New Year's Day

 It is almost a new year. I'm hopeful that 2024 will be the best year yet. I've pledged to work on my health, wellness and of course, finish another book.

My memoir took over a decade to write and more than fifteen years to publication. Once you've written one book, you realize how it becomes a routine and a second one is possible. It's never easy. Writing a book is a hard, arduous task that is about focus, determination and most of all, visualization. It's about belief and faith. 

Some people use belief and faith as synonyms. But I see them differently. Belief is, in my opinion, about knowing I can do it because I've done it before. I've proven I can do it. On the other hand, faith is a knowing that it's possible without any proof. See https://ethicsdefined.org/opinion/faith-vs-belief/. Faith is what kept me going the first time around and it keeps me going now because there are no certainties in life.

I spent the last few days in Vegas with my husband and the moms. It was pretty low key. We saw a movie, went to a show, had a nice dinner or two, and gambled and drank a little. It was a lot of fun. 

But I also had some time to think. To ruminate. To chill out and relax. And I realized something. Every day is a new day, and this new year offers 365 days of hope filled possibilities. You just have to reach out and grab them. Cheers!

Reconciliation

I'm on vacation and it's 530 am. I'm looking at my life. Is it because of the new year beginning? Is it me slipping into middle age? Is it a mid life crisis? I'm not sure.

It's been such a weird last few years. After the "pandemic", we were supposed to step back into our pre-pandemic life and I found that I couldn't. My health was shot, and I had to change things. So I basically created a lot of havoc in my work life. Now I know I had my reasons for trying to leave my practice. I had a lot of resentments, which were valid, but in the end, all I really did was cause a lot of chaos. 

What I learned from it all is that home is home. You can't run away from it. It's ironic that I first learned this with my real life family. I left the IE for years, but ended up back home. Similarly, I tried to leave my mental health law practice a couple of years back in order to try and transition to appellate work (but never left public defense to be clear, it was just a shift within our office for a short time) and then, of course, ended up right back where I began. It was such an uneven time for me. Things have evened out thankfully. 

Yet, through all of this, I learned that I can try to heal myself and my relationships. I can sit in the peace. I can be happy. And everything can be okay. 

Ohhh Christmas tree

It is 6 am and I have a weird rock in my chest. All I can see is the vacancies and empty spots. It's Christmas Eve and I feel the losses. I miss my dad, my dog Frodo and the children I've never had. I miss my father in law, my brother in law, and my uncles. 

My mom is usually here today but she's at my sister's house so I miss her too but will see her on Christmas Day. 

I don't know why I'm so melancholy. I need to take a bath in sage. I need to meditate on everything I have. I pray in my head for happy thoughts. 

I look at my Christmas tree. There's a picture of me and my mom on an ornament that my bestie made me. I look around the house. Five stockings. One for me and the others for my husband, the moms, and my shih tzu chewie. I see all the presents. My island of misfit toys collection lined up on the table. My own books piled up to bring to a reading next year. How did I write those? It seems impossible. 

I see myself in the mirror. The mirror is edged with rhinestones. I'm aging. There are lines. I'm plump. But I know who I am at least. I've realized the outside is meaningless, and it's the inside filling that counts. I also know I'm not my job. And I've realized my voice has value. That I'm a writer at heart and my pen is powerful. That I'm strong. 

So I breathe. And look at the Christmas tree and smile. Merry Christmas. 

Early to rise coffee time

I get up early. Too early. Yesterday at 4 am (to be fair I was on deadline at work so started work at 5 am) and today at 5 am. What do I do you ask? Why so early? What's the point?

It's simple. It's when I wake up because I go to bed at 8 pm most days. Five in the morning is also my favorite time of day. I sometimes work on this blog, or on my YA fiction novel in progress (meh, it's just so hard as a memoirist to make the switch but I'll get there) or read from the couple of books of essays I've been devouring by Ann Patchett. This morning, I entered my second book into a memoir contest.

In fifteen minutes, I'll go downstairs at 6 am to have coffee with my husband who has to leave for work by 7. It's always fun. We do it every weekday and weekends too.

Today is an unanticipated court day (someone got sick in our unit) so I have to leave by 745 am to be in court timely. I so don't mind going in today. I get to see everyone before Christmas and hand out a few holidays cards in person (not much mailing this year, I'm cutting back). 

Back to the early mornings. It's becoming a habit and one I adore. I'm with my thoughts with nothing to do for at least the first hour of my day. Then I get to spend quality time with my spouse sipping on espresso while he downs his black, lightly sugared coffee. I usually make us toast or breakfast tacos. It's so lovely in how ordinary it is.

It's life. Bitter at times like my espresso, but also invigorating. It is always a reminder to slow down and savor, one sip at a time. 

Blue Christmas

It's 4 am. I got up early because I couldn't sleep. I'm listening to the song Purple Rain by Prince. I love this song, it's hymn like, both joyful and sad. 

Christmas always fills me with melancholy. You see years ago, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer around Christmas and died less than three weeks later. The time went so quick. Yet so slow. Like a movie you speed up then slow down. Frame by frame. That's how I remember it. I always wish I had moved home sooner. Before it was too late. Or maybe I wish I had never left in the first place? 

Christmas also reminds me of being a kid and watching the rainbow of lights twinkling on the tree and opening a mountain of presents every Christmas morning. No matter their financial situation, my parents always filled the space under the tree with gifts.

I also have fond memories of going to my Tio Roland's house, my mom's brother and my godfather. Tio would always gift me and my sisters something small but sweet, a lifesavers gift pack that looked like a book or chocolate covered cherries that I would savor one at a time. 

My Tio Roland passed years back as did my Tio Poncho and Tia Tilly. In fact, all of my mother's many siblings have passed away. They have gone to the heavens and I picture them all sitting in a room together reminiscing. 

My mom was the baby in her family. The youngest. She's the only one left and believe me I know how lucky I am to have her. 

I took Monday off this week and took a drive to Palm Springs to see my mom who was watching my twin sister's house while she was on vacation. I drove my mom and her friend Jan to lunch with my niece and then to the Brighton outlet in Cabazon. We had such a great time. And it made me realize something profound. 

We only have this. These moments. This time is more precious than all the silver and gold in the world. Just try and remember that this Christmas. I know I will.

The wind in the willows

The wind is whistling. It's shaking the trees this Sunday. I'm up early. Chewbacca woke me up this morning with his whining to go downstairs.

Everyone needs a room of their own and Adrian recently bought Chewie a playpen style crate and Chewie bounds downstairs and goes straight into it. He growls as he pummels his blanket and burrows into it. He's comfortable now and falls back asleep with a contented sigh.  

I think about how far my life has come along. I'm also in a very comfortable place. I have a YA novel and an adaptation of my memoir that I know I need to focus on, and I will, although with work and my other literary commitments, it's hard to find time. Maybe I am a bit complacent. There's not a lot of pressure on me except that I put on myself. I'm also focusing on time with my husband Adrian and being more present.

Even though it doesn't look like it, I'm just taking it kind of easy. And yes easy for me is working full-time, taking a class for my MFA, serving on a board and running a podcast. But I have pulled back on events and even withdrew from another board. I am also refining my podcast and streamlining it to make it more doable long term so I can continue to amplify voices yet also have time for my own writing.

My goal is to chill and not create chaos out of peace. There are times when I crave disorder. Turmoil feels more normal to me. But I am slowly learning to lean into the calm. The wind is nice at times. It clears the air. But it can also break you. 

So here's to the future and a new year. Cheers. 

The whisper

I wake up exactly at 4:44 am. It is an auspicious sign because the number 444 denotes positivity and is seen as a signal that one is on the right path.

Yet, am I on the right path? I almost feel as if I am waiting for something to happen as opposed to going out and aiming for my destiny. I've been in a kind of anti striving mode for a bit and I don't know whether it is working. 

My whole life, I've been seeking, yearning and focused on a goal. First, survival after the mess I made of my life after dropping out of high school. Then, an undergraduate degree which took forever as I started in junior college. Then law school, which went by quick. Than my law career and after leaving corporate law, public defense. Then writing. Then podcasting and writing some more.

Everything's come together. I know it has. Life is good. Stable. But there's something else over the horizon. I can't see it, but I can feel it. 

Has anyone else been feeling like this? It's almost as if something is waiting on the other side of a mountain and if I climb to see the view, then I will see what's over the mountain. But if I don't climb, and if I stay on the straight path, then I will never see it. I will miss it. It will pass me by. Or I will pass it by.  

The truth is, I don't want to miss my chance at something big, real and true. Call me a drama queen, a dreamer, a striver, an eternal optimist, or even delusional perhaps, but I know I'm meant to do one great thing that the whole world will see and whether it's a play, a film or another book, I'm not sure. It's hazy, almost like it's not fully realized yet. It might happen or it might not. 

Because right now, it's only a whisper. Just a whisper. 

Stephen King of the tales

The Queen is dead. The King is still alive, Stephen King that is. I just read one of his more recent books "Fairy Tale". Opening it, I fell into it, like into a well. Funnily enough, there's also a well in this dark fairy tale along with a portal to another world.

A bit compelled from the opening chapter, I read the book late at night. I even opened it up after a long day at work and then at 10 pm after an evening reading event. Most mornings this week, I read early morning instead of writing my own stories. You see, I needed to know what would happen. 

Finally, this morning, I woke up at 6 am (on a Saturday) to finish it. It is a somewhat long book, but luckily I'm a quick reader and when I finished, I exhaled an audible sigh. I closed my Kindle app with contentment. Awwwwww.

The narrator and protagonist is Charlie. He's young. He's dealt with more than most (but is similar to some of us) in his seventeen years. He's dealt with his mother's death, and his father's alcoholism. 

I've always loved young adult narrators. There's so much we don't know when we're young, but so much we do know and forget with age. There's a naïveté to young narrators, but also a bravery and wisdom. Plus, he has a dog he loves. I'm a book lover and a dog lover, so the two go together for me like butter on toast.

We find out toward the end of the novel that Charlie is writing this later, when he's fully grown, and some of the book has a slightly older adult perspective or voice, but for the most part, we are in Charlie's head during his adventures as a young adult. 

Those who know me, know that I'm all about adventures. I love writing about my youthful adventures, indiscretions and escapades, and I wouldn't be the writer I am without them. Perhaps that's why I was so drawn to Charlie's story. 

I loved how the book ends, although I won't give it away. This is a quest novel and also a twisted fairy tale. But there is a happy ending. Don't we all need and deserve one?

I have all the time in the world

Recently, I saw Depeche Mode in Vegas. It was a beautiful show but they didn't go on until 9 pm and we got to the venue at 6 pm. My bedtime is 830 pm most nights so by the time they went on, I was exhausted, my back hurt and I was drinking water and Diet Coke.

I'm slowly realizing some things. First, I may have time left and lots of things I want to do with it. But I don't want to spend my time doing things I don't love. Or things that annoy me. And I don't want to spend time with people who don't appreciate me. Or be in places that make me anxious. All I want really is to be happy.

Happiness is an elusive concept I know. Yet I also think it's simple. Happiness is simplicity. It's about making your life purposeful, but not complicated. Really it's about not caring what others think about what you do and going with your gut and not seeking approval. 

I've always been a people pleaser and no more I say. I'm sick of worrying what others think of me. Maybe I'm getting old and ornery. Truth is, all I can think is forget it. Forget what the world thinks of you. Just do you. Just be you.