Folding Up My Map So My Kids Can Unfold Their Own

Yes. That’s my 11 year old wearing a swim mask in the zero depth pool. He’s cool like that.

You know how you want for your children all the things you never had? I cannot tell you how many times that has screwed things up for me and for my kids. You would think somewhere along the line I would figure it out and stop trying so hard to give them what I missed out on and focus rather on helping them find what they want or need. You would think that. You would be wrong.

One thing I always wanted for my kids was for them to be able to swim well. By “swim well,” I mean the kind of swimming where your face is in the water and you know how to time your breaths and you don’t hit the wall with your head. Basic stuff. I simply wanted them to swim better than I do because the best thing I can say about how I swim is that so far I have managed not to drown. Knock on wood.

To ensure that my kids would be able to swim well early, I had them on a swimming time table from birth. I enrolled in Mommy and Me swim classes with them when they were infants. They were both in regular swim classes when they were 3. They loved the water. Loved it. Yet, they each failed to pass the first level class two times before I decided that the community pool was the wrong place for my kids to learn to swim. I reasoned that the large class sizes, the too cold water at the rec center, and the myriad distractions there led to their lack of swimming success.

Next, I enrolled them at a pricey, private swim school. The water was warm (90 degrees) and the classes were only four students. This was just what they needed, right? Wrong. After a traumatic incident where Luke fell into water over his head during class and bobbed for a while before being safely recovered by his teacher, he refused to go back. Honestly, my confidence was then shaken too. I figured my dreams for them to become great swimmers were just dreams. I tried to move on, determining they would learn the way I did…over time with lots of informal practice. It wasn’t what I had envisioned. I pretended to make peace with it.

For the past four and a half years, our boys have been allowed to view the water as fun. They’ve slowly gotten braver and a bit more skilled at swimming on their own. We didn’t push them. They merely began to figure things out. Still, they have not become truly proficient swimmers. So today, once again pushing my luck, I enrolled them in a different swim school. This move was precipitated by our upcoming trip to the Galapagos where being able to swim and snorkel will be a really good thing. They’re 9 and 11 now. I was certain they were ready, but what is more important is that they were certain of it. You know what? They LOVED practicing in the pool with their instructor today. As we were leaving the school, they excitedly mentioned they wished they could go back again this week. I smiled as they told me all about the class I had witnessed via video camera from the lobby. Finally. Now we’re getting somewhere.

It’s okay to want things for your kids. It’s even okay to set them up to discover more about the things you want for them. But, it’s not okay to push them into what you want according to your time schedule or your plans for them. When my kids failed to pass out of swim class that first time, I should have backed off and realized they weren’t ready. I didn’t do that. Instead, I forced the issue, which then led to a worse situation from which we spent years trying to recover. We all want the best for our kids. Sometimes, though, we forget that what’s best for them will only be uncovered when we allow them to decide what interests them when they’re uniquely ready for it. If your child gets accepted into Harvard because you nagged, pushed, and henpecked them into living your dream, I suppose you can count that as an accomplishment. But, wouldn’t it be better if your child got into Harvard because it was what he wanted and worked incredibly hard on his own to achieve? I guess that if I want my kids to find their own way, I’d better stop handing them my map.

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Surrender Isn’t Always A Bad Thing

Heading up Mesa Trail near Boulder

“Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life. When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up.”        ~ Eckhart Tolle

Yesterday, Steve and I decided it would be a great day for a family hike. So, we loaded up the car and headed up to Boulder. I found a 4+ mile hike just outside of Boulder near Eldorado Canyon on Trails.com that looked promising, so we went for it. Because we got a late start on the day, it was already 82 degrees when we pulled into the South Mesa Trail parking lot around noon. I knew the boys would whine about the heat, but we were there and Steve and I were bound and determined to get the exercise.

The boys, usually quite able bodied and semi-amenable to hiking, were in rare form from the start. Joe had consumed so much water on the drive up that he was wanting to mark his territory every half mile. Luke, a kid who hates to be either too hot or too cold, was moving slowly and in a constant state of whine about how sweaty he was. Being not the world’s most sympathetic person (understatement), I told them that if they’d stop using so much energy to complain they’d have more energy to hike faster and finish sooner. True story.

The first mile was a bit rough as the boys complained and dragged their feet, hoping we would suspend the exercise. We were annoyed but persisted in our determination to complete the hike. During the entire second mile, I was fairly certain my husband (who is one of the most patient people I have ever known) would eventually strangle Luke, who could not seem to tamp down his whining. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about children, it’s that they’re like animals; they can smell hesitancy and fear and will use your weakness against you. Luke was working it.

As Luke whimpered and cried foul, Steve went from grimacing about it to full on bitching at him while I went to my happy place. I’m not sure what it is about Boulder that makes me so dang happy, but I’m at peace there. As the war between Luke and his father began to escalate, I became increasingly calm. I took turns talking to both of them, positioning myself in between them as a buffer, and trying to resolve the situation with a positive attitude. The more they bickered, the less I seemed to care. I was able to focus on the beauty of the landscape, the pine scent rising from the trees, the cool breeze on my sun-warmed skin, and the joy of being somewhere that I love to be with the people who mean the most surrounding me. I escaped from the negativity of the situation by focusing on what I loved rather than on what I disliked. It was very zen of me, I thought.

As we got into the third mile, we hit the forest and Luke was shaded enough to stop whining a bit. Joe had at last peed himself out. Steve had nothing left to feel frustrated about. The hike became what I envisioned it would be, a fun little walk with my family somewhere new. I’m not sure if it was my attitude that diffused the negativity or the negativity that changed my own attitude, but something made the whole experience positive rather than negative and we ended the 4.5 mile hike feeling good about it overall.

How often do we tense up when things aren’t going the way we want and in our tension merely compound the situation? Sometimes, the best thing we can do when things get rough is to let go of expectation and relax. And, as we yield to the way things are rather than dreaming of the way we wanted things to be, we make peace with the present moment and life begins to look not quite as bad as we thought. Occasionally we waste too much energy on a battle when we should surrender instead. Sometimes making peace with a situation is not a defeat at all but a victory in disguise.

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Boobies and Sea Lions and Giant Tortoises, Oh My!

Working on research for our trip

Two months from today, we will be embarking on a long, international journey. My very generous and well-traveled in-laws are treating the entire family to a 10-day excursion to Ecuador to visit the Galapagos Islands. When they first suggested this trip, I was intrigued. Honestly, I hadn’t had the Galapagos Islands on my list of places I must see on this planet, but how could I not want to go and experience what so few others have? How could I turn my nose up at an opportunity to see blue-footed boobies, giant tortoises, and marine iguanas (iguanas that actually swim)? How many people get to walk where Darwin walked and see what Darwin saw? People talk about “the trip of a lifetime,” but this one truly is.

We’re not just taking any old tour, either. We’re taking the National Geographic Expeditions’ Galapagos Family Odyssey trip. We’re traveling with naturalists and photographers from National Geographic. It’s a family friendly voyage where we’ll have opportunities to swim with sea lions, snorkel with sea turtles, and stand feet away from the islands’ giant tortoises and where the boys will be provided special activities to enhance their experience. We’ll take six airline flights and spend 7-days aboard a small cruise ship. I’ve had to buy new luggage, expedition clothing, and shoes that can get wet. We’re doing research and reading about both Darwin and the islands, their flora and fauna, and their history. This is no lightweight island vacation where you lounge on a beach. This is an expedition of the highest order.

This vacation has been planned for over a year now, so I’ve delayed my enthusiasm and excitement to live with the wait involved. But today, as I looked at the date, it hit me that it’s finally almost here. I’ve got to brush up on my Spanish, review the trip packing list and determine what we’re missing, and try to figure out how I am going to blog daily from a ship off the coast of the Galapagos. I know I often write about living in the moment, but this is one of those cases when you have plan ahead to be appropriately prepared and to get the most from the experience. Two months from today I will wake up early, fly to Miami before boarding a plane for Guayaquil, Ecuador, and then step foot in South America for the first time. August 3rd will be here in a flash. Time to start taking this trip of a lifetime seriously.

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Our Son, The Science Experiment

Me and my science experiment

Our son, Joe, was just 8 years old when we took him to Children’s Hospital in Denver where several psychological professionals interviewed and observed him and told us they were certain he had moderate ADHD. He wasn’t the worst case they’d seen, but they felt he would improve the most quickly with medication. We discussed the benefits and side effects associated with this type of treatment with the doctors and decided to go ahead and start him on a low dose of Concerta, an extended release form of the drug Ritalin. We had hoped never to have to put our child on medication and had investigated other possible explanations for our son’s poor grades, non-existent attention span, nervous gestures, and total lack of impulse control before finally being able to admit that perhaps he truly did have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

One of the side effects the doctors discussed with us at length was the possibility of slowed growth due to the medication. They assured us that children on the medication do continue to grow but at a much slower rate. Born prematurely, Joe was on the small side to begin with. One suggestion the doctors had was to take him off the medication during breaks from school, especially long ones like summer vacation, to allow his body a bit of unrestricted time for growth. Up until now, we had elected not to do that because we were focused on using the medication to get him caught up in school and with his self-esteem issues. But, after seeing him with his classmates at Field Day this year, we finally decided it might help to take him off the Concerta for the summer. You see, Joe is the oldest boy in his class by nearly a year and yet he’s still the shortest. There’s nothing wrong with being short, but if we can help him catch up it seems like we should.

So, a week ago we took away Joe’s medication and asked him to try going two days without it. He was adamantly against the idea, but we persisted. We managed to turn two days off into four and then eventually into an entire week. On the plus side, we’ve seen a definite improvement in his eating and sleeping habits, an indication that he might just grow if we keep this up. But, I’m not going to lie. These past seven days have been tough. Our boys, who get along 95% of the time when Joe is on his medication, fought quite a bit more this week. I spent far more time than usual trying to solve disputes and suppress whining. Joe’s been more argumentative, impulsive, and distracted. He’s been on the medication for nearly three years now, so I had almost forgotten this side of him. If there’s been a silver lining to this little experiment, it’s that if we’d harbored any concerns about whether he truly had ADHD or whether the medication was honestly working, those concerns are gone.

Today Joe announced that he was going to take his medication again starting tomorrow. He told us that he’s tired of feeling out of control. I understand that. I do. But, I feel that Steve, Luke, and I are partly responsible for his feeling that way because we’re not used to his behavior off the medication and we’re acting differently toward him, expecting things of him that we expect from medicated Joe. That is simply not fair. Before he went to bed, we had a little family discussion. We asked Joe to forgive us for our impatience because as much as this is a period of readjustment for him it is also one for us. We promised we’d lower our expectations of him a bit if he would be willing to work a little harder to focus and try to meet us midway. Luke, exhausted from fending off Joe’s poking and prodding and teasing and belittling, told us he simply wants the “old Joe” back. Luke definitely bears the brunt of Joe’s ADHD symptoms, so we’re definitely taking that into consideration.

After the boys went to sleep, hubby and I decided that we’re going to give Joe’s medication-free trial run one more week…one week when we resolutely try to understand where he’s at and not where we expect him to be. Our biggest fear right now is our not being able to control our expectations and then making Joe feel bad about his behavior when it’s really not his fault. So, we’re going to try to rein ourselves in and let him be. If at the end of the next week we feel this time off is going to do more harm to him emotionally than good to him physically we’ll put him back on daily doses. I hate feeling like he’s a science experiment, but right now he kind of is. I would love to see him experience a growth spurt, but not at the expense of his self-confidence and self-esteem. Some parents, I’m sure, put their child on medication to save their sanity. We put Joe on it to save his. If taking him off for a couple weeks causes him to feel bad about himself again, the experiment ends. I’d much rather have a shorter-than-average happy kid than miserable child of average height. Science experiment be damned.

 

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The Rules of Wine Club

Smiley. Must have been drinking  already.

Back in midwinter when I was annoyed about being cold and presumably sipping (all right, slugging) a glass of wine, I came up with the idea to start a small wine club. I talked with three other couples we know to determine if they might be amenable to hosting one wine dinner a year at their home. They all thought it would be worth a shot. So, our club was born. We have one basic understanding: we know nothing about wine other than we like to drink it. To expand our wine repertoire, we plan to sample some new wines each time and try to learn a little bit about them, even if that’s only that we don’t like them. Each dinner is up to the hosts and they have sole input into the food and drink for the evening. To keep things equitable among our members, I came up with The Rules of Wine Club, which run along the lines of The Rules of Fight Club from the Fight Club movie.

Our Wine Club Rules:

1) You do not talk about what happens at wine club.

2) You DO NOT talk about what happens at wine club.

3) If someone says stop or goes limp, they are cut off.

4) Only 8 people to a dinner.

5) Only one glass at a time. Empty yours and it will be refilled.

6) Try to keep your clothes on, at least for the dinner portion of the night.

7) Club will go on as long as it needs to until all the wine is gone.

8) When it’s all said and done, the mission of wine club is simply to be in the moment…with friends…and wine.

After all, it’s the time we spend with others that is important. The things we do at our jobs don’t matter. The kind of house we live in or the type of car we drive is unimportant. It’s our connection with friends and family that makes life worth getting out of bed for. And, I’m not just saying this because I’ve had…let’s go with…several glasses of wine and now I’m all “I love you, man” or anything like that. Sitting there tonight with our friends, laughing, teasing each other, and sharing stories, I felt truly connected to something outside myself and my own little world. In a social climate where we’re increasingly isolated and living within our electronic communications, it’s crucial to share a meal with peers occasionally, to converse face-to-face, and to pass some time personally interconnected with others like they did in the olden days before we had cell phones and Wifi. It’s far too easy to check out in this world we live in. Try to remember to check back in once in a while. That way, when you’re looking back on the film of your life, it will be a reel worth looking at.

 

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You Must Be This Tall To Ride

Tonight we took our boys to Lakeside Amusement Park and, as we walked around, I realized that it was their first amusement park visit. Well, we did take them to Disneyworld when they were 3 and 5, but since they were both so small we didn’t get to ride as many of the rides. Oh, sure. We’ve let them ride on coasters and log rides in the Mall of America and on those small, portable coasters they set up for fairs, but for the most part my boys have been devoid of amusement park memories. I started to feel a bit bad about it.

Then, as we were in line for the Wild Chipmunk, I got a reminder about why we haven’t been in a hurry to take them. Our boys are tiny. Both have late spring birthdays. Both have been under the 25th percentile in height from the very beginning. We gave both of them a chance to attend junior kindergarten so they could catch up in stature. Still, both boys are the oldest and the smallest in their classes. It doesn’t make much sense to me. Hubby and I are considered to be average height. And, yet, our children are borderline Oompah Loompah (they’re just missing the orange skin and white hair). As we were waiting for the Wild Chipmunk, the roller coaster Luke had been dying to ride, a park employee came by and delivered the disappointing news. Luke was 4 inches too short to ride. He cried. It broke my heart. And THIS is why we don’t take them to amusement parks, I thought.

Then, I thought about it again. Luke did get to ride quite a few other rides. He loved the Tilt-A-Whirl and had a blast in the Labyrinth Crystal Palace. He rode the Matterhorn and the Scrambler multiple times. He had a blast flying his own little plane on the Satellite. He even rode with Joe on Joe’s favorite ride, the Ferris Wheel. (Seriously. The Ferris Wheel. What 11 year old kid loves that ride?) And, he would have missed all of that if I’d kept him from going to the park tonight. Then I realized he would have missed more than that. He would have missed the opportunity to face disappointment and to work at getting beyond it.

I need to do a better job at giving my kids room for disappointment and freedom. They need to be able to deal with adversity and heartache, responsibility and reward. How are they going to do that if I don’t allow them small opportunities to build their skills? So, as hard as it was to watch his heart break, I’m glad I let my barely over 4 foot tall Luke attend this privately hosted night at Lakeside, courtesy of my college roommate Michelle who proffered the invitation. It was a good experience. Life is full of “you must be this tall to ride” experiences. Sometimes we don’t measure up. But, you can judge a person’s true stature by how they deal with their disappointment. In time, I hope Luke’s experiences on the short side prove that he’s actually 7 feet tall.

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When The American Dream Becomes The American Nightmare

Two little things I’m grateful for every day.

Just finished a long phone conversation with my youngest sister, the kind where you talk about life on the grand scale, where you are, who you’ve become, and why. I like to have conversations like that every once in a while, a little come-to-Jesus meeting with myself where I take a good hard look at my life and figure out where I’m at. My sister is a person for whom “bored” is a four-letter word. On some level, I think she’s unintentionally sought out drama in her life because she simply doesn’t know how to live with dull, humdrum, it-is-what-it-is life. But, that is the stuff life is made of. Life is not always parades and fireworks. Sometimes it’s leftovers and dirty diapers.

I think that we Americans truly mess ourselves up with an unrelenting focus on the fabled “American Dream.” We’ve come to believe we’re entitled to life in the highest order. We expect that we will be able to have it all. It’s a tall tale. You can’t have it all. There’s not room in life for it all. It’s like trying to cup running water in your hands; you can only hold so much and what you don’t have room for will fall away. Most people on this planet pass quietly through their lives, and their names don’t go down in history’s annals like DaVinci or Aristotle. Most people touch only the lives around them. That’s it. Somewhere along the line that stopped being good enough. It’s too bad.

We should have dreams and plans. We should pursue them. But, we should also accept that life is beautiful even without parades and fireworks. We’ve lost the ability to treasure the little things because we’re waiting for the next big thing. When was the last time you sat down in a forest and paused to hear the wind in the trees and to smell the pines? When was the last time you watched a ladybug in your hand and wondered at it and appreciated its small life? When was the last time you stopped thinking about what you were missing out on and honestly marveled at how much you have? I think, for most of us, it’s been far too long since we last took the opportunity to be grateful for the down times. What we’re missing in our run-around, 24/7 active lives is the peace that comes from being still and not asking anything from life, but simply existing momentarily in it without demands.

The happiest people in this world aren’t the ones who have it all. They’re the ones who are sincerely happy with what they have. When we keep looking for the next big thing, we’re missing the myriad little ones that are given to us daily…the parking spot close to the store on a snowy day, the first cup of coffee of the day that someone else pours for us, the unexpected hug. It’s only when you stop expecting big things to fulfill you that you can let the little things that have always been there fill you up.

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Facebook Is Simply Show-And-Tell For Grown Ups

One of my Facebook profile photos. What does it tell you about me?I don’t know and I don’t really care. I just like it.

I was thinking today that Facebook is the ultimate exercise in show-and-tell. Remember that from kindergarten? Stand up there, show off something you like or care about, and tell people all about it. And, I think that if you treat Facebook (or any social media) that way, it’s a fairly innocuous thing. But, if you find you’re concerned about the number of replies you get to a post or if you’re using your posts to validate your decisions or any other aspect of your life, it might be time to take a step back.

I’ve got 288 Facebook “friends.” The “friends” is in quotes for a reason. All that word means in Facebookland is that I have viewing rights to 288 other people’s lives. I joined Facebook in 2008, so I’ve had years to study the way people use it. Some use it as a soapbox. Others use it for braggadocio. Some, quite sadly, use it to pump up their self-esteem. Some use it to avoid loneliness. Everyone gets something different from it, which is why it fascinates me. But, it all comes back to the notion that we all like to talk about ourselves. With Facebook, we can do it all day and all night and our spewing about ourselves ad nauseam is never considered narcissistic or obnoxious. It’s par for the course. It’s genius, really. Everyone is the center of their Facebook universe. How appropriately human.

I’ve always liked this quote: “What other people think of you is none of your business.” I more or less live by this notion. I learned early on that I am not for everyone, which is just fine with me because there are oodles of people I can do without as well. It’s nice to be liked, but if I’m not it doesn’t affect how I feel about myself. I’m here to find my own way. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize I was living someone else’s. Still, it’s easy to get sucked into caring too much what others think of you, especially when you throw yourself onto a social media site and pay too close attention to the responses you get. When you live that way, though, you’re not being authentic. I’ve seen my fair share of folks who clearly use Facebook for personal validation. I know, on occasion, I have been guilty of it too. But, what other people think of you is none of your business. It doesn’t matter. When it’s all said and done, the only person whose opinion about you should matter is your own. So, the next time you post something and no one seems to notice or care, throw yourself a dozen or so mental thumbs up Likes and move on. Facebook is show-and-tell. That’s all it is. Letting it be more than that is a waste of your precious energy on this planet.

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That’ll Teach You To Keep Your Schweddy Balls Out Of My Bike Shorts

Hubby and I enjoy cycling and both happen to own size medium Pearl Izumi bike shorts. Not good.

My husband and I share a lot of things. I never worry that we will become one of those couples who have nothing to talk about once the kids leave home. One of our common interests is road cycling, which he got me into and which I have spent years using as my excuse to exercise. Cycling receives the highest accolade I can offer any type of exercise; I don’t hate it.

Today, hubby came home after a couple hours with the kids at his parents’ place and said he wanted to take a ride. I had hoped to get a ride in too, but because I could have done it while he was gone and chose instead to tackle the Everest-sized pile of ironing in our room, I was in no position to cry “not fair” on him. He got geared up and told me he was leaving. I was still ironing and lost in the middle of the latest episode of Mad Men, so I didn’t pay much attention to him before he left. In fact, I’m pretty sure that as he was telling me for the third time that he was leaving I uttered a barely interested, “Aren’t you gone yet?”

When he returned, he got showered and went downstairs. I again didn’t pay much attention to him as I was still ironing (did I mention this pile was huge?). When I had at last finished my epic pile of laundry, I realized it was too late for a ride and went to take a shower. When I walked into the bathroom, I noted with disdain that Steve had left his sweat-soaked bike clothes in a pile on the edge of the bathtub. I hate that. Then I looked at the pile again more closely. Those looked like my bike shorts. I felt my forehead crinkle, my brow furrow, and my head cock to one side. Had he really worn my bike shorts by mistake? Certainly there was no way that could have happened. I walked downstairs.

“Ummm…I think you might have worn my bike shorts on your ride,” I announced.

He looked at me. “No. Those were mine,” he answered confidently.

“I don’t think so. I think your bike shorts have a different type material in the crotch than mine do.”

“They were in with my stuff,” he said, as if the pile of gear he had in his office was impervious to mix-ups.

I didn’t feel like arguing with him, so I shrugged it off and went to get in the shower. First, though, unsatisfied with his pronouncement, I checked my sports-bottoms drawer. My shorts were not there. Curiouser and curiouser. I was now absolutely certain he’d worn my shorts. He must have suspected the same thing because he came up to inspect the dirty shorts. Then he confirmed what I already knew; he had indeed worn my bike shorts on his hour-long ride.

“Wow,” I said, unhappily. “That’s scary.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I think that I was actually faster today while wearing them,” he said.

“Nope. Not helping.” I paused thoughtfully and then continued. “I’m not sure if I am more disappointed that you’re small enough to wear my clothes or more depressed that my bike clothes are big enough for a man to wear.”

“Well, I think the key to remember here is that those shorts are spandex. They stretch a lot.” He was trying really hard to make us both feel a measure better.

“I’m going to need to go shopping tomorrow,” I told him.

“For new bike shorts?” he replied.

“Yep. I mean, I can’t wash those shorts in water hot enough to undo the damage you’ve done to them.”

“Listen,” he said, “this is as bad for me as it is for you. Let’s not speak of this ever again.”

I agreed. And then, for extra insurance that he never carelessly places his Schweddy balls in my bike shorts again, I wrote a blog about it. 😉

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A Diversified Life Portfolio

A little path leading somewhere unexpected.

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today is my birthday. I am forty-freaking-four. Trust me. There are a lot of “F” words there for a reason. While I can’t believe I’m this old, I’m grateful to have made it this far. This morning, after sucking down the latte hubby brought me for breakfast, I decided to go for a walk. We’re up at our home away from home in Steamboat Springs, and there are lots of trails within walking distance of our house. So, I leashed up the dog and headed out while Steve took the kids swimming.

The trails around here are not deliberate. They meander as if the persons first traversing the area weren’t quite sure which was the optimal way to travel. Each path ends in a fork. It’s quite easy to get turned around and forget from which direction you came. As Ruby and I traipsed along turning this way and that, I thought about how today’s walk was a metaphor for my life because I am a wanderer perpetually sauntering in a new direction.

I’ve always admired people who are driven, who found their calling early in life and pursued it with a relentless passion and a fervor for success. I have admired those people because I’m not one of them. Although I am motivated when I find something that interests me, I’ve discovered too many things that intrigue and inspire me. I’ve been a bit ADD and, throughout my 44 years, I’ve flitted from thing to thing seeing what each had to offer. Consequently, if you look at the sum total of what I’ve accomplished in terms of measurable career achievements, my work resume is fairly flimsy. It’s a hodgepodge of eclectic jobs, from retail manager to meeting planner, from library research assistant to communications specialist. I’ve cleaned houses, rented cars, and handled the drive-up lane at a bank. I’ve managed movie theaters, merchandise, and people. I’ve been all over the map, and my resume reflects that. It is what it is. I’ll never be a woman with an enviable career, and I’ve had to come to terms with that because before I knew myself better I planned to measure my success with a brilliant curriculum vitae.

My path through life has been like the flight of a butterfly, erratic and seemingly directionless. There is a beauty to the rambling that I’ve done, though. Because of my ardent, if temporary, interest in so many things, I’ve learned a little bit about a lot of what life has to offer. I’ve studied French, Spanish, and Italian, and spent a year and a half learning to translate Latin. I’ve been artsy and tried painting, jewelry making, paper crafting, scrapbooking, drawing, and needlepoint. I’ve taken classes in cake decorating, rock climbing, drama, baking, tap and swing dancing, cooking and culinary skills, and burlesque. I’ve tried my hand at athletics: tennis, golf, gymnastics, water skiing, snow skiing, snowboarding, road cycling, sea kayaking, mountain biking, softball, canoeing, and yoga. I can twirl a baton, bake an awesome pear and almond galette, and point out some constellations or tell you about your astrological sign. I can still turn a cartwheel and do a headstand at 44, and I think that’s pretty cool.

So, I guess what I’ve discovered about myself after all these many years on this planet is that although I may not have a very impressive resume, I’ve got a fairly diversified life portfolio. Without consciously acknowledging it, I’ve been taking Emerson’s advice and making lots of experiments. And, I’m not finished yet. There are a multitude of things I’ve yet to try that are on my long to-do list. For example, I’m still looking for a friend who is willing to jump from a perfectly good airplane with me on a future adventure. If you’re looking for something to add to your life portfolio, maybe a little skydiving is in order?

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