It's Not a Race...But...

8:00 am -- Cup of coffee, cell phone, lap top and red desk calendar (date book)--this has become the customary way for me to start the day before I get to work and actually start the work day. Right or wrong, balanced or not--this is where it's at now.

I love my job.  There, I've said it.  I also loved being able to do so much freelance writing in a previous incarnation but, in all honesty, I don't really miss it.  That is not to say that I won't go back, or that I will always do what I do now--but for the time being 50-60 hours a week (conservative estimate) of focusing on human rights, social justice and progressive social change is more than consuming...

As my 45th birthday approaches, I have been stealing a little time to think about this idea of being "middle aged" and where I fit into the world now.  I feel like my capacity for getting work done is as large as ever, but my ability to settle down, focus and pace myself is far more developed than it was in my 20's or even 30's.  I still make mistakes or find myself trying to figure out how I can do a better job of motivating, mobilizing, or strategizing but I am no longer a young person wondering what I should be doing--the problems are clear, the solutions are not so clear, but the need for effort is obvious!

There is so much to learn in this ever-changing world--sometimes I get impatient around how slow or erratic things can be.  Alas, people don't always move at the pace or in the direction I think they should but I figure it works out fairly because I don't always move at the pace or direction other people think I should. When the thought of being 45 truly sinks in, I get a jolt of panic--there is so much more to do and so little time to do it!  I start pulling out my metaphorical pocket watch and jumping up and down like the White Rabbit: Let's go!

I have always told my kids that life is not a race and it's not.  There are things we can influence and things we cannot (I have learned that we ordinary folk have more influence than we have been led to believe, however.) I know I am extremely lucky to wake up each day with a busy calendar, a list of things to do that is longer than anything I could ever actually get done, and full life where all the pieces bump around against each other and struggle for attention, and an inspiring team of family, friends, cohorts and compadres to share in the journey.  I am reminding myself that while it may not be a race, it is perfectly okay that I get jittery, excited and eager to get off the starting blocks every day!

Sanctuary...

Life has a rhythm...or so we'd like to think.  Teri and I tend to look forward to the month or two after the Christmas holidays as a time to relax, clean, create fresh space, celebrate our birthdays and let life settle back into a cozy, pleasant rhythm.  We are typically ready to recreate our home as sanctuary after the very public holiday season.  Alas, this year, the universe just doesn't seem to want to cooperate.

When my kids were still living at home, even in the tumultuous teenage years, we had a rhythm too.  We'd generally clean and purge their toys and clothes before Christmas and then get the house and our lives in order before they went back to school in January.  Of course, my kids were used to me--my tendency to need order, my determination that dirty laundry wouldn't pile up and everything would have a "home," my obsession with systems to keep things clicking along at a relatively organized pace and I was used to them and their individual personalities.  When Teri and I partnered and moved in together, it took us a while, but we've basically created our own agreements, culture and understanding of how domestic life gets lived.  But, it is no longer just the two of us.

Teri and I have found ourselves very focused lately on this idea of sanctuary; of bolstering our surroundings to support positive energy and the way we feel about each other and our lives.  We've been sorting and cleaning, making decisions about new furniture, rugs, curtains and rearranging things.  We finally asked ourselves if our need to do all this now has anything to do with trying to control our home environment since we no longer have the sort of easy energy that we've been used to.  I know it sounds kind of woo woo, but we both really value peace and think of our home as our fortifying sanctuary.  My kids used to tease me about my use of the word "haven"--I would say, "Our home is our haven!" as a way of bringing things back from the brink of chaos.  Family life and living socially in relationship with others can be a bit chaotic, but it can also be pleasant, peaceful and positive and that is really what Teri and I value.  Even when we first moved in together and we were struggling to put together two completely different and separate lives, we kept the focus on the fact that we both wanted to get through to the other side; we both wanted the same result.

So, we are bumping along a little now in the attempt to both accept things as they are and recreate the sort of environment that feels good and right for us.  We keep turning back toward each other in our way--sometimes with a little bickering, nudging and frustration and sometimes with a sense of absolute teamwork. For us, the outside world is where we do battle and take on the big stuff--home is where we get to be ourselves, enjoy the people we love, and wrap ourselves in the positive healing energy of space and stuff.  Home is the sanctuary...

The Year That Was...

We started this blog back in January as a candid account of our march to the non-traditional, traditional-inspired "aisle."  Just between you and me, that seems like a decade ago!  This year has been so dazzlingly full on all fronts that it may take a while to simply put everything that has gone down into some palatable perspective...

In the past year, Teri and I have planned a wedding; gotten hitched; moved to a new home and neighborhood; volunteered for various projects, boards, committees and events; worked; prepared hundreds of meals; baked dozens of cakes & pies; listened to a lot of troubles; had a ton of laughs; done probably a thousand loads of laundry; opened a hundred cans of cat food; turned over the guest room to the new-to-us teenager; survived a few squabbles and cried a teapot full of tears.  It has been a well-lived twelve months.

It is hard for me to imagine that our version of partnership, this marriage that we are making is very unique or different from the legalized hetero versions.  Our special gay money doesn't buy special gay toilet paper to share with our special gay spawn who are somehow recognizably different from other young 20-somethings.  The macaroni and cheese we make isn't made with special rainbow pasta and lavender cheese (although I know some who might think that dandy.) This past year, we squabbled over the most ordinary of things and got hooked on Mad Men just like everyone else.

So, as we sit here on the eve of 2012, Teri and I are just a couple weeks away from the anniversary of the day we met (on a grey, but dry January day)--what will this coming year bring in terms of job, life, surprises?  Will we be able to keep our health and our senses of humor?  We hope there will be a lot less cake and a lot more travel, but who knows?  Life, after all, is in the details...

The Work Ethic Conundrum

                                                                         
The older I get, the less black and white things seem; the more I understand how my values, beliefs and what I have learned to call morals and ethics are shaped by my heritage, my place and point in history, the education I have received or endured, and everything from socialization to personality.  Even if I share some morals and ethics with a collective, that doesn't mean valid differences don't exist.

I am not my parents or my grandparents--while I know that I have absorbed some of the values and ethics that they had, I am also a product of where, when and how I exist in the world.  Part of the historical, cultural work ethic I was raised with is that it is better to have any job and to give that job 110% (at least) than to NOT be working; if you do your best and show up to work every day regardless, the system will reward you.  Well, my fellow Gen-Xers and I learned that was not necessarily true as we watched our elders get downsized, outsized and stood by as they saw their pensions and savings get consumed by the system they had devoted themselves to.  We saw white people and males succeed at the expense of women and people of color and we saw a lack of vision compensated by greed and irresponsible stewardship.

So, we got educated.  We read books about doing work we loved and finding the right fit for our passions, skills and intellect.  We listened to motivational experts who told us we could make our own opportunities but we would need to not only work hard, but to also work smart.  None of my grandparents graduated from high school and yet they were homeowners, business owners and were all able to retire.  My parents graduated from high school and owned their own home, but worked for companies and corporations and struggled to build up retirement savings that have been pillaged.  I have a college education and I don't even delude myself into thinking I will ever "retire" in any conventionally imagined sense.  I am far less secure than my parents or my grandparents and yet I still consider work to be a representation of character, self-sufficiency and community investment.

What I do bring into my work is an inherited sense of creating opportunity for myself, my family and my work partners through sheer effort.  I'm not willing to lay down my life, but I am willing to do quite a bit and I have benefited from having the education, privilege and health to juggle and balance work and personal, despite spending many years as a single parent and paying my own way through college (slowly.)  My work ethic is some mutated version of "the more you do do, the more you can do."  I expected to have to earn, work, prove and create in order to carve out success and advancement and I also expect that will neither be easy nor fair. Just because it is my set of values, however, doesn't mean it is the only right one.  BUT...

It is always easier to work with people who have a shared understanding of what work ethic is; a mutual commitment to team; people who speak the same language; have the same understanding of both what is said and what is not; those who are like-minded.  Easier, however, is not always best.  If we are all speaking the same language and saying and doing the same things, what languages, ideas, perspectives and voices are NOT being heard?

I have read articles about how work ethic is dead among the younger generations and I confess right here and now that there have been times that I have sat in meetings or looked across a room and thought, for a brief moment, that might actually be true.  But then, I remind myself, that some versions of work ethic might surely be dead, and some might just be different.  I can only truly know my own experience and while it might color how I can appreciate new and different versions, it does not have to impede my ability to adjust.  I have worked just as hard for $7 an hour as I have for a higher salary, but I am not really someone who is motivated by money.  Others are.  I am content to work as part of a team so that the collective can advance.  Others want to be in the spotlight.  I don't need external validation but I do need to see progress in order to feel successful.  Others are content to do tasks without the need to see results.  We are all different--with different weaknesses and motivations, and we exist in completely different contexts despite finding ourselves in the same work environments.  I tend to think in terms of surviving and overcoming, whereas another might feel victimized or at risk of being a victim.  The world doesn't owe me--but I don't appreciate having it stand in my way either.  Others feel that an education, request or implied obligation needs to be met with an immediate response.

So, the point is this is a riddle, a conundrum--there is no simple answer of right or wrong, black or white.  I am not right while someone else is wrong (or vice versa), we are just coming at things from a different place; there are different inherited ancestral voices sitting on our shoulders.   Yes, I confess I would love to work in a world where everyone did equal parts, worked equally hard and contributed at equal levels.  That will never be reality and accommodations and adjustments will be constant.  Times will change, values and belief systems will morph--ethics and morals are not static.

'Tis the Season (for Head Colds, Hurt Feelings, and Hurdles)

I refer to the holiday season as a mine field--I am not opposed to the hustle and bustle and festivities, I have just learned that for most of us, it is a time fraught with triggers, emotions, psychology, and history.  Nothing is ever as it seems.  A trip to the grocery store can result in being triggered by an end aisle display of peppermint bark that ends in long-forgotten memories of Christmas past and a long-dead aunt.  Many of us are not at our most healthy, grounded and focused at this time of year and as we trip through the mine field of December...stuff happens.

My already over-developed sense of humanitarianism goes on hyper drive this time of year.  Things like football games and expensive vacations seem glaringly obscene and packed with ignorant privilege while we walk past tags full of needy individuals' names at the shopping malls.  The whole idea that people only have basic needs in December sends me into gales of aggravated ranting. Balancing human generosity with the equally human tendencies toward selfishness, greed and avarice is a hurdle I struggle with every year. 

I find that we are frail and fragile in spirit this time of year, our feelings are easily hurt as we strive to bolster ourselves for the onslaught of memories, reminders, disappointments, fears, and all-to-real relationships.  Who do we send Christmas cards to?  Do we even send Christmas cards?  Are feelings still hurt over that relative who won't be our Facebook friend or the one who refused to acknowledge a wedding or baby gift?  We are forced to interact (and often give gifts) to those who are on the completely opposite side of the political spectrum or whose religious beliefs may be in direct opposition to our own.  While it may seem like the Holiday season is about good will, it is often about compromise, insecurity and overlooking differences--all part of the human experience too.

And yet, despite ill health (this is the season of cold & flu), tender spirit and the attack of triggers in the form of stuff, smells, and people--we all march on.  Like an army of nutcrackers, stoic and wooden, we push ourselves through the season.  We find delight in the little things, take refuge with the chosen family and friends who aren't so hard on our sense of self, search for glee and merriment and kindness in the nooks and crannies of the coldest months.  We do our best.  With varying degrees of success, we maneuver through the mine field of the holidays.

Stormclouds and Hormones

While it has been over 25 years since either Teri or I were teenagers, neither of us has really forgotten. Growing up is hard, sucky, stressful and the fact that so many of us manage to not only survive, but to also thrive into adulthood is a mystery.  I honestly think it is a miracle that we are not taken out by our own surging hormones and the destructive forces of socialization.

There are the cranky and inept adults who have power over our time and space; there are the peers who confuse us with their own hormonal unpredictabilities--there are anger and insecurity and sex and humiliation and often all of these things gurgle up in a crazy salad before mid-morning!  There are inequities, bullying, abuse, privilege, and myriad social strata and bureaucratic structure to maneuver on a daily basis.

What I have learned about myself as a mother is that while I did pretty well with younger kids and babies,  teenagers are my speciality. I am learning that Teri is pretty darn good at adolescence too. Neither one of us can be shocked, scared or sucked into drama and we are fierce and informed advocates. My motto is stolen from Anne of Green Gables: tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it--and a good motto for the all-or-nothing-life-is-over-and my-existence-is-doomed stormclouds that surround the teens.

The fact is--life truly is pretty damn crappy for many struggling teenagers.  LGBTQI kids are much more likely to end up homeless and kids who come from unhealthy households are battling through the typical turmoils of teenageland with both hands tied behind their backs.  They need the basics--a warm bed, good food, and a roof over their heads; but they also need some things the more privileged take for granted: someone to ask them about their day and listen, someone to advocate for them, sit with them at the doctor's office, help with homework, or even model how to solve problems without it being the end of the world.  You might be amazed at how normal can seem so unsettling...

What happens when spilled food is not an emergency, but merely a mess to clean up?  How odd that two adults can solve a disagreement quickly with humor and a hug?  How strange that an altercation with a teacher can result in an adult advocate sitting down with the school folks and working out a solution?  What if there was always enough soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, milk and heat?  What if no one asked for anything in return?  What sort of strange world is this?!

Teri and I are woefully ordinary people, not the slightest bit heroic.  There are good days and more challenging ones; things we can control and things we can't.  Talking, hugs, a pan of warm brownies, a walk through the neighborhood--we cope in rather boring and ordinary ways.  I can't really speak for Teri but for me, I feel for all the world like a 100% grown-up who remembers very clearly what it felt like to be a teenager or a kid just trying to move in the world. I don't have to relive or retrieve anything because this middle-aged adult is who I am now (and besides, I have my own bucket of perimenopausal hormones to contend with.)


But the way I see it is that we can either be a help or a hindrance.  Either I can participate in a positive way in the lives of people who need and struggle or I am supporting the systems of oppression.  It isn't really that hard--I just have to stay present, compassionate, responsible and aware.  Adolescents need us--not to throw them to the wolves and hope the strongest survive--but to care enough to provide the basics.

Married Life...Three Months Later

We have been busy. That is my excuse for the seeming abandonment of the blog. The past three months have been full of...well, just general living.  Despite how laid back we'd like to think we are, I am finding that neither Teri nor I seem to be the sorts of people who sit back on the sidelines while the world tumbles past.  We find ourselves saying to each other now--so, this the sort of family we are...

We have made some additions to our lives--both in actual people (or person) and in activities.  We throw a "Wednesday night Drop-In" or drop-in as it has been shortened to for all our kids, family, etc. who want to stop in for a big, hot meal and some conversation.  It is low-key in every sense but the food--which tends to be PLENTY to feed our young adults, their starving friends, and whomever...the living room is overflowing, the candy bowl gets emptied and there are plenty of dishes for the two of us to do after the house clears out.  It gives us the chance, however, to keep in touch with all their lives and to connect and grow together as the expanding family we are. We are so grateful for those who are close and feel the pang of missing those who are so far away.

We have also turned over what was our spare bedroom to a previously-homeless teenager--a young gal who got kicked out of her already rocky home world when she came out as queer.  She's working to finish high school and deal with the crappy realities that have been her life so far.  When the opportunity presented itself, Teri and I just knew it was an of course moment for us.  After all, this is the sort of family we are.  It just isn't enough to say that we have certain values or to state our beliefs from some obnoxious soapbox, it matters more that we actually live them.  So, we're getting back into the swing of gallons of milk and empty orange juice pitchers in the fridge--teenage moodiness and energy with a queer twist.  I cannot help but exclaim: how lucky are we?!  The universe just keeps offering up amazing adventures.  Besides, how could we not adore this complicated creature?  She is incredibly good for the likes of us.

We have decided that we just need to say "Yes" to things--at a time when the whole world seems to be shuddering and contracting with fear and insecurities, there are so many ways that we can all just roll up our sleeves and jump in--whether by holding a protest sign, or taking food to the homeless, or serving on a task force, board, or volunteer project.  Chances are, however little one thinks they have, they have enough to share--whether it is time, food, money, a ride, or an offer of help.  Stick up for someone who needs an ally, a friend, a mom--it is amazing what can be done with bacon, pie and compassion...