I began my freshman year of high school as a girl from a seemingly solid Midwestern family who regularly sang in church, and ended it as a girl whose parents were divorced, who no longer attended church, or believed in anything.  I was instantly re-imagined from protestant good girl to hapless promiscuous girl.  So it came as no surprise when I was barely out of teenagerhood, and I suddenly had to reinvent myself as a single mom.  Later on, I met the man who would become my husband and my daughter’s daddy, and then I had to learn to co-parent, and to be a step-mom.  Some years later, my husband wanted to open a restaurant, and I became a restaurateur, and too soon a solo-restaurateur, when he accepted a job offer in his field that took him on the road for much of most weeks.

Then a new reinvention came after we closed our restaurant and I became a somewhat (OK, maybe radically) possessed researcher of holistic healing which helped me to overcome my infertility and finally have the baby I’d longed six years for.  That success brought about another reinvention when I had to learn how to parent teenagers and a high needs infant at the same time.  All my thinking had to shift when I had to parent that infant in very different ways than I’d parented my girls.

Reinvention isn’t anything new in my life, though its process never occurred to me until recently with the ultimate reinvention:  Midlife Crisis.

Many of those previous reinventions occurred as reactions to the actions of others or to situations.  They didn’t happen from a place of self-discovery, and they weren’t in the least motivated by any sense of seeking, or of finding myself.

Looking inward began when we moved across the entire country from both of our daughters, and from any of the female support system I’d enjoyed and relied upon for much of my adult life.  Moving from Michigan to California wasn’t anything I ever imagined I’d do, and it wasn’t anything I wanted to do.  I pouted and I wallowed that first year away.  I was so desperately alone, and because transition of any kind isn’t easy for me, my brain got confused and I forgot how to function.  My son got sick, and I couldn’t remember what to do to make him well.  I couldn’t grasp the brands of my favorite supplements, foods, any semblance of an action plan wherein I could see myself ever feeling normal again. 

I was completely mired in this dull, marine layer version of my life.  

I had no confidence, I knew no one, and no one seemed to care to get to know me.  I couldn’t fathom what I might tell anyone about myself anyway, because I lacked any identity there, or frankly anywhere.

My marriage was at its most difficult point ever, I disliked myself and my husband, and I was barely worthwhile as a mother to my son, let alone as a human being in the world.  When I couldn’t stand myself any longer, I began to think about reinvention from within.

No one knew me in California.  This was my chance to become anything I wanted to become.  There were no labels, there was no family history to define me, and there certainly were no expectations, never mind the fact that absolutely no one cared or gave me a thought anyway—they were too mired in their own version of survival, too stuck in their own traffic.  

How did I want to be remembered, and how did I want to impact the future for my children beyond their day-to-day care and feeding?  I could no longer survive as that person who put herself down and put herself last and who disbelieved in herself, and my deepest fear was that my husband and I wouldn’t survive at all. 

I wanted to go back to Michigan, but I didn’t want to do it without him.  I didn’t have a choice.  I had to make a life for myself in California.  I didn’t have many friends, so I needed to be my friend, and I hoped that would allow me to once again be my husband’s.  

For me, the answer was and remains writing. 

When your soul is that of a writer who isn’t writing, the stories are swimming in your head, whether you write them down or not.  You feel like a crazy person.  You talk to yourself, you talk to your dogs; you can’t get your bearing.  Even if the lake or the ocean is always west, you get off on the wrong exit on the freeway because your mind is cluttered with all the stories--you forget to pick up your kid, or you forget to clean dog puke off the carpet.   

I seem to have lost my funny from when I first began blogging, in part because a dual midlife crisis while raising a young boy is hard, but also because I’m not as afflicted with self-diagnosed ADD anymore, so I simply don’t screw up as much.  I’m focused and I’m driven.  I have a purpose and I have goals.  The stories don’t fester in my head as much, because they’re alive and breathing on my computer screen.  I wish my sense of humor wasn’t the thing I had to give up…but perhaps when life gets a bit easier, I’ll find it again.  And even though life still isn't easy, I feel more fulfilled and more content within myself than ever before.

Tell me in the comments, where are you on your path to being your own best friend?

Happy Back-to-School with the #JudyBlumeProject!  This started with a special surprise, even to my partner, Dana @thekitchwitch, of a four-part series that began last Monday with installment one, and continued last Thursday with installment two.  Today's post is installment three, and I will post our final installment four on Thursday.

I am thrilled to present this amazing guest post in four parts by author, Jim Denney, of the Timebenders series.  I became friends with Jim on Twitter, my son has read (LOVED!) the first book in his series, Battle Before Time, and Jim thinks the world of Judy Blume, and our little #JudyBlumeProject (GAH!).  As a MG author himself, he thinks so much of Judy Blume, that among his many projects, he took time out to write and share this riveting story, Martian Girl, with US!  GRATEFUL!

I'm certain you'll enjoy this ode to seemingly everyone's favorite, Judy's Margaret.  Check out our Facebook page, we now have a PROJECT PAGE, and you'll see that nearly every post to date includes AYTGIMM among the most meaningful and life-affirming of Judy Blume's prolific works for generations of tween girls during the angst-ridden onset of puberty.  And rightly so.  I hope this shows that any manner of respect you'd like to pay to Judy will be considered, and I hope this will inspire more men (young or young at heart) to contribute their thoughts and memories to our wonderful little project that one day hopes to be published as an anthology to honor our Judy.  

Without further ado, I'm thrilled to present...drum roll....

        He came into the library again, God.

        I was all by myself, reading Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, and I was right at the embarrassing part near the end, where Margaret and her friend were in the drugstore, buying some . . . well, you know. That's when the door opened and he walked in—long black hair and dark eyes and chocolate skin.

        Well, I had already decided what I'd do if I saw him again. I sat up, looked him in the eye, and said, "Hi, my name is Zandria. What's yours?"

        He mumbled something and sat down on the couch farthest from mine.

        I said, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. What was your name again?"

        "Salvino. My name is Salvino."

        He didn't even look at me when he said it. He just started tapping on the keypad.

        I said, "Well, that's just rude."

        He looked at me with his mouth open. "Huh?"

        So I mocked him. "Huh?"

        "Are you mocking me?" he said.

        "Are you mocking me?" I said.

        "What are you so mad at?"

        "You."

        "What did I do?"

        "You were rude."

        "I wasn't rude. I told you my name, didn't I?"

        "You mumbled and didn't look at me. That's very rude, in case you didn't know."

        "I didn't mean to be rude."

        "Well you were."

        "Well, I didn't mean to be."

        "Well, you were anyway."

        "Well, I'm sorry."

        "Well, okay. Since you're sorry, I guess we can be friends."

        I think that surprised him. He blinked a couple of times, then he said, "You want to be friends with me?"

        "I do if you do."

        He shrugged. "Okay. I guess I do. What did you say your name was?"

        Boys are so dumb! I just told him my name. Wasn't he listening?

        I said, "Zandria. My name is Zandria."

        "That's a weird name."

        "It's no weirder than Salvino. I was named after a library."

        "There's a library named Zandria?"

        "My name is short for Alexandria. A long time ago, there was a famous library in Alexandria, Egypt. It had scrolls of knowledge from all around the world. But the library burned down, and all the knowledge was lost."

        "I guess you come to the library because you were named after one."

        "No, I come to the library because I like books. You like the library, don't you?"

        "Sure."

        "How come I hardly ever saw you before?"

        He shrugged. "I used to come during period three—that was my first waking period before they changed our schedule."

        "Oh, that makes sense," I said. "Period three is our sleep period."

        "Now our section sleeps during third period. So I guess I'll see you every day."

        "I guess so," I said. "What book are you reading?"

        "The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs."

        "I've never heard of it. It's about Mars, huh?"

        "Not the real Mars. When he wrote it, nobody knew what Mars is really like."

        "Read some to me."

        "Okay."

        He read a chapter to me. It's about an Earthman named John Carter who goes to Mars and rescues a Martian slave-girl named Thuvia. I didn't think I would like it, but I did. It was . . . romantic.

        Salvino stopped at the end of the chapter and said, "What are you reading?"

        "It's called Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret."

        "Read some to me."

        I felt my face turn hot. I was at the most embarrassing part of the book! How could I read it out loud? And to a boy? But I couldn't very well say no. So I read him the part where Margaret and her friend are in the drugstore buying . . . well, you know. 

        I read the whole chapter. Then I held my breath, hoping Salvino wouldn't ask any embarrassing questions. He didn't. He just sat and thought about it.

        Then he said, "I like The Gods of Mars better."

        "That's because you're a boy."

        "I guess so. I'm tired of reading. You want to talk?"

        "Okay."

        "Where are you from?"

        "San Pedro, California. Where are you from?"

        "Cebu City."

        "Where is that?"

        He shrugged. "It really doesn't matter where Cebu City is. Or San Pedro. Those places are millions of miles away, and we're never going back. From now on, we're going to be Martians. If anyone asks where we're from, we should say, 'We're from Mars.'"

        I said, "I never thought of it that way, but it's true. We're going to be Martians."

        "We're not going to be Martians. We are Martians. The moment we left Earth, we left the old life behind. We have to think like Martians."

        "What do you mean, 'think like Martians'? Are you saying I should stop reading books by Judy Blume and only read books about Mars?"

        "No," he said. "We'll need the old Earth books until we start writing new books—Martian books. I'm going to be a writer someday. I'll be the first Martian author."

        My Amulet chirped. I looked and read a text from Mom. Time for dinner.

        "I've got to go, Salvino," I said. "I'm glad we're friends."

        "Yeah. Me, too."

        "Meet me here tomorrow?"

        "Okay."

        So now I have a friend, God. His name is Salvino and he likes books. He even wants to write books. How cool is that?

        Was it your idea for Salvino and me to meet? If it was, thanks.

                                                                               #

        Hello, God. It's me, Zandria—and I'm not so lonely anymore.

        Salvino and I spent the whole day in the library. He sat on the reading couch next to mine.

        We each read our own books silently for a while. He read The Warlord of Mars and I read Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. Even when we weren't talking, I liked having a friend to share the quiet with.

        It's funny. When Salvino was a stranger, it felt weird and awkward being in the same room with him and not talking. Now that we're friends, we can be together and not say a word and it's really nice.

        After a while, Salvino asked if we could read a book together.

        I said, "How would we do that?"

        "You read a few pages to me, then I read a few pages to you."

        "Okay."

        I let Salvino pick the book. He wanted to read The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I didn't think I'd like it, but it's really good. The Mars in that book is a strange world with ghost towns made of crystal and a dying race of Martians who sail ships across the sand. It's beautiful and sad. I wish the Mars we're going to was like that. We read almost half the book together before it was time for dinner.

        I haven't told Mom and Dad about Salvino. But Mom is curious. She keeps asking, "Why are you spending so much time at the library?" And, "Who are you talking to on your Amulet all the time?"

        It's not that I'm hiding anything. I just don't want Mom to get the wrong idea about Salvino. I don't want her to think he's my--

        Oops, sorry, God. Have to go. My Amulet's chirping. It's Salvino.

                                                                                  #

        Hello, God. Yep, me again—Zandria.

        In the library today, I asked Salvino about his family. He said, "It's just me and my dad." Then he was quiet.

        What do you say to something like that? I wanted to ask, What happened to your mom? Did she run off and leave you? Did she die? But that would be rude. So I just waited and didn't say anything.

        After a while, he said, "My mother died."

        I said, "Oh."

        I felt awkward, like I should have said more.

        Finally, I said, "I'm sorry about your mom."

        "Thanks."

        "It hurts a lot, doesn't it?"

        "Yeah."

        I said, "Do you believe in God?"

        "Yeah."

        "Do you ever wonder—" I stopped. Maybe I shouldn't ask.

        He said, "Do I ever wonder what?"

        "Do you ever wonder why God let your mom die?"

        He was quiet for a long time.

        "Yeah, I wondered," he said. "But before she died, she told me to always believe in God. She said, 'I'll see you again. A soul that loves God is never lost.' Sometimes I still hear her saying that."

        "You hear your mother talking to you in a voice?"

        "No. It's more of a feeling." He tapped his chest. "I feel her talking to me in here." His eyes were wet.

        I said, "Do you want to read some more?"

        He said, "Yeah."

        So we read to each other.

        I've been thinking about what Salvino's mother told him—"A soul that loves God is never lost."

        Is that true, God?

                                                                              #

        Hello, God. It's me, Zandria—remember me?

        I'm sorry it's been such a long time since I talked to you. How long has it been? Weeks, probably. I lose track of time because we don't have days and weeks in space, just waking periods and sleeping periods.

        I've been spending a lot of waking periods in the library with Salvino. When he and I aren't in the library, we like to call or text each other on our Amulets.

        Don't get the wrong idea, God. It's not that I have a crush on Salvino. I don't. And he doesn't have a crush on me. We're just friends, and we're going to keep it that way. We even talked about it. I told Salvino that I'm not ready to have a crush on a boy.

        Besides, when we get to Mars, he'll be living in the Pacifica settlement in Tharsus, and I'll be in the Utopia settlement, half a planet away. Once we leave the Ares, Salvino and I will probably never see each other again. It's sad. I try not to think about it.

        We read to each other again today. Then Salvino came over to my couch and sat next to me and taught me a song. It goes like this:

        The water is wide, I can't cross over.

        And neither have I wings to fly.

        Give me a boat that can carry two,

        And both shall row, my love and I.

        While he sang me that song, I imagined a wide ocean of empty space between the planets. I imagined that the library was our little boat that we were rowing to Mars.

        I said, "That's a beautiful song. Where did you learn it?"

        He said, "From my mother. She told me it's an old, old song. There are other verses, but I only remember the first verse."

        Then he touched my hand.

        I moved my hand away and pretended I didn't notice.

        He stood up and acted like nothing happened. He said, "Well, I probably ought to be going."

        I stood up and said, "Yeah, me too."

        He started to walk to the door, but I said his name and he looked at me. And I gave him a hug. He grinned—a big, wide grin that lit up his whole face.

        Without thinking, I picked up the Amulet that hung from my neck and pointed it at Salvino and snapped his picture.

        I think he was kind of embarrassed. He shook his head and grinned again. Then he walked out.

        It's a good picture. In the Amulet's 3-D display, he looks so real, I could reach out and hug him all over again.

        I have to admit, God, I felt tingly inside when he touched my hand.

        I'm glad I decided not to have a crush on Salvino, or I'd be a real mess right now.

                                                                                  #

To be concluded on Thursday in "Part Four: Mad, Sad, Mad, Sad"

It’s back to work, and I find myself still reeling, hung over, really, but not in an alcohol-induced haze, more in a mind-still-blown haze from my weekend spent with almost 5000 other remarkable women, and a few men, at #BlogHer13 in Chicago.

I say other, because one of the most remarkable discoveries, reminders, I got this weekend was that I, too, am a remarkable woman.  This is something I tell myself sometimes, but don’t really believe.

I go through the laundry list:  You had a child alone at the age of twenty, whom you raised alone for the first 7 years of her life, you owned and operated a restaurant as a white woman whose husband was only home on the weekends, in a 98% black, severely socioeconomically depressed city for three years, you usually successfully managed a blended family and raised two beautiful, loving, remarkable women, you healed your own infertility and successfully added a beautiful baby boy to the then teen his&hers daughters you already had, recovered him from and prevented further vaccine damage, and you survived a two-year stint an entire country away from said daughters, and used (half of) that time to grow and discover yourself and you didn’t (quite) manage to kill your husband (not my story to tell, yet).   

And then there’s the professional stuff that’s happened in the last two years:  you were featured on BlogHer 3.5 times, you submitted an essay which was accepted for inclusion in a book that’ll be out later this year, and the theme for that essay earned you a Voices of the Year Honoree nod from BlogHer.  You wrote and taught Creative Writing for Fourth Graders to your son’s class over three sessions, and spoke before the local Depression and Bipolar Alliance about the connection between gluten intolerance and depression, anxiety, bipolar, and neurodegenerative disease.  You have so much more in you, just busting to get out, and all the while, you’re working again on your novel about a woman dealing with infertility.  Almost forgot, you taught yourself and built two complete websites all on your own.

It’s everything, it’s so much, and yet it’s nothing compared to some women.  This struck me over and over again, particularly as I listened to the other Voices of the Year Honorees who read their beautiful pieces to us on a stage, emceed by none other than The Queen, Latifah, herself.

As I commented on Feminista Jones’ post about Queen Latifah emceeing the #BlogHer13 Voices of the Year Reception: 

“I have adored Queen Latifah ever since ‘Bringing Down the House,’ and probably well before.  For her heart, strength, humor, obvious intelligence, talent on SO many levels, and her spectacular beauty that is the antithesis of petite, she is a role model who tells me to be myself even when a huge part of me wants to hide because I'm not the size zero I once was.  My family placed far too much importance on looks.  It's been a battle to find the midlife value in my own heart and my own intelligence and my own voice.  In a moment of false clarity, my weight can wash away all I’ve gained.  I'm five feet tall.  It isn't difficult to simply look over me; to not see me at all, [or to not see myself]. 

This is my brain shit, not yours, and you probably have enough of your own shit and don't even think to look past.  When I write, when I blog, I perceive that people recognize my intelligence and hear my voice first and, I pray, accept me for my heart before they see my size.  Writing, posting is bliss because for the moment *I* can forget.  I thought I was growing past it.  But even among all of [the women of all kinds, races, shapes and sizes], even attending as a #BlogHer13 Voices of the Year Honoree, at times it was insurmountable to introduce myself.” 

Why do we discount ourselves?  Why is it that I can sit in a room full to the brim of other midlife bloggers, recognize myself in them, yet feel too self-conscious to reach out to them as they have reached out to me after BlogHer?  Many of the Generation Fabulous women have since generously put out their arms and welcomed me into their fold.  How is it that I didn’t know before I attended that panel discussion that there are so many midlife women bloggers out there? 

How is it that we are still so underrepresented in every facet of life: corporate boards, politics, sponsorship, etc., etc.??  How is it that we so often don’t even recognize it?  We are 51% of the population (hence the book, 51%: Women and the Future of Politics), and yet we represent less than 19% of congress?  It seems we are largely complacent with being slotted into the role of teachers and school board members, raising the children, building the foundation of our future—all vitally important stuff that many of us probably don’t want to leave to the men.  But the fact that we are not nurtured to do otherwise isn’t good enough.  The fact that many of us don’t even think to seek otherwise isn’t good enough. 

And woe to those of us who didn’t attend college.   Whether or not it’s truth, the lack of a college education, time spent staying home with our children and the consequential holes in our resumes, can paralyze many of us with fear.  It halted me.  I allowed my lack of a college education to stop me from becoming something more, from finishing my book, from seeking and touching more of me.  

Until I left my hometown in Michigan, hit San Diego and was forced to take a hard look at myself, I existed, I loved, I enjoyed life to a degree…I wanted more, but I was holding my breath. 

I’m no slouch.  Two college level creative writing courses in San Diego, a modicum of encouragement from my professors, and I haven’t looked back…but what if…?

Well, as Kelly Wickham of Mocha Momma said in her Voices of the Year reading about being a single mom that resonated with me so deeply, “that is unacceptable.”  Kelly also wrote in “Untold Stories are Sometimes Secrets,” about,” feeling invisible as a person of color at times.”  I want her to know that I often felt invisible as a very short woman before I was heavy, and only more so now as a short heavy woman.  Perhaps we all put on our own invisibility cloaks for any number of reasons…acne, too large breasts, bad teeth…the list of things we can’t magically change about ourselves goes on.

Before #BlogHer14, here’s something I can change:  I will endeavor to stand proud, to embrace all that I am, inside and out, to *believe* myself to be your peer, just as Queen Latifah tells me. 

Before #BlogHer14, I will reach out to other women.  I will return the embrace of Generation Fabulous, and follow in their well-forged steps.  I.  Will.  Finish.  Bluebirds.  I will seek more speaking opportunities, I will query publications.  I will get paid for my writing.  And as of tonight, I am going to submit my book to a publisher! 

And come #BlogHer14, I will extend my hand to you no matter what I weigh, and I will help wake up the next generation of fabulous women to all they already are, even if they don’t get to witness people like Sheryl Sandberg and Rita Arens and Kelly Wickham and the almost 5000 strong of us amazing, powerful, diverse women for themselves.

What halts you in your tracks?  Or how have you managed to overcome your own personal invisibility cloak?
If you heard about the #JudyBlumeProject at #BlogHer13, SUBMISSIONS ARE STILL OPEN!! 

The funny thing about our world these days is that Social Media vehicles like Twitter and Facebook have made it much smaller than it once was.  Due to the recent events in Newtown, Connecticut and the immediacy of shared information, other countries are suddenly offering their input and participating in a dialog that was once uniquely American.  I’m new to Twitter, but I’m becoming more and more aware that I could be talking to someone across oceans, and certainly across thousands of miles of tundra.  I could be talking to someone who isn’t American, about a topic that concerns Americans, because suddenly it weighs heavily on the hearts and in the minds of the world.

Such was the case last evening when a dialog began about gun control and mental health between two mothers in two different countries.  In the shorthand that is unique to Twitter, we only whispered at the surface, but I am building a great deal of respect for her views on success and failure, and we and the brilliant minds at Leadership Voices agree on the need for an urgent global discussion on mental wellness.  Irene Becker is a business coach and consultant with Just Coach It in Canada, and I am actually working with a business coach, Nancy Kaye, of Define Your Destiny in San Diego, California.  These women and others like them share a vision of the potential that can be reached by many who may have previously seen themselves as failures.  And it’s quite possible these two fine, smart, beautiful spirits who are trying to heal the hearts and the minds of the clients they work with, one at a time, may share some other similarities in their views on gun control.

I have a unique perspective on the issue of gun control, in that my husband is an ex-police officer/ firefighter/ paramedic and is a nationally recognized security expert who specializes in Business Continuity Planning that encompasses active shooter and violence in the workplace programs. 

We’re from Michigan, and we tend to be prepared sorts.  That being said, neither of us is against federal mandates for stricter gun control policies as they pertain to the consistent vetting (across the country) for past criminal and mental health issues, right to privacy be damned—I would not be opposed to such background checks on all members of legal age in a prospective household, a waiting period not to exceed a week, for example, safety checks and required safety courses.  With his background, my husband was part-owner of a gun store in our town for a time and served as gunsmith and armor to many of the local law enforcement agencies.  On occasion I worked in that gun store, and thus had to go through the extensive training and testing and obtain a Concealed Pistol License (CPL) myself.  I understand there are those who have very differing views on and feelings about guns than many of the rest of us in the US, as I’m sure we do on other issues.  Much like the taboo of mental illness, this wasn’t something I often felt I could talk about in California, as I imagine it wouldn’t be in many circles in Canada and other countries.  I must tell you, however, as a 5’0” woman who has been the victim of date-rape and who spent years as a single mom, I rather enjoy feeling competent and prepared; less scared and less like a potential victim all the time.

I suspect the incidence of all crimes is lower in Canada than in the US.  But here we are, and suddenly taking guns away from law-abiding citizens while leaving them in the hands of criminals and psychos who don’t abide by the laws of the land, amounts to piss poor planning.  However, Leadership Voices, Irene and Nancy are definitely onto something when they speak about the amount of stress under which our society lives and functions on a daily basis.  I’ve seen it first hand, having lived in Chicago for a time when our daughters were young, and more recently having lived in San Diego for two years.  We have chosen to return to our small, Midwestern town, where the pace and the demand and the traffic and the competition and the stress is far lower than what we experienced in either of those two bustling metropolitan areas, and frankly where I’m less afraid (and better prepared) to walk the streets.  There was a school shooting at Kelly Elementary School in Carlsbad, California, not fifteen minutes north of our house when we first arrived there.  There were two incidences of highway snipers that occurred in the short time we lived there, the 2nd one ending with an incident AT our freeway exit.  There were robberies in malls, there were home invasions, there occurred two murders of cab drivers two exits to the south of ours in an area we frequented with out of town guests; all and much more in the short time we lived in California.

In our experience and in fact, the problems don’t stem from those of us who legally and responsibly own guns for the protection of our homes.  The problems tend more to come from those for whom guns have been purchased by others, or from those who illegally possess guns.  My hometown in Michigan sits on a stretch of highway that runs between Detroit and Chicago.  There is a great deal of drug running that occurs, and there is plenty of gun violence that occurs in the socioeconomically depressed and welfare dependent town that sits right across the river from ours.  We cross the river to go to the movies, and we cross the river to do our Christmas shopping.  Thus, we are occasionally the victims of muggings and other crimes, particularly this time of year, and shoplifting and petty larceny is rampant. 

Among the difficulties of the recent events in Newtown, CT, for me, is the fact that it has taken away an insular sense of security I once treasured here in my hometown.  Mine is very like the town of Newtown: lakeside, quaint, picturesque, we parent and love one another’s children without restraint; we look out for our neighbors.  Sandy Hook Elementary is a school very similar to my son’s.  The staff and the children who lost their lives, and ALL of the town’s and the nation’s and the world’s parents and citizens who grieve them, look and sound very similar to those in our town.  And even while I grieve my own and my children’s loss of innocence in such times, I have a strong sense that the past several years of economic destruction in many American families has left us heartbroken and emotionally, mentally, and financially battered.  Those with the capacity for hope and the mental stability to do as Irene so aptly describes in her essay, Winning the New War, to use our Constructive Discontent to Fail Forward, will survive and with the help of people like Irene and Nancy use our skills to grow and perhaps even to excel in these times.  It is the perpetually poverty-stricken, the sick and the tortured, the ones who suffer from undiagnosed and untreated mental illness, PTSD, and even chemical imbalances that can sometimes be attributed to something as simple as food sensitivities, who are clearly more susceptible to urges that lead them to take their pain and their anger out on innocent victims.

But patting them on their heads and holding their hands and telling them that it will be OK and being afraid to discuss mental illness or to reach out for help that isn’t there; caring more for their civil rights than for their mental health and the safety of others, clearly isn’t doing enough to ensure the health and safety of the public at large, and it must be immediately addressed. 

Americans will always feel differently about guns than Canadians and those in other countries do, because Americans have had to fight hard for our freedoms, and Americans have had to fight for the weak and for those who have been inhumanely treated by their own governments.  But what of our own?  We are the self-appointed and globally-appointed protectors of freedom and justice in this world, and that ideology isn’t likely to change any time soon.  Now we just need to find a way to heal our own troubled nation and protect the children in our own backyards and schoolyards, classrooms and hallways.

Taking the right to bare arms away from law-abiding Americans is akin to “changing the minds” (a la Paul Ryan in the vice presidential debate) of Middle Eastern nations or changing women’s minds about the right to choose—from either perspective.  That’s a war nobody wants to take on.  Perhaps we can, however, come to a reasonable compromise about important things like background checks for all persons of age in a prospective household, waiting periods, trigger locks, safety checks and safety courses.

I wouldn’t be GlutenNaziMom if I didn’t relay the fact that much of the anger and the malcontent that exists in our country can be attributed both to what is lacking (vital nutrients/ variety) and to what is present (GMOs, sugar, chemicals and additives) in our Standard American Diet—S.A.D.  And there’s a reason the acronym is so very, very SAD.

We must realize that all of the pieces and the parts are connected.  I am a sometimes reasonably liberal and sometimes reasonably conservative chick—founding member of the Enlightened Middle Majority—who occasionally likes to very safely shoot guns, who has chosen both life and otherwise, and thus could never presume to “choose” for another woman, and who has pulled herself out of the depths of poverty as a single parent and for a season contemplated suicide, and who believes that Health Care Reform as it sits is faulty, at best.  How can it support itself if NO ONE is paying a copay?  The math simply doesn’t work.  And what earthly good can it do if we don’t address mental health in the process?  If we continue to fail to address or even discuss Welfare Reform?  Mind, Body, Spirit; it’s all interconnected, from an individual standpoint, and from our nation’s. 

Guns and the right to bare arms, religious freedom as well as the freedom not to worship are organic and fundamental pieces of the ideology on which this country was built.  Mr. President, you may have won the election because for just enough the alternative was unpalatable, but you have a long way to go before you win over and heal the hearts and the minds and the pocketbooks of the Greatest Nation and of the world.  And until we as a nation come together, support one another, and collectively do so, unthinkable and unacceptable horrors such as the one in Sandy Hook Elementary school last Friday, such as the one in the mall in Newport Beach, California, three days before, and the one in the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, before that, will only continue to happen and likely continue to escalate.  I think we can all agree that nobody wants to see that happen in their corner of small town America, or anywhere.

I lack the sufficient number of fingers and toes to count how many times I’ve heard my dad say those words:  Change is Permanent.  Meaning, nothing ever stays the same, so you might as well stop fighting, stop trying to control and embrace it.  Neither embracing change nor giving up control, however, has EVER been easy for me. 

Take moving to California, for instance.  In September of 2010, we left my quaint little lakeside hometown and our home of 12 years in Michigan, still full of all our stuff, and spent two weeks camping our way across country to the destination of temporary housing and a new job for my husband, in San Diego, California.  We were towing a 30 foot travel trailer; me, husband, then seven-year-old son, dog, and a lizard experiencing Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride back in the trailer, his tank precariously and I’m sure mortifyingly bungeed to the dinette.  Every time we stopped to make camp, the Boy and I had to rearrange his tank and refill the water that had sloshed everywhere.  He was downright twitchy and clearly not a happy desert-dwelling leopard gecko. 


I knew the feeling.

There wasn’t a whole lot of conversation happening in our vehicle as the more than 2000 miles rolled beneath our rig.  I spent many hours on Facebook; trying desperately to maintain the connection to friends, family back home and the nearly grown daughters we were leaving behind.  Our middle daughter was already living and going to school in Florida and everyone and everything I loved was growing only farther and farther away, as we moved closer and closer to the unknown bustling vastness of San Diego and the west coast.  The thought of building a life so far removed from the one I’d known, grew only more daunting.

There’s a theory in psychology called tabula rasa, or blank slate.  Meaning that every child is born with a clean slate and that they grow and become the people they will become because of their experiences, the environment in which they grow, how they are nurtured and, perhaps most importantly, because of the people they meet along the way.  I think I was a bit of a blank slate for much of my life--floundering, questioning where my place might be in the Universe, and what my purpose could possibly be.  I didn’t so much make choices and decisions for myself, as I allowed them to be made by others, or procrastinated to the point where they were made for me.  In many cases, I failed to actively participate in choosing my path, and often blamed others when I didn’t like the outcome; my poor husband being the frequent place for my blame to land.

Even as I blamed others, I always felt a niggling, deep down, that I was the key; that I had the power to give my family the freedom to build our lives, thrive and contribute something truly special to wherever we chose to live, but I had no idea how to get there. 

At first, San Diego was no different.  After an initial period of mourning (OK, more like wallowing), and making exactly one truly wonderful friend, to whom I will be eternally grateful for recognizing how pathetic I was and reaching out to me anyway in the park, I ultimately decided that for however long we might be in California, I was going to grow and take advantage of opportunities that weren't as readily available in my small hometown.  I decided.

I began to follow local San Diego authors, novelist, Margaret Dilloway, and self-help guru, Debbie Ford, and I read a debut memoir by an author from my hometown, Patricia Gibson.  I liked her first book so much, How to be an American Housewife, that I e-mailed Margaret Dilloway.  She kindly replied and suggested I seek out classes at UCSD Extension, join a writers group, and attend a writers’ conference.  I took my first Creative Writing class in the fall of 2011, and magic began to happen.  I was blessed to study under Don and Nancy Kaye Matson, and under their patient tutelage and encouragement, I have experienced a dramatic life change and have positively bloomed.  Nancy Kaye has a website, Define Your Destiny, and I swear that I did just that, purely by osmosis and her proximity in class.

I remember when we first arrived, as we drove over the last big mountain in Arizona into California, I saw a rainbow.  I wondered if our pot of gold could possibly be waiting at the end of it.  I even posted a picture of it to Facebook, and asked that very question.  Well, financially?  Not yet.  But personally?  I’d have to say that California has taught me much about myself, and if my own pot of gold is the light inside and the confidence that I now recognize and seek to share with the world?  Then yes, California has contained that pot of gold I’d hoped for.

I turned 46 years old in July.  But it wasn’t until I spent my 45th year in California that I finally figured out that I want to be a writer when I grow up.  Not even that I want to be, but more that I always was, and I’d suppressed it all these years.  I’d always used the excuse that because I lack a college degree, no one would care what I thought or what I had to say; that my words couldn’t possibly be profound enough.  Being willing to stick my neck out and try it, and realizing otherwise, I suppose, means that over these many months in California, I did actually grow up. 

I did grow up and amid all the crowds and all the rush and the competition to spend more, lookmore'beautiful'earnmorehavemoredriveabettercar, I discovered something pretty amazing. 

I discovered that I have the power to bring people together and to be a light, even in this huge place.

I came to this vast land that is San Diego, and I didn't disappear.  I didn't crumble, though I was cracked for awhile.  When I decided finally to stop wallowing and take control of my San Diego experience, I discovered I was no longer invisible, and in fact I bloomed.  I became someone I could be proud of, besides just my kids' mom, which of course isn't 'just' at all.  But because society seems to tell us so at every opportunity, as stay at home moms with the dreaded holes in our resumes, it’s easy to forget that what we share, manage and grow in our families, translates into an ability to share, manage and grow other things as well.  Women aren't merely capable of building homes, communities, governments; we build people--little human beings, for goodness sakes.  That isn’t ‘just’—we’re not ‘just’ moms.

Remember the movie, City Slickers, with Billy Chrystal and Jack Palance?  Billy Chrystal plays Mitch, an angst-ridden suburban husband, and Palance won an academy award for his portrayal of a trail-hardened, Curly Washburn.  Curly turns out to be more than a simple cowboy, but a wise mystic who advises Mitch to focus on the “One Thing,” that is most important in his life to solve all his problems.  I didn’t really get it, and I always wondered what that “One Thing” was.

I’ve come to learn that the “One Thing,” for me, is in that sharing.  The secret is in supporting one another and in our innate humanity toward one another; in caring enough to discover the beauty and special something that lives in every one of us.  It’s in being willing to open up and share the pieces of ourselves that are special, even if we or our families and friends are the only ones who think so, or even if no one does…yet. 

With only a genuine smile and a look in the eye, I have found the power to disarm a cranky clerk and maybe change their bad day for the better.  And I now know that within each of us exists the power to make all our wishes come true; we need only to decide it, believe it, reach for it, and trust that the Universe will put us right where we need to be in order grow.

As much as I thank California and the wonderful people I’ve met here for helping make me the person I am today, and the person I will continue to grow to become, however, it is time for us to return home to Michigan and the responsibilities we left behind.  My husband will go back to consulting, which is what landed him the job opportunity in the first place, and I will continue to write.  And we will pool the many resources we both possess and make life work there.

We're going back, but we're not going backwards.  As the lizard survives to make another terrifying trip across the country, so do I, and the person I'm bringing home with me is better than the one who left.  She believes in herself.  She believes she has something to offer her community; that she can make a positive impact on herself, her daughters, her nieces; her Posse on both West Coasts and all points in between and beyond, and even to her husband, father, brothers & son.  She is more confident and more willing to share the lessons of life that no college could have taught her, and she is more open to the lessons others have to teach.  She is an author. 

I am an AUTHOR!  A dream that will be realized when the book in which I will have an essay published, 51%: Women and the Future of Politics, is released in the fall, before the elections.  I never would have stretched, never would have reached for such a lofty goal, had I not been so desperately lonely and sick of myself that I had no other choice than to begin writing the thoughts and the stories that had wrestled for years in my mind.  I even sleep more peacefully now, and I am excited to bring the best that I have to offer back to my hometown and to have a positive impact there. 

Even so, after almost two years, it turns out that saying good-bye to new friends is just as painful as saying good-bye to old ones.   I dearly wish I wasn't breaking a heart in order to heal my own; to return to my hometown, our families, old friends, to help raise our nephew and to be closer to our daughters and the support system we left behind, and to my beloved lake.  I am leaving California, but I thank her for all she has taught me, and for the wonderful friends here who have found a place in my own broken heart forever. 

Perhaps in order to find our true selves we need to step away for a time from that which defined who we were.  We must stretch our wings and venture off in order to find who we hope to become and to find the true potential we all possess and the selves we can be proud to share with the world.  I’m not sure what it is that makes it so hard for some of us to love ourselves and recognize our worth as young women, but I hope that I can share the self-esteem and the light I’ve found, and teach other women and young girls to be open to the Universe, to see it in themselves, and to recognize their own power and their own true potential.  To realize that change isn’t just permanent, it’s positive.  If only we can recognize it and accept it for what it is and for what it might be, and for what it might possibly define in us…our destiny.