Vegan Low-Fat Peanut Butter Blossoms

I’m a big fan of Happy Herbivore, and am on a group on Facebook for fans. One member asked about a HH-ized peanut butter blossom. She found a recipe she liked and blogged it (see the link). Meanwhile, I made HH’s nutty spread yesterday, a low-fat peanut butter alternative, and then wanted to make cookies for Simon but didn’t feel like doing sugar cookies, my usual. I thought of the nutty spread, which uses white beans, remembered HH’s butter bean cookies, and thought – why not combine them? This is the delicious, healthy result!

Vegan, Low-Fat Peanut Butter Blossoms
makes 2 dozen cookies

Notes: Food processor is required. You cannot bake the cookies and then press in a choco kiss (not vegan anyway) because the cookies puff and the edges are chewy. You could use more chocolate chips if you prefer, and maybe sprinkle them on top of the cookie rather than in it, but the nutritional information will change.

1 cup oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup nutty spread (or 1T peanut butter, 1/2 cup cooked white beans, 1 T water, and salt to taste)
1/2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
scant 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 t vanilla
3 T soy milk
1/3 cup chocolate chips

1. Pulse the oats a few times till crumbly but not powdery. In large bowl, whisk with flours, soda, and powder. Set aside.
2. Combine nutty spread (or ingredients for it), applesauce, sugars, milk, and vanilla and pulse until completely smooth. Stir wet into dry until combined. Mix in chips. Dough will be very sticky!
3. Divide into 24 balls and flatten on sprayed cookie sheet.
4. Bake at 350* for 10-12 minutes until edges are just browned. Store cookies in an airtight container. Because of the lack of fat, they will dry out a bit after 24 hours… if they last that long.

Nutritional information (per cookie): 74 cals, 1.6g fat (!), 1.6g protein, 7p sugar

Loss

Don’t forget the 1k contest – enter through Sunday. Spread the word. ~

I’m struggling to write this post today, friends. I know what I want to talk about, but not what I want to say. Really, I want to express the wide sense of loss, how one feels loss – the disconnect between the feelings and the reality sometimes, why we feel loss … loss. It’s a big topic. So. We’ll start at the basics.

LOSS: 1 : destruction, ruin
- Merriam Webster

When I think of loss, the thing that overwhelms me is its immutability. Loss is a hope killer, and the one thing people – me, anyway – thrive on is hope. We have to believe things can change. Loss flattens it. There is no going back.

There is no going back. That is loss. Even in a less fraught scenario, say you lose your wallet but you get it back – there is still no going back, even if the item is returned, or the person found. You will always remember the panic, the hopelessness. Just because the net’s restrung beneath you, you can never forget what it’s like when it’s gone. That is loss.

As I move through the Official Divorce Proceedings, the loss has hit me again. I went through the entire grief process already; one of the luxuries of being the leaver is doing that in your own time, and more than likely before the marriage actually ends. But it’s more a cycle than a process, and every iteration is different. Yes, I chose to end my marriage. I have my reasons; I think they’re good ones. But it’s still a significant change, an ending.

I didn’t want to talk about the divorce directly on the blog. I know, I write YA; this is un-relatable to teens and no one wants to hear it anyway. But it’s an incredible stressor and these are where my thoughts wander. I’m not looking for sympathy or anything like that, and note I’m not posting any actual details. I won’t. But I would like to ruminate on loss, and this is my context for doing so.

The problem with something like loss is there are no good ways to put the words (I believe I’ve said this before). There is no way to talk about loss that feels right. Loss is something for the dark; we don’t want to talk about it, to draw it out into the open and say, look. This is me, vulnerable, without. This is me in my fear, in my helplessness, sans hope. This is me.

A radio lives in the gym; it’s always tuned to the local hip hop/R&B station. And every time I’m there, this one song comes on. Beyonce. The Best Thing I Never Had. Here’s some of the lyrics:

I bet it sucks to be you right now
So sad, you’re hurt
Boo hoo, oh, did you expect me to care?
You don’t deserve my tears
I guess that’s why they ain’t there

I may have started crying on the cross-trainer finally. Because – no offense to Beyonce or her song-writers – how can you trivialize relationships like that? How can we ever experience loss ourselves and still be so hurtful? I get the anger; I’ve been in that stage. I get that some people really are asses. Oh, believe me. And yet – even then, they’re still people. They still hurt and hope and love and lose. I hate how we brush off these feelings, how we cocoon to protect ourselves. We don’t let anyone see our pain and we live with it ourselves. It’s sad that this is easier to do than share it. Or worse, how in protecting ourselves, we hurt others. We ignore them or shut them down, as though their experience is lesser or undeserving of the same depth. We dehumanize them, so that our own experience is amplified against the blankness of other people. We make their pain abstract, or non-existent, which makes our own that much more acute.

That’s why love is the scariest, absolutely hands-down, the scariest endeavor ever. The more we love, the more we have to lose, and haven’t we just been over how much that sucks? I once defined love as leaning over the abyss and hoping nobody pushes you. (I’m such a romantic.) But I find love and loss to be at opposite ends. Because love is an opening, a daring, a belief. It’s taking broken pieces and seeing beauty in them anyway. Love is the bravest thing we can do. I think it can transcend itself; that in taking that risk, if we do it right, love can be safe. That’s why I put it opposite loss. Because it can unite, calm, instill hope. Everything that loss shatters, love can restore.

I couldn’t leave you on such a down note, could I?

Learn to Cook: A Primer (Part II)

I thought I’d continue my thoughts on cooking (especially Whole Foods Plant-Based) with a bit more pragmatic tips.

1. Observe the one-in-reserve rule: as soon as you open, say, your last jar of marinara, put it on the grocery list. If you actually keep your pantry stocked, you’ll never be at a loss to cook at home.

2. Cooking takes time. Real cooking takes more time. Just as my main point in Part I is that you need to rethink cooking completely, this is probably the biggest hurdle to most would-be home cooks. Everyone wants to have dinner on the table in 20 minutes or less. If you’re using whole foods, that’s nearly impossible. Chopping can take twenty minutes. (You can buy pre-cut veggies at the supermarket. Nobody’s going to judge you! You’re eating vegetables!) I budget a half hour for breakfast and lunch and at least an hour for dinner.

The thing is, often people are rushing – to go nowhere. That time spent catching up on five different television shows? Could be used to eat healthy, real food. There are plenty of families running between ten different activities for their children, but it can still be done with forethought and planning. Honestly, you can do all that chopping with a TV on in the background, even.

3. Some ways to do this faster and with less anxiety: frozen veggies are your friend, and just as healthy as fresh. Pre-chopped veggies are your friend, though more expensive. Think in stages. If you want to make a casserole for dinner tomorrow night, you might make the rice tonight and pop it in the fridge. Chop the veggies in the morning before work. Double recipe components like sauces or doughs, or cook double batches of beans or rice, so you can throw together another meal later. It’s often said we make the time for the things that are important to us. Choose to make cooking a priority. Breakfasts can be dinner – oats are very quick to make and filling (you can make savory oats, by the way. Try it!) And dinner leftovers can be a quick grab-and-go breakfast!

4. Good snacks can be a meal. Especially for people in a real hurry, having healthy, hearty snacks can be a complete lifesaver. A full baggie of veggie sticks with a portable of hummus with a couple pieces of fruit can carry me for a lunch.  (And who says you only need to eat one piece of fruit or one vegetable with each meal? The more the better. There are days when I eat two bananas or two apples in addition to my meals because I’m just hungrier!) You may need to eat more often with these smaller meals, but if the alternative to healthy mini-meals is buying a salt- and fat-laden, overly-large portioned plate out, what have you got to lose (besides weight, potentially)?

5. I’ve talked about this before, but shop local farm stands and independent grocers, and also hit up your local Indian or Asian markets. (Live in the boonies? The internet has everything.) Experiment with cuisines you’re not used to – you may find something new to love, and you don’t have to overcome your expectations that it’s not JUST LIKE your old, unhealthy versions.

How to Get a Job: Interviews

A quick break from Foodie Fridays for a practical post. I love my current job at the nursery school/after-care program. But finances and the end of the school year approaching meant it was time to look for something more, and thankfully I found a job that lets me finish out the school year with the after-care program and utilizes my clerical skill set. I’m excited to see how it goes. I’ve applied for and gotten quite a few jobs over the years, some that have worked out and others that I decided in orientation or after interviewing weren’t for me. I’ve learned several things which I wanted to write up in one place, and hopefully they’ll be helpful. These tips focus solely on interviewing, but maybe I’ll write up some for resumes and cover letters, too.

1. Wear good shoes.

Every interview advice article you read will tell you to dress professionally and blandly. A suit, minimal jewelry, whatever. This is true…. ish. I wear my suit, but I always wear killer (though still appropriate) heels. It doesn’t matter if the interviewer is male or female; this will be noticed, but because you look professional, it’s simply memorable, and you stand out as someone who goes the extra step (no pun intended.)

2. Remember the Three A’s!

Articulate – Practice your answers to common interview questions, or at least know what you’re going to say. Don’t mumble. Take your time before answering a question, and have some of your own prepared. If the interviewer is a talker, it’s okay to say, “Actually, you’ve answered a lot of my questions already, thank you for being so up-front about your business!”

Amicable – Be personable. It really should go without saying, but ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘nice to meet you’, and ‘I look forward to hearing from you’ should all come out of your mouth. Be yourself; don’t try to tell the interviewer what you think she or he wants to hear. Also be agreeable; if the company has a policy that is a deal-breaker for you, you can kindly say so and thank the interviewer for his or her time and end the interview. But likewise, be flexible; if the job is one you could do well and would be a good fit for you in most ways, don’t be too stringent. “Perfect” jobs are rare.

Attractive – I wanted to be alliterative, but this just means clean yourself up. Comb your hair! Don’t throw it in a sad ponytail. Wash your face and at least put on some lip gloss. Wear your best clothes, even if your regular wardrobe for the job isn’t quite as high end. Go the extra mile. If you look good, you’ll feel more confident, and that will be the most attractive thing of all. And don’t forget tip 1!

3. Professional trumps personable.

You are not trying to become your interviewer’s best friend. You want to convince them you’re capable. Being friendly is a plus, but being too friendly could make you seem almost a push over. I learned this during a group interview. We all arrived early and got to talking while we waited, and one girl was extremely chatty (possibly out of nervousness). What was initially nice quickly turned somewhat trying, as it seemed she had poor boundaries and failed to recognize the appropriateness of time and place. While employers obviously want a team player who will put their clients at ease, they more so want someone capable of doing the job right. This means being able to read a situation and react in context.

I can’t promise you’ll get every job you interview for, but I can promise you’ll have done everything you could to get it. Of course, applying for jobs you aren’t qualified for is an easy way to never hear from an employer. Lying is another thing. It goes without saying. Don’t invent MBA’s, okay? And I can promise there’ll be another tasty recipe going up next week!

Nothing Is Sacred

I love my editor.

No, really. I call her Editor of Awesome Kate for a reason. We go back to, like, March of last year, when she first rejected AFTER YOU. (Betcha didn’t know that, didja?) But she said she loved it; it just needed work. A lot of work. And if I did that work, she would look at it again. I had more than one letter like that, but I have to tell you, just reading Kate’s rejection made me excited. This may or may not be how you know you have found the right editor for you, because yeah, I just used rejection and excited in the same sentence. The things she wrote I needed to do, in summary, were so obvious when she said them that way, and sparked so many ideas in my head, I just had to revise for her. I did, and then she bought it. Yay! And we’ve been working on AY since.

Kate writes the best edit letters. I know some writers get really scared, because it’s like, “Oh, god, twelve pages single spaced, someone just put me out of my misery,” and I get it. But Kate is a brainstormy kind of editor, so half those pages are her just batting around ideas and what-ifs for me. Which is so freaking inspiring. I would definitely say that working with Kate and Super Agent Suzie has taught me how to revise. It was never my strength; I’ve always preferred to draft, and am good at it. I write clean drafts; unfortunately, half the scenes might not make it into the finished story. C’est la vie.

I realized this, how this past year of revision has been a writer growth spurt, this weekend when I finally caught up to myself in the new version of AFTER YOU. I’m calling it a rewrite instead of a revision because the changes are so massive. I wrote something like 50 pages before I could even open the old file, if that’s any indication. So when I finally got to take the old first scene of AY and put it into the new file and begin revising it to fit, it was like a light bulb had gone off in my head. I could see the things that didn’t work in it so much more clearly now that I had put it where it should go – as the first turning point, not the opening.

And I never would have gotten to do this, to learn, if Kate hadn’t pushed the book back and let me go at it. I am so grateful for the opportunity and so humbled to have such a great editor and agent who believe in my writing. I went through this same thing in 2009, I felt burnt out and didn’t finish anything I started; I’d described it as feeling like I was trying to chip away a brick wall with a spoon, and the past couple rounds of revision felt like that. Lilith Saintcrow in 2009 had said it sounded like I was having a “growth spurt”, and she’d been right. When it settled, I knew it. I wrote three novels in under a year, including the original draft of AFTER YOU.

This growth spurt has settled, and this time I was learning revision. And the key is something Kate said in her most recent edit letter. We already knew she’d be on leave for a few months, so I’d have time to do an extensive revision. We knew we wanted to make the book bigger, and that we were too close to it, the forest for the trees and all that. Kate said, “Basically, I’d love for us to put it all on the table in this revision.” The light bulb didn’t just click on, that thing blazed so bright it hurt my eyes. In the previous revisions, I’d been treating it like some sort of Rubik’s cube, where once something lined up I couldn’t mess with it and just kept trying to solve for all the colors. Instead, when I’d change something, the things that were already lined up didn’t fit anymore, but I didn’t see it because I thought, I’d already dealt with those colors. Kate’s suggestion I question everything freed me.  Revision is exactly that, a re-visioning of the story. And that sounds pretty but it doesn’t really mean anything until you internalize it for yourself. I have two takeaways from this.

First, it means nothing is sacred. If I write the first draft of a story about a zookeeper who loses his wife in a motorcycle accident, ALL of those elements could get cut or morph into something else. I could wind up with a finished book about a ten-year-old girl who facilitates a romance between her estranged parents. How is that the same book, you ask? Well, it isn’t. Why is that a problem? The book becomes what it has to in the end, which leads to my next point.

Second, a story must have a heart. How do you decide what to keep or what needs to change? You have to have a guiding principle. A plot arc, a character arc, both, right? All good stories need those things. But, well, again, the entire plot is negotiable. The character is negotiable. If they aren’t, it’s because they’re intricately connected to your vision for the book, and that is what a revision is – a sculptor chipping away all that the marble isn’t so what it is can emerge. And it might not be what you thought it was at first; you might have had to write a widowed zookeeper to figure out what really fascinated you was the way people respond to loss, and that is actually your vision. I hesitate to say theme; when I discuss these ideas with Hypothetical Boyfriend (also a writer), I will use the phrase, “what I want to say,” which is theme in its own way, but again, not every story “must say something,” it is more, I think, “what I’m trying to do here.” Because every writer is trying to do something with their story, even if it’s just push their understanding of the craft.

I knew all of this about revision in my head, but it wasn’t until I’d gone through the process with Editor of Awesome Kate that I began to internalize it, to really understand it. I hope AFTER YOU will be that much richer for it, and I know, at least, I’ll always be grateful to Kate for the lesson.

One Life

I heard recently about a young woman who committed suicide, leaving behind three small children. She’d made other attempts, and finally “succeeded.” I don’t know any of her story beyond that, but it’s enough. My heart goes out to her family. If you or anyone you know has thoughts of self-harm, please go here for help. You are not alone, and you don’t need to fight alone. As someone who has suffered from depression, I know how one gets to that point. I write about it in AFTER YOU, to an extent.

Only in my novel, Camilla gets a chance to stop her sister from committing suicide. She rewinds time over and over again to try and convince Maddy not to do it. At one point, Maddy says, “I only get once, Cam.” We all only get once. It’s an idea I keep coming back to.

My life has not been an easy one. I won’t give you a sob story; you know if you’ve read my blog that both of my parents are deceased. (20 years on Friday for Dad.) Oh, do I wish things were different. All the time. And yet when people say, hey, you wrote a time travel book, what would you change if you could, I always say the same thing: nothing. We only get once. I often feel the loss of my parents; this weekend was very acute. I love my sister very much, but she doesn’t live close by. I think that as I recognize there are no do-overs, I’m learning to be kinder. No one needs additional burdens than what a life can throw at them without help. I sincerely regret the pain that I’ve caused people. I have learned from it, if even only to be humbled. I can’t undo it. We only get once.

A life is a long time, even one cut tragically short like the woman I heard about. Cam finally recognizes that “suicide isn’t an accident. It’s an accumulation of burdens: ignorance, apathy, guilt, shame, disappointment, worthlessness. They pile on you until you can’t see the way out, if there is one. And if there is, you’re too tired to look for it, to try to climb out from under those demons.” And the thing is, these things wear at us. Life is like your very best dress, the one you spent way too much money on that you don’t even have an event in mind to wear it to: you keep it in its dressing bag. You don’t wear it everywhere, wrinkle it, throw it on the floor of the closet, run it through the washer. You treat it gently, kindly, in respect for the fact it is your best, and your only, and you paid a lot of money for it. You know?

It’s a stupid analogy, but I think we forget a lot just how precious life is. We only get once. All the little moments we have add up to one entire life. How are you spending yours? Are you locked in a cycle of self-hate? Do you perpetuate drama to distract yourself from the root of your problems, whatever issues you haven’t dealt with? Do you simply waste too much time on things that don’t matter, or energy on emotions that ultimately hurt you? Are you perpetually stressed by things outside your control and need to come to terms with what you can and can’t be responsible for? (I speak here to myself.)

There is so much good in a life, so much that one life can hold, that we only need one. But a life is for living, and living is messy. We need to be gentler, kinder, more loving where we can. We can’t undo things like Camilla can in my book. We learn. We grow, because of the things we can’t undo – whether things that happen to us or that we do, both good and bad. And that’s not a bad thing.

Self-Hate

So. Self-hate. We all have it to some extent. We’re hardest on ourselves. We don’t forgive the tiniest gaffs in ourselves when we’ll overlook huge mistakes by others. The Bible talks about taking the plank from your own eye before pointing out your brother’s speck, and we do that, sure, but frequently we just jam more planks at our faces.

I used to struggle with this a lot. As someone who suffered from crippling  depression and who still suffers from crippling anxiety, self-hate was a given. I hated the problems I had, I hated that I had no control over them, or that I failed at what I could control. I didn’t think I was worth anything to anyone, and certainly didn’t deserve any better. I know a lot of people can relate to that, even if you wouldn’t say hate outright.

I don’t struggle with this one anymore. (In fact, now I’m actively trying to check my ego. Life is a funny thing.) I didn’t do any kind of miracle therapy. I started thinking positive thoughts. I’m sure this is a general form of therapy, but I never had any plan formally. So, I would just tell myself I was awesome (not out loud). I would surround myself with people who loved me and would make sure I took care of myself. I would give myself permission to vent all over them, and then ask if they needed me to shut up, and because they loved me they would say, you’re fine, keep going, and I would. I stopped second-guessing everything – things were what they were. And slowly, very slowly, I began to objectively see that my life was pretty good. From there, I was able to internalize that my life was *my* life, and I had something to do with it being awesome, and therefore I was kind of awesome. It finally occurred to me that I had this awesome life and the only thing holding me back from enjoying it was myself, which was kind of weird, so I gave myself permission to be happy. No, really, I actually told myself that.

I also tried the fake it till you make it method of pretending I was hot shit until other people thought I was hot shit, and so then I was. Because that’s a cyclical ego boost – if other people think you’re cool, thus you are cool, then more people think you’re cool. Etc. Talking kindly to myself was really the backbone of the change. If I didn’t get done what I needed to, I told myself it did not mean I was a failure, I could do the things tomorrow, and maybe today I just needed that nap. “It’s okay” is kind of my new motto, despite all the motivational quotes I adore. Have a slice of chocolate cake for dinner? You know what, go head, tomorrow’s a running day. Feel sick from eating cake for dinner? Lie down for a while. The writing will be there when you get up. I really just needed to lighten up. Maybe for you it’s the opposite, maybe for you it’s stop eating chocolate every time you sit down, or, maybe you should close twitter for half an hour every day. Start small, but be kind.

Life is complex. Life is hard. You only get one, and you have to get through it. You may remember me talking about superjess and how I just had to get THROUGH my workout, I didn’t have to be the best runner ever. Life is a lot like that. If you’re getting through it, we call that a win. Tackling my self-hate truly began simply by being nicer to myself.

That doesn’t mean I don’t hold myself accountable, by the way. It’s not like anything goes and I’m awesome. I fuck up. I *fuck up.* And it hurts, and I hurt people. And I apologize and I have to forgive myself, and maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but I don’t have to entangle my self-worth with that. I can still be a good person who made a mistake. Most people would agree that that’s a description of most other people. So why not themselves?

Don’t let yourself give in to feelings of low self-worth or even hatred. It’s an excuse, really, to not take responsibility  for the successes in your life. It’s easier to own the failures. You’ve already failed, you’re already at the bottom. But if you’re not a failure, you could lose something. You could stop succeeding, you could then become one. It’s easier to accept when you’re already at the bottom than the loss of getting there. There’s no ping-ponging between okay and not okay. You’re just not okay, and you can accept it. And the other part of it is that what if you’re doing your best and you still fail? The self-hate will be right, then, won’t it? NO. No, a million times no. If you’re doing the best you can, you’re succeeding. You are living your life in the only way one can: wholly. Self-hate says don’t even try. Says your best isn’t good enough. Maybe it’s cos I’m a writer but I think semantically self-hate’s got that wrong – your best is just that – the very best you can do, to the best of your knowledge. If you’re giving that, you can’t give anything else. You can’t give any more.

Self-hate cuts you off before you even get going. Don’t let it. Be kind to yourself. If you have to write a list of things about you that are worthwhile, do it. Keep it private, or if you need to, ask friends what they like about you and compile their answers. If you’re having trouble looking directly at yourself, start externally and work your way in: say, you have a job and a best friend. Well, you’re at least a competently functional member of society. I’m not even joking: the bar can be as low as you need it to be to get over it, then keep raising it. But do keep raising it. When you catch yourself thinking you’re a mess, you need to separate that thought: are you a mess or are you a person in a messy situation? the latter, yes? well then stop equating yourself with your circumstances. language matters, if you’re reading my blog chances are you believe that. so USE your language.

This topic means a lot to me because I do believe that the thing that holds us back most in our lives is ourselves, not our circumstances. and because having been there and now been here, I can tell you where I’d rather be. and because it’s hard to love people who don’t love themselves, because you can see the ways they’re awesome that they won’t admit. So on that note, if you’re friends with anyone at all, don’t forget to tell them things you like about them. why you’re their friend. maybe their self-esteem is just fine, they’ll be glad to hear it. and maybe their self-esteem isn’t, and you’ve just given them something to hold on to.

The latter point is where I’m at now, having friends who don’t love themselves, and it’s opening up a whole new area of this topic for me. I’ve only struggled with it myself and not been able to see past my own issue. Now I can see it in my friends, and it makes me upset. Think of it this way: you like me; you think I’m smart and have good sense and impeccable taste, right? If I choose to be your friend and love you, chances are my judgment didn’t suddenly swan dive. More than likely, you are an awesome person I want to be around. Don’t devalue my choice by refusing to believe that.

You are a good person. Yes, you, whoever you are. I may not know you personally, but I believe this. You are worthwhile. You have talents and above all, you are lovable. The first person who should get to love you is you.

I’m Divorced

I’ve been sitting on this news for a little while now trying to make sense of it. I don’t know that I can. Yet I find significance in being able to post it directly following the love and hope posts.

In my head I’ve been divorced for eight months, since the day the court recognizes as the last one of my marriage. But the divorce itself was only finalized this month. February 8. It’s such a random date. 2/8/2012. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love even numbers and yet I can’t help liking these.

I’ve been trying to sum up what this means to me, but I keep coming up somewhat bemused.

The papers I can’t stop staring at, the official court wording and the notary seal and the judge’s signature – I have no idea who you are, Judge Brennan, but thank you for signing off on my divorce – they mean something different to me than simply the fact I’m no longer married. They’re not just the legal technicality to something that happened last year, though they are that.

They are proof, evidence, that I claimed my life. That I am strong and brave and honest with myself and am allowed to have needs and to be myself and so much else of what I spend my time blogging about. They state clearly, life is to be lived. Not just passed through. Not hugged along the sidelines of, crept through. Lived. (I finally started crying now. I wondered if I would get through the post without doing so. Nope.) These papers are precious.

And I have so much to say to so many people who were – are – affected by these papers: I’m sorry. I’m sorry I handled things poorly. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth sooner, or at all. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry you hurt. I’m sorry I can’t talk to you, don’t know how to talk to you, don’t have anything to say to you. I’m sorry the things you thought we had in common, we don’t, and the person you thought I was, I’m not. I’m sorry it took me so long to figure that out. I’m sorry.

I have so much to say to so many other people, the ones who’ve handed me pieces of myself over the past eight months: thank you. thankyouthankyouthankyou.

When the papers came, I dug out the books I read last year, the ones that really helped me. In Contemplating Divorce, Susan Pease Gadoua writes,

Like me on the diving board, you may have stayed in your marriage and contemplated all that could go wrong if you divorced and all the reasons you shouldn’t jump. It’s a healthy form of self-preservation to consider the ways in which you or others around you could get hurt. Until something forces you to jump or until you can find a logical reason to risk everything you’ve worked so hard for, you stand there on the ledge.

As you perch on the precipice of what feels like a thirty-thousand-foot-high cliff, you can’t imagine landing on your feet. You can’t even see what you would land on, so why in the world would you willingly jump into this abyss? If you’ve been in an unhappy, unfulfilling, or unhealthy marriage, there is a reason to jump: to get you to a different place in your life.

I jumped and I got to a different place. It hasn’t been that long, or that hard, as these things go, but I’m tired, looking at these papers. I’m happy, even if it’s a subdued happy, glad not to deal with lawyers (even nice ones), glad to have gone through this even when it hurt. I am glad not to be on that ledge anymore, grateful for all the pebbles that piled up till I tipped myself over. The loss still lingers, will linger. I am not without scars. But you know what I am more than anything?

Optimistic. My hope today is not a fragile thing; today it holds worlds. I can’t wait to see what’s in them.

My friend Kate brought Magic Hat beer to our New Year’s celebration. I’ve mentioned this before, but it still resonates with me, the synchronicity. They put little sayings on their caps. I opened the one that said, “What exactly are you waiting for?”

There is a reason to jump.

Hope

This is a follow-up to the love post, written separately because it’s more about hope than love. Tune in next Friday for the Book of the Month! (Hint: Joshilyn. Jackson. ZOMG.)

I didn’t remember that I had talked about love in my post on loss, to include in the love post or I would’ve, but it fits better here.

That’s why love is the scariest, absolutely hands-down, the scariest endeavor ever. The more we love, the more we have to lose, and haven’t we just been over how much that sucks? I once defined love as leaning over the abyss and hoping nobody pushes you. (I’m such a romantic.) But I find love and loss to be at opposite ends. Because love is an opening, a daring, a belief. It’s taking broken pieces and seeing beauty in them anyway. Love is the bravest thing we can do. I think it can transcend itself; that in taking that risk, if we do it right, love can be safe. That’s why I put it opposite loss. Because it can unite, calm, instill hope. Everything that loss shatters, love can restore.

This is why I think love and hope are so entwined. Love is hope in action.

I am in a position to be hopeful. My divorce is nearly final. My finances are sorted. My book is almost out of revision; I’m working on new projects. I’m looking forward intentionally. I have wants, and some needs. I allow myself that.

My hope is a fragile thing. It balances on a razor’s edge. I am fearful for it, fearful to indulge it. To let it grow any bigger. I am afraid to hope, a little.

And yet I do, anyway. I hope recklessly, even painfully. I let it swell and totter and maybe even get nicked every now and again. My hope flutters like paper-thin butterfly wings. Beautiful and delicate.

But what choice do I have?

I cannot remain tight in the bud (Nin). I cannot let the fear win. Hope is like faith. If you had a guarantee, you wouldn’t need it. That’s the entire point.

I want to believe in things. For all the older-than-years I feel and can come across, I am still young. I am sometimes naive, and innocent. In this I try to be. I want to believe. So I do, if you give me enough to hope, to believe in. Tawna asked about your favorite words, and mine were, “I believe in you.” They have so much power. To have someone believe in me – wow. It’s humbling, so for me to offer it to someone else – it’s hope, pure hope. It’s me saying, I trust you with a part of me that can break, and I will forgive you if you break it, but I don’t think you will.

Even now as I sit in this Starbucks, caffeine absorbing into my pores, the lunch rush burbling around me, I take a deep breath and HOPE, hugely. My tag says “Ideas are not people,” to remind me we have to invest in people, not ideas, that ideas don’t make things happen, people do. That concepts don’t give hugs when you’re sad. But they are fuel; they are compass; they are the things that light us up.

I am alight with hope. Right now, in this moment. Whether or not what I hope comes to pass is, in this moment, nearly irrelevant. It is for then. It is not now. Now, I believe in you.

On Friendship, Thoughts

Sometimes I feel small.

I’ve been sick all weekend with the plague, worried about things – money, my revisions, money, several dear friends going through hell, impending loss of health insurance, but mostly those dear friends. I feel helpless, frustrated, and small.

Which is ironic since I was just talking about this all last week, no?

Thing is, this is purely situational. I hate seeing my friends hurt. I hate being hurt. I hate hurting people. It sucks all around. I just want the situations to resolve, to end.

The similarities on the surface between how I felt and what I wanted when I felt like this years ago, as I talked about last week, and how I feel and what I want now are striking.

And yet, looking further, so very different.

I feel helpless because I am helpless. I can’t fix the problems my friends have; I can’t usher in a resolution. I feel small because these situations make me see how big the world is and how complicated. And frustrated because, well, wouldn’t you be? I’ve never been a patient person and my friends don’t have timelines on their problems. I wish they did. Endurance is easier when you know there’s a finish line, and where it is.

So I find myself in a familiar place.

But I am not the same person standing there. And that is the most important difference.

I have seen that I am not always helpless, that I can choose to act, that I am strong, and brave. I have dug deep into myself and become more self-aware and authentic. I am not small. I can see my frustration is borne out of a desire to do something. I don’t have to let it control me, knowing I can’t do anything.

I hope my friends can move through their problems soon and with minimal damage. Oh, do I. The thing about authenticity and the relationships it fosters is that you feel a lot more, and deeper. So I know my friends feel even worse than I do. I just hope that as they stand in that familiar place, they are not the person I used to be, either, and that they know they aren’t standing there alone.