the relationships might not.

(via Formspring.)

Gift Horse's Mouth

For the record, I have little or no expectation of receiving gifts, pretty much from anyone.  When I was a kid, my dad used to go on business trips and bring me back hotel soap. I genuinely appreciated the token of affection, however meager.  Today it's not much different:  I am genuinely touched when someone thinks of me, even when I don't necessarily understand the thought.

All of this brings me to last week, when I was in New York, and saw my aunt -- who gave me my "birthday present." For those who don't know, my birthday was in the fall, approximately six months ago.  And the present?  Let's just say that it consisted in part of my grandmother's underwear.

Okay, not exactly underwear.  Three half-slips.  Probably vintage.

I am certain that this chain of events was the result of my telling her that I needed something of the sort to wear under a sweaterdress.  In the winter.  And despite the weirdness of it all, it was genuinely quite lovely that my aunt remembered the conversation and then spent the time searching through my grandmother's drawers -- and drawers, ha ha -- to find them for me.

Which then, brings me back to my dad.  The other night, I told him about how, thanks to his sister, I was now in possession of his mother's delicates.  He didn't think it was quite so funny, and he was perplexed by my reaction.

"It's a good thing you think the whole thing is funny.  Personally, I'd be insulted if someone gave me used underwear for my birthday."

"Dad, at least it wasn't real underwear.  And besides, I'm just glad she thinks I'm as skinny as Grandma."

What Holds Us Down

I don't think that we, as human beings, are equipped to recognize happiness:  instead, we're hard-wired to strive for more, for better.  Generally, it's not a bad trait, but sometimes, there are unintended consequences.  Take antibiotics for example:  100 or so years ago, scientists were determined to figure out a way to fight infection, and now, because of their work, the world is a much safer place as a whole, and people live longer, healthier lives.  Well, except for the whole antibiotic resistant bacteria thing.

I've spent the last two-plus years since my mom died trying and failing at figuring out how to be happy.  Some days I feel as if I'm just not built for happiness.  Other times I feel as if I'm a victim of circumstance.  As with most things, the truth likely lies somewhere in-between.

By way of contrast, two years ago, my father made a point of saying that he was going to try to not be unhappy -- and, by all objective indications, it seems as if he's been quite successful. I think the end result of my quest for happiness is that I find myself even less happy than I was to begin with.  And the end result of my father's quest to not be unhappy has yielded some sort of happiness.

It's not until RIGHT NOW that I've realized that the two things are distinct.  Not unhappy is not precisely the same as happy:  the Venn diagrams overlap somewhat, but the circles are not the same.

I have many things to be thankful for.  I have a home, a car, a job, an education.  I have more than enough in the way of material possessions.  I have friends and family.  But I still find myself looking at what I don't have and it tears me up.  I don't have enough leisure time, or the money to do what I want whenever I want to do it.  I don't have children.  I somehow manage to surround myself with people who have an expert way of making me feel second-rate or second-choice or just not good enough.  And, when push comes to shove, I'm not even sure that I have a person that I could really rely on to take care of me in case of emergency.

Am I wrong for wanting more than what I currently have?

Don't get me wrong:  I am extremely grateful for my current situation.  I like my clothes and shoes and CDs and DVDs and books; I like my condo and my car.  But this is not happiness: things are not happiness. If push came to shove, I don't think there's much that I would fight to hang on to. It would be very easy for me to let go of things, people, and places and move on:  there are so few things in my life that I am particularly tied to, and even less that is irreplaceable.

On a very basic level, I am a traveler.  And not just for work -- which I do, a lot.  Somewhere, in my personality, I have some kind of nomadic streak. At this point in my life, I've been a lot of places.  Still, there is so much more out there for me to see, and I desperately want to get there, before it's too late. If I could, I would start tomorrow -- just get on the plane and go.  The where doesn't even matter anymore.

It's the logistics that get in the way.  I have a job, responsibilities.  I have a mortgage.  I have family, more or less.  Still, other than my material possessions, what is anchoring me to any one place?

Maybe that's the solution to all of it:  I should let go of things, get rid of the clutter that weighs me down and holds me in one place.  Be ready to go on a moment's notice, whenever the whim strikes.

Time Travel

Getting back in touch with people you haven't seen in a long time is odd.  In a way it's disturbing -- everything is out of place, out of context.  But, on the other hand it's comfortingly familiar.  Not only does it reconnect you with the other person, it simultaneously reconnects you with who you used to be, the good and the bad and the in-between.  You might not be able to go back in time to impart your hard-earned knowledge on your younger self, but you certainly can, from time to time, have your younger self remind you of who you really are, and who you really want to be.

In another life

On May 10, it will be the eleventh anniversary of the day that I was sworn into the Florida bar. On August 7, it will be the tenth anniversary of the day I left grad school behind and started working as a lawyer. Since then, it's been a roller-coaster, to say the least.

As some of you know, I am an avid Lost watcher. And I am very very intrigued by the current plot-line where the main characters are featured in an alternate reality, where small changes in their lives lead to entirely different end results. Or, as Desmond famously says, "See you in another life."

(This may also explain why I am so fond of Hot Tub Time Machine. Well, that and the excessive use of hair metal. But I digress . . . .)

Every once in a while, when work gets really really busy and stressful and I reach a point where I've had it UP TO HERE with lawyering (in general) and other lawyers (in particular), I find myself wishing I work in a profession where people tried to be nice and kind and helpful instead of becoming deadlocked in a never-ending competition for the title of "World's Biggest Asshole." In these moments, instead of rushing home to cry, punching someone in the face, or announcing my decision to quit the practice of law and move to the south of France to write poetry, I try to make myself take a time out -- a pause in the action, like in the movies where the main character seems to be moving in slo-mo while all of the blurry surrounding action continues in fast-forward.

In that momentary stillness, I often reflect. I think about my decisions to go to law school, to be a lawyer, to take the job I have -- TWICE! -- to move away from my family, and pretty much every other step along the path that has led me to the place where I am now. And in so doing, I occasionally think about what my "other life" would be.

When I graduated from college and moved my stuff back from Tallahassee to Coral Springs, I was already admitted to law school, to begin six months later. Despite my protestations that I needed a break (i.e. lying out by the pool, extensive sleeping, and voracious reading) my dad told me that there was no way that he would allow me to live in his house for six months without a job.

At that point, my only real work experiences were 1) part time telephone sales for the Tallahassee Democrat and 2) working as an unpaid intern in a government office. So I did what any overqualified-yet-underexperienced unemployed new graduate would do: I applied to one of the many local neighborhood Target stores, thinking that, until school started, being a part-time cashier would be good enough. Target had other plans: they hired me as a management trainee, and, as a result, I spent the next few months working my butt off in retail.

I diligently and quickly learned EVERY SINGLE JOB in that store. I met the trucks in the morning and unloaded them. I painted shelves and changed displays. I learned the inventory system. I opened the store in the morning and closed down the store at night. I even learned how to be a cashier, run security, and serve popcorn at the snack bar. After a few weeks, they gave me a real management job: I ran the seasonal department during what turned out to be the two busiest times: back-to-school and Christmas. I worked a lot of hours and was on my feet pretty much the entire time, but for me, it was relatively mindless menial labor.

Plus the job paid well for 1995. As a nineteen year old with no debt and no real obligations, I was making $10 an hour, plus overtime, and, as long as I remained a full time employee, I qualified for health insurance. I could have stayed in that job and moved up the management ranks. With no student loans and living with my folks, I could have saved money, eventually moved out on my own, and had a completely different existence than the one I've managed to create for myself. At a minimum, I wouldn't be confronted with the endless deadlines and toxic personalities that tend to permeate the legal profession.

When I get all stressed out, I think about this alterna-life, and, some days, when it's real bad, I envy it, more than just a little bit. On the other hand, if I had chosen this path, I would not have gotten to experience the things that I've experienced, made the friends that I've made, or learned the things that I've learned. I'd be me but somehow, not me. And most days, being me is pretty okay.

Resolutions

I'm sure I've said it before, but I'm not really one for making New Year's resolutions. Don't get me wrong: I understand the desire to change the way we do things, and starting over with a clean slate, and the symbolism associated with a new year, a new month, a new week, or even a new day. But for me, deciding to make changes has almost nothing to do with starting a new calendar.

Adding to the problem is that my desire for change is not necessarily focused on any one particular thing. I'm almost always trying to do better or to be better in so many facets of my life -- diet, exercise, finances, relationships -- and I fear that focusing on just one area might throw everything else off balance.

So no resolutions or promises from me this year. Instead, I'll just keep trying.

Playground Swing

Lately, everything in my life is so fraught with meaning, and everywhere I look, I encounter so many responsibilities and commitments and obligations. It's enough to make me want to crawl into bed, pull the blanket up over my head, and not come out for a week.

When I was in Florida a couple of weeks ago, I took a break from my sister and the baby and spent a beautiful afternoon in the park with my friends and their kids. Somehow, I found myself sitting in a playground swing for the first time in years, possibly decades. I slowly started swinging. The higher the swing climbed, the more exhiliratingly free I felt. My worries and the tasks of the day seemed to fade into the distance as I swung back and forth, and the only things remaining in my consciousness were these bits and pieces of a poem from my childhood -- something about going up in a swing, up in the air so blue. For a moment, I was no longer the adult me -- instead I had returned to childhood -- innocence, freedom, and endless possibilities.

Sadly, there came a time when I had to come back to earth, literally and figuratively. But I'm still trying to somehow keep my grasp on that feeling.

Words

I love to write, but it's a challenge. When I am content, I often can't find things to write about. When I am upset, I often can't find the words to express my feelings. And I am always so concerned about what other people are going to think about what I write that it causes me to over-edit and over-generalize and over-simplify in an attempt to over-sanitize.

It is no different in my life. When I am happy, I focus on that -- but when I'm not, it's hard for me to express it -- to find the words, to articulate what I feel, what I think. And I am so conscious of other people's feelings that I keep finding myself burying my own. I am paralyzed by fear.

I have to work on that, because, for someone who makes a living as a communicator, I am not always effective at it in my personal life. I need to say things, to get them out into the open -- to make myself heard.

Introspection

The other night, someone said to me that they wondered what I was like before my mother died.

I didn't know how to answer the question.

Have I changed in the past 10 months? Certainly. Would I have changed over the last 10 months, regardless of the loss? I think so. Maybe not the same way, but people have a way of evolving, like it or not.

Maybe it's a question best posed to my friends -- at least those who have known me for some time -- seeing as it's hard for me to really see the difference from the inside. But sometimes I feel the difference -- it's as if I stopped being one version of myself in the early morning hours of February 7. Sometimes I feel older and more serious -- but not all the time. Sometimes I feel more inclined to stand up for myself, since my mom's not around to (1) do it for me or (2) push me to do things. And on a more noticeable level, I'm sure I'm a little more quiet, a little more closed-off, a little more cautious, a little more introspective -- and a whole lot more sad.

Still, the two changes that I am most certain of are that I've become less inclined to believe that things always work out in the end -- they don't -- and that, no matter what, I am capable of picking up the pieces and moving forward. Still, those are lessons that I'd rather not have learned, given the cost.

Out of Character

I'm not sure whether it's because of my profession or in spite of it, but for some reason, I have evolved into a particularly non-confrontational person. Unless it's of dire importance, I generally let things go -- or, at worst, passive-aggressively complain after the fact.

So, if, for example, someone cuts in front of me in a line, my general reaction is to let them do it. Sometimes I'll turn to the person behind me and say something loud enough for others to hear like "I don't understand why people think they're too important to wait in line," but more often than not, I'll just let it happen and quietly stew.

On Friday, however, I stood up for myself. I was on line to put my name on the list for a table at a busy (and somewhat overrated) restaurant about 90 minutes before the Coldplay concert. Some girl pushed in front of me to get to the hostess stand. Initially I thought that they had called her name for a table, but when she got up to the front, she was putting her name on the list -- the same thing I had been waiting to do, the same thing the girl in front of me had been waiting to do.

It only took me a second to decide to put an end to it. I took a step over to the side and said "Did you actually just push me out of the way to put your name on the list?"

She said, "Oh, I didn't know I did that."

I said "How did you not realize it when you physically pushed me out of the way?"

The hostess had no choice. She took the name of the girl that was really in line in front of me, and then my name. The girl who cut in front? Well, she didn't get her name on the list, and left in a huff, clearly embarrassed.

And I felt vindicated. Maybe I should stand up for myself more often.

Home

Until today, I never really understood the saying "You can never go home again."

I was in my old hometown today, for the first time in years. Out of curiosity, I decided to drive by the old house. It has a new roof, and new front doors, and a fence around the backyard where there's now a swingset. It's the same house, but it's not my home -- and hasn't been my home for years. Heck, it hasn't even been my family's house for over six years.

It made me recall how, when I was in law school, I had this one particularly horrible semester. I'm not sure if it was classes or something else, but whatever it was, it was really draining. My last exam was Evidence, and after the test was over, I got right in the car and drove the four-and-a-half hours back to Coral Springs -- pretty much on the verge of tears the entire way. And I walked into the house, took one look at my mother, and started crying. Not just because I was stressed out and upset, but also because I was relieved to be home.

I got an A on that exam, just like my mother said I would.

It's different now. In conversation today, I referred to coming to Florida as "coming home," but it's not really true. My house is the condo in Arlington, and the place where my dad lives is just that -- no more, no less. My home, at least the way I remember it, does not really exist anymore.

My mother was home.

Diving headfirst into the abyss

When my mom first died, when people asked, I would tell them that I felt like my heart was held together with duct tape and glue. But it wasn't just my heart -- it was everything -- my entire family. And over the past few months, it's often seemed like my whole family has been slowly unraveling in about a thousand different ways.

The best example of this is the communication. In the past, my mother was the hub, and we were all just spokes. Sure, I would talk to my brother a couple of times a month, to my Nana when the mood struck, and to my dad and sister whenever they picked up the phone -- but I talked to my mom almost every day. All urgent messages to or from any of the others were passed through her. Now, I have to call my dad, my brother, my sister, and my Nana -- and occasionally, my aunts and uncles, too -- because if I don't, there's a total communication breakdown.

For me, personally, the worst part is that I've started to worry about my Nana, my dad, and my siblings in ways that I never did before -- because before, if there was a problem, my mom would take care of it. Now, if something happens, I have no idea who would fix it.

All of this is just the set-up, the backdrop. The real story is that my sister, whom I love dearly, is kind of a trainwreck. She doesn't think things through, she has no focus or plan, and she oscillates between being completely, carelessly impetuous, and impervously intractable. In other words, she does whatever she wants without fear of consequence, and is often frustrated by the results, but unwilling or unable to do anything to make it better. And when you call her on it, she either cries or stops talking to you.

In shorthand, I usually accuse her of being "immature and irresponsible," and she usually deflects it by genuinely believing that it's just me being type A. But whatever words you use to describe it, the behavior has gotten her into some pretty bad situations -- the most recent of which is pretty majorly horrible.

As a result, my dad is angry with her -- or maybe just frustrated. The problem is that she can't really tell, because he's not really talking to her. Instead, he just calls me and talks about his disappointment with her. And she complains about feeling alone and abandoned.

I keep referring to this as "the black hole." Because all light and matter gets sucked into the neverending abyss of us all sitting around worrying about how to fix my sister's problems. And the simple truth is that we can't do it -- it can't be done. The only one who can fix her is her.

So tonight, I broke the chain: I called her. And the first thing I did was ask her if she wanted me to be nice or if she wanted me to be honest, and I told her that, from that moment on, her choice was going to define our relationship.

Quite frankly, I was more than a little surprised when she chose honest.

And then, we had a really long conversation -- one that was a long time coming. I told her that I worry about her -- that I'm concerned. I told her that I question her maturity, her responsibility, and her decision-making -- and that I'm disappointed by her behavior. I told her that she needs to grow up and take responsibility for her own actions -- because no one can fix things for her anymore. Of course, I also said that I love her, and that I will be supportive of her.

On the plus side, I think this talk helped: She seemed to actually hear what I had to say, instead of just pretending to listen. And she promised to call me in a few days, which seems to indicate that she finally comprehends that there needs to be a give-and-take in our relationship. The downside is that this was precisely the conversation that she should have been having with my father. But I guess that she needs to work that one out for herself.

Six months

The worst minute of my life was precisely six months, fifteen hours, and fifty minutes ago. It was also the start of what would be the worst day, worst week, and worst month of my life.

I am fairly confident that 2008 will go down as the worst year, too. I mean, I can't comprehend how anything could top losing both my grandmother and mother in the span of three weeks.

While I'm not sure that I have entirely processed everything, I am relatively certain that I am making progress -- I am moving forward. I tell myself that every single day. Or, as my dad said when he was discussing the fact that he now has a girlfriend, "I am trying very hard not to be unhappy." I have moments like that -- where I just sit back and say, "This is just the way things are, and I have to deal."

According to this article, my dad's behavior makes him a "coper." I think I'm more of a "muller" -- I am trying very hard to find meaning or extract some kind of personal growth from the experience.

I'm not quite there yet. Getting used to living without my mom is hard. It'll take a lot of practice.