life done write

Week three brings us to Do What You Love, Make People Laugh and Love Others. This week’s major challenge is that I’ll be out of town for part of it. The good news is that I’ll be out of town Loving Others—aka. helping my aunt have her first garage sale—and Doing What I Love—aka. clearing clutter by taking a few things down to the yard sale. Maybe I’ll even make back my bike and blender investment.

As we speak, I’m also making a list of other things I might be able to do to work toward my goals. I’m not as sure this week—don’t have as many concrete things in mind. But stay tuned, I’m sure something interesting will come of it.

After I wrote about eating artichokes, I continued to think about the things that make me happy (and therefore more pleasant to be around) vs. the things that make me more stressed or worse off. From that thought process, and from observing myself during that thought process, I’ve come up with another way to look at it. Something that Gretchen Rubin also does in her book: writing out self commandments. She has 12; I have a few more than that. They are:

Get up early
Focus on the positive
Be wholehearted
Learn new things
Write every day
Take notes
Love others
Do what you love
Make people laugh
Take long walks
Read good books
Spend time outside
Take Luna with you
Eat real food
Publish other people’s stories
Keep a change of clothes on hand
Try new things
Go without a plan
Have fun at work

I think (but don’t hold me to this) I’m going to take the time to explore each of these things in detail over the next few months. I may also package them (spend time outside; take long walks; take Luna with you all feel very similar and simple to do side-by-side).

After all, I know these things are good for me. I know I’m at my best when I’m doing them. Yet I don’t always do them. And I certainly don’t always do them consciously. So, here goes. Self improvement gimmick three-hundred-twenty-seven-and-a-half.

Can everyone please stop trying to compare a rock to a feather?

Today on the radio, my favorite current show hosts were discussing a theory. A theory put forth by a friend of one of the hosts. A theory that goes something like this:

Imagine you’re a taco shop owner. You love tacos. And so you own a taco shop. Sometimes, though, you would like some pizza. Tasty, tasty pizza. You ask the taco shop staff to make you a pizza and they tell your crazy ass to go to the pizza shop. So, you do and you eat some pizza.

The next thing out of their mouths was: so, are you cheating on the taco shop?

The whole idea being that if someone wants something else from their relationship, they can go somewhere else.

You gotta love how some skeezy, cheating guy thought this was an excellent argument for doing whatever he likes to whomever he likes. When in reality, you can’t compare things that are comparable.

As an example, let’s review another scenario:

Let’s say that you’re still a taco shop owner. And you own the taco shop for four years. And then you decide that, as an entrepreneur, you are ready to move on to a new venture. So you sell the taco shop. And you buy the pizza shop.

Okay, now instead of comparing this to a relationship between a man and a woman, let’s now compare it just as arbitrarily to the relationship between a father and a child. Does this pizza shop analogy make anyone feel better about fathers who abandon their children?

No, it doesn’t. The reason being the two scenarios are not even sort of kind of related. You can’t compare people with feelings and hopes and morality to inanimate objects or ideas. It just doesn’t work.

What is wrong with people?

In 2009 (to put it mildly) the stars were not aligned.

There were a thousand things leading to a breaking point: losing Peter Pan; the fact that he wanted to cheat on me–and told me so; my mother’s accusations after the breakup; my father calling me selfish, then taking it back; a thousand questions about whether or not I was going to Save My Soul by sitting in a church pew; the loss of two dear friends; others far away; the mechanic breaking the jeep door, which caused me to hit another car with the door and pay out more than $300; my sister pawning my grandmother’s ring; my first car accident; my first side-of-the-road breakdown; a broken bathtub; an inconsiderate apartment complex; the constant pressure at work to WORK MORE, OH MY GOD, MORE; bad dates; worse dates; self-sabotaged dates; doctor’s office bills; nightmares; pills; more bills.

I tried everything this year: I Traveled Denver. I went to concerts. I took long, hot baths and read long, decadent books. I napped in the middle of my Saturdays. I went to Therapy. I took pills. Everything worked. But only for a minute.

The change in the air, the hope for next year’s stars to fall back into line, the real cure came in the latter part of the year. In the form of a tiny, sleepy-looking puppy in a pet store window.

I stayed in that pet store, holding her, for three hours. I pressed my face into her fur, looked into her eyes, carried her through the store and talked to her.

And then I tore through everything—comfort, resources, time—to have her. Those brief, happy moments meant everything to me.

And thus The Moon—the tiny, shining, soft, independent Moon—saved my life. She outweighs every bad thought, bad feeling, bad idea. She sleeps on my pillow, pressed against my cheek. She needs me desperately. And, in saving her, I save myself.

It is time for a new year. A better year. A year to walk backward and find the girl I left behind sometime in February. A year to forget the bitter and Take Back the sweet. A year to celebrate life, to read more, to learn and to love mercy.

The year of The Moon.

Gotta love it.

“Then I see parents at Target — with one kid screaming in the cart, one screaming in their arms — looking as blissful as a cat in a dryer. And I remember to take my pill.”

Read on.