Spoiled Only Child

These things, I want to remember

I have been really angry with my mother-in-law. Really, really angry. I won't go into the reasons here, but trust me when I say that, if you are a sane and rational person with some sense of fair-play, you would be angry too. But there are a few things I need to remember. For days, my head has been so clouded by my rage that I have been unable to see them. But right now, there is a small break in the clouds, just the smallest hint of sunshine, and I don't want to forget these thoughts that have broken through.

1. My anger gives her power. The more I let it take me over, the more she screws up my life. The only person that hurts is me.
2. My husband is a good person, who is trying his best in a really terrible situation, and my anger is only making things harder for him. He has a right to grieve for his father, without that grief being all mixed up in bitter feelings created by me.
3. Good things come to those who wait. It is a cliche, but I need to trust that things will be made right in the fullness of time. No, they are not right now. But that is how life works. We trust that we can survive each trial and, in time, we learn that it has made us stronger.
4. I have made my point, and I can let it rest now. I tend to worry that my husband doesn't understand how strongly I feel about this, that he will let his instincts to please his mother take over, that he loves her more than he loves me and our daughter and the values that we hold. But he has made it clear to me where his heart lies, and that he understands my feelings, and I need to let it rest. I need to trust him.

I want to end this list with some kind sentiment aimed at my mother-in-law, but I am just not there yet. Maybe I can work toward recognizing her humanity, despite her flaws. Maybe I can remember my belief that this is not under our control, that we are living out the story that has been written for us, and that no matter how much we hate it and rail against it, it is still our story. I will try to remember.

Words from my dark place

Maybe if I can just slap some words over all this dread and fear, it would help. So even though I feel like I can't do it, I'm going to try.

Things I am afraid of:

• That working here is going to drive me crazy. I feel crazy right now, I really do.
• That I'm going to be laid off.
• That I'm never going to find another job. 
• That I am absolutely, positively, unemployable outside of this place.
• That, without my income, we will have to sell our house.
• That I live in a world that no longer has any use for people like me.
• That I am lost, and I will never find my way.
• That our country, our economy, our world are broken beyond repair.
• That I'm not going to sleep tonight.
• That I am depressed.
• That I am headed for some kind of mental breakdown.
• That I am ruining other people's lives with my anxiety and depression and insomnia.

Things I need to remember:

• That, unlike many of the people on this sinking ship of a company, my husband has a good job that will allow us to live a good, middle-class life even if I lose my job. (No, we probably can't afford our house without some kind of income from me, but we won't starve or have to move to the projects.)
• That the economy will get better one day.
• That this situation is temporary. Someday, somehow, I will find my way out of this stuck place.
• That I am valuable.
• That my situation is only intolerable inside my own head. In every rational respect, I am perfectly OK.

Last night, I hardly slept. I'm working the fucking night-shift this week--I now have to do it one out of every nine weeks--and it's got my very delicate sleep schedule out of whack. And I lay there in the dark feeling like my chest was squeezing, crumpling. And I kept thinking, I'm stuck in a work situation that is intolerable. I can't stand it anymore. And there's no way out. None of the masses of people that our company has laid off this year have found full-time work in this area. Not a single one. So I am trapped working at this place that is making me crazy. I'm not emotionally capable of continuing to work there, but I have no choice. I felt like I was going to die or go nuts or I don't even know what.

Today, I came to work and our boss told us that it's looking like we're going to have to make lots more severe cuts next year. He told us all to start getting prepared. The tone of his voice and the look in his eye said, "We are fucked. We are hanging on by a thread. There is no hope." I'm not sure what preparations I'm supposed to be making. I feel overwhelmed, powerless, lost, adrift in an endless ocean. I know that someday I will look back and see how close I was to shore, how everything really was OK. That I had my family and my health and my (relative) youth and all the things that really mattered. But right now I can't see it. I can't see the horizon from here, and I am scared.

I need to focus on what's right here and now. Telling myself stories about a better future is not going to help. Right now, I have air to breathe and food to eat. Right now, I have a steady income. Right now, I have a beautiful, happy daughter. Right now, I have a husband who loves me. Right now, I have lots of vacation time. Right now, I get to go home every night to my family. Right now, I am healthy. Right now, there is a beer in the refrigerator waiting for me. Right now, I am going to leave work and go home and try to breathe.

Zen list

One night this week, I was doing my usual nightly routine of lying in bed stressing about the millions of things I want to get done but will never have time for. And I turned and asked Mr. SOC, "Do you worry about all the things you need to get done?" And do you know what he said? His answer was absolutely stunning. He said, NO! To me, worrying about the things I need to get done is such a huge and integral part of my life. I can't even imagine what I would do with all that spare brain space. If I could remove that worry from my head, 75 percent of my life would be the mental equivalent of sitting in deep meditation beside a serene mountain lake. This is revolutionary, the idea that there are people who actually don't have an unending to-do list cycling through their brain at all times. Can I ever be one of them? That is the real question.

I am clearly not there yet. But one thing that might be constructive is to lay out my priorities for my limited time. Because as it is, I think I spend a lot of time doing things, or mostly one thing, that is not a good, or even enjoyable, use of my time. (I'm looking at you, MacBook.) And if I could do less of those things, I might be able to do more of the stuff that I want to do. So I'm going to make a little mini-list. Somehow I doubt that zen masters make such lists. In fact, Mr. SOC has never made anything more than a grocery list, and even those tend to be woefully incomplete. But I'm choosing to believe that this list is better than my usual lists, and so it represents progress.

Things I want to spend less time on:

• Aimlessly surfing the internet until my eyes blur and my mind fogs, reading crap that rots my brain
• Worrying about what I need to do
• Being angry

Things I want to continue to spend time on:

• Being present with my family
• Cooking
• Writing
• Reading novels
• Exercise
• Learning new things (Spanish? Really should get back to that.)
• Meditation

Things I want to spend more time on:

• Music
• Kind acts
• Romance
• Keeping my house neat and uncluttered (I never want to be one of those people who spends all their spare time making their home perfect. But maybe 10 minutes a day trying to keep the clutter monster at bay?)
• Getting out of the office (Stop eating lunch at desk while surfing the internet. It's just not good.)
• Personal grooming (I know, this is sad.)

It ain't easy taking a luxury vacation at the beach

Several months ago, I did something extremely out of character. I signed us up to take a group vacation with a bunch of people we hardly know. In a couple short weeks, we will be taking up residence with four other couples, and their many, many children, in a beach mansion for a week. All told, there will be ten adults and nine children, all but one of preschool age, in this house. As the vacation approaches, I am starting to wonder what the hell I was thinking. I think it had something to do with the fact that, at the time our neighbors invited us along, we were watching some TV series about a bunch of married swingers in the 70s. While I wasn't inspired to experiment in that way, it did give me the vague idea that we needed more friends, more social interaction, and that achieving that goal would probably require me to loosen my controls a bit and take more chances.

So here I am, about to embark on a vacation where many, many things will be out of my control. And despite all efforts to talk myself down, I am starting to twist myself into knots about this thing. When I really think about the factors that are stressing me out, I realize that I am being ridiculous. (I also realize that I lose all claims to describing myself as "laid back.") But after waking this morning and immediately starting in with racing thoughts about what size container of milk we should bring, and the expense of buying half-gallons vs. gallons, and whether other children would steal our juice boxes, I think I need to lay this all out and try to get a grip. So here goes, a glimpse into the mind of someone who really, really likes to control her own environment.

Disclaimer: Please understand that I am sharing the thoughts that keep running through my head, but that I do not believe these concerns to be rational or even ethically sound. I realize that some of these things make me sound selfish, although I think that they are mostly about control:

• Which bedroom we will get. This is probably my biggest source of heart palpitations. There are five adult bedrooms in this house. One is a king room with a jacuzzi tub, three are queens with attached bathrooms and one, according to my close reading of the house's website, is a queen without attached bathroom. Now, I have no dreams of getting the king room. But I live in mortal fear of getting that one without the bathroom. It's not so much that it would be the end of the world if we had to walk out into the hall to go to the bathroom, it's more the injustice of it all. We all paid equally, and this inequity in bedrooms was never discussed. I fear that if we get stuck with that bedroom, I won't be able to stop myself from spending the week quietly resentful. I had developed a plan to avoid this scenario, which involved us camping at the beach the night before the rental starts and being the first ones to the house. But I found out last night that none of us can get in the house until 4 p.m. So everyone's going to be there by then, and then what happens? We run in, shoving each other out of the way, trying to grab the best bedrooms? I assume that what happens is a more polite version of this. The thought of this scenario actually makes my chest tighten.
• What we will eat. There are five families and one kitchen. What if there is a line to get in the kitchen and cook dinner? What if all our food doesn't fit in the fridge? What if people take our food? How much food should we bring from home, considering that there is not infinite cabinet and fridge space? But if we buy it there, the prices are sure to be double because it's a resort area. What if people steal our beer??? What if other kids take our juice boxes and snack foods? These are high value items that we don't normally buy, and we can't afford to be keeping nine kids in juice boxes. Should we keep a cooler in our room with our most precious items? Should we label our foods to avoid confusion? No, that would make us look like complete assholes. We can avoid all this by eating out most nights, but we are not exactly flush with cash at the moment. How much should we allot for eating out? What if my stepson comes and brings a friend for part of the time. Then I'll be trying to cook for five in a crowded kitchen, and can we afford to go out to eat with that many people? Excuse me, my head just exploded. 

• The children. Nine children, people. NINE. Mia knows one of these children, and they play wonderfully together. But what is the dynamic going to be with nine? What if the friend, who knows several of the other children, dumps Mia and she spends the week as the pathetic outsider? (I have seen this scenario before, and it's not pretty.) What if the children run around in a crazed pack all week, turning the entire home into a Lord of the Flies scenario? What if other children are eating candy bars and drinking soda, and Mia demands to do it too? What if some people allow their children to stay up late, shouting and watching TV, making bedtime miserable for us?

OK, time to bring the sane part of my brain back into the picture. As you can see, the crazy part is  getting the best of me here. Here is the reality of this trip: The house is huge. It has three stories and seven bedrooms, including two basement children's rooms. It has a pool and a hot tub, a giant deck, a rec room with pool table, and is within very close walking distance of the beach. It is essentially a luxury hotel with shared kitchen and living areas. If the living room is crowded, we can move to the rec room or the deck, or the pool, or the covered patio, or to our room. If the house is too chaotic, we can go to the beach, visit a lighthouse or pony sanctuary, go hiking or kayaking, take a daytrip to another town. If people share our food, we'll share theirs and it will all even out. If the kitchen is crowded, we can have a snack and eat a bit later, or we can cook on the grill. If we spend a few hundred dollars eating out, it's not going to put us in the poor house. We have plenty of savings to cover a little vacation entertainment. If people are making noise at Mia's bedtime, we can turn on the white noise machine and be firm with her. She'll get the idea after a couple days.  And if we get the shitty bedroom ... Well, it's really up to me whether I spend my vacation angry over the horrible injustice of having to use a bathroom in the hall. I'll try to get one of the other bedrooms, as politely as possible, but if the worst happens, it's really not that bad.

This vacation is inflaming all my deepest neuroses. And part of me is thinking I've made a huge mistake, that this is vacation, it's supposed to be fun, and choosing to do something that pushes all my buttons was utterly stupid. But I'm going to choose to look at this a different way. I'm going to see it as an opportunity for personal growth. Can I release my grip on the controls for a week? Can I live without a meal plan? Can I deal with each day, each moment, as it comes? Can I sit and read a book without worrying what's next on the schedule? Can I let go of worries about money and indulge in a few vacation treats, accepting that while my pay is reduced, we are are still solidly middle class people who can afford a vacation? If we get the shitty bedroom, can I accept it as a karmic repayment for the time I took the better bedroom on a beach trip with friends? Can I be generous, rather than trying to lay claim to what's mine? Can I accept that other people's wants and needs are as valid as my own, and those of my family? Can I breathe, relax and let go of all this stuff that really doesn't matter? Right now, I am issuing this challenge to myself. I want to make this a vacation from my self-centered need for control.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

What I learned in my meditation class

I couldn't sleep Friday night. Guess why? Because I was worried I wouldn't get enough sleep for my all-day meditation class on Saturday. If this is not proof of my insanity, I don't know what is. But, yeah, I took a 7-hour beginning meditation class on Saturday. It was hard, and my back hurt like hell after all that sitting, but I am so glad I did it. Something clicked for me there, and I think that if I keep working on this, I could learn to control the anxiety that keeps my mind always spinning, spinning, spinning with thoughts about tomorrow, next week, next year. I fear that I'll forget it all, so I'm going to write down some of it here. I apologize in advance if I start to sound like a self help author here, but I really do believe this shit.

Do you know what meditation is? I found out that I really didn't. It's being "present in the moment, aware of what is," according to my teacher. It doesn't mean that we are in a state of bliss or a state of non-thinking. It just means that we are willing to accept whatever is right now, whether that be pain, hunger, anxiety, anger, whatever--and that we don't allow ourselves to get caught up in our mind's stories about the future. For instance, our natural tendency, or at least mine, is to think, "My back hurts. What if it doesn't get better? What if I can't go hiking like I planned this weekend? My family will be so disappointed. Our whole weekend will be ruined." But in meditation, we don't get caught up in these stories about what might happen in the future. We just sit with the pain that is here right now. It is the stories, not the actual pain, that cause most of the suffering. The space between the present moment and where our mind is, that space is suffering. 

I have been so caught up in these stories. At night, when I lie down to go to sleep, I think, "What if I can't sleep tonight? What if I'm not able to do what I have to at work? What if I'm tired for this thing that I've been looking forward to for a long time? What if my weekend is ruined? What if, what if, what if?" I always thought the only way to work my way out of this fear was to somehow convince myself that things really would be OK tomorrow. That I would survive, that I would get to sleep again the next night, that it wouldn't suck as much as I was imagining. So I asked the teacher, how can you convince yourself that things are OK when you know in your heart that you're right, that you really are going to feel awful if you don't sleep? 

His answer was a revelation. He said it's not a matter of convincing yourself that tomorrow will be OK. You might feel awful tomorrow, but there's absolutely nothing you can do about it now. So let it go and focus on what's here and now. Right now I am anxious. Right now I feel pressure in my chest.  Right now I am not sleeping. Say to yourself, "I am aware of the tension; I smile to the tension. I am aware of the fear; I smile to the fear." Recognize when your mind starts to spin a story, rather than dealing with what's present in that moment, and refuse to get carried away in it. Bring the focus back to what is happening right now. When you acknowledge and even welcome what you feel in the moment, it somehow makes it more bearable. But when you allow your mind to run off into the future, you become powerless. You have no way to fix a what-if. That's when the real fear, the true suffering, creeps in. That has been my problem. I have been unable, until now, to separate the things happening in the moment from the stories I connected to them.

We are like the sky, he said. We are bright, shining, blue, completely open and still and peaceful. That is our essential nature. The clouds come along and cover that up. They roil the stillness with wind and rain and hail. They sometimes shut out the light completely. The key is not to think we are the clouds. We are always the sky. Our essential nature is unchanged, even in a hurricane. We just watch the clouds roll by, arising, becoming dominant, dissipating. Everything in this life changes — arises and dissipates— except for our essential nature.

At the end of the day, we were sitting in yet another meditation. My back was aching and I was so tired (I didn't sleep, remember?) that I had to keep my eyes open so I wouldn't fall asleep. I was staring at the scuffed tile floor, and my eyes kept finding shapes in it, which was incredibly distracting. One spot looked like a face, so I would shift my eyes somewhere else and see a tiger, then a fish. Dammit! I was thinking, "OK, I've had enough. I'm done. When is this going to end?" And then the teacher began to chant. He chanted these words over and over: "All I ask of you, is to remember me, for loving you." On and on he went, and somewhere in there, my back stopped hurting and I stopped seeing the shapes in the floor and I felt incredibly moved, totally peaceful. It was my first glimpse into that place beyond the clouds. I want more.

Letting go

"Throw my troubles out the door. I don't need them anymore."   —Bob Dylan

I finally did my little worry release ritual. It was almost a week ago now, but I'm finding I don't have much to say about it. I guess it is rather self-explanatory. I wrote my biggest worries on balloons. They were: Career, Money, Sleep, Failure and The Future. And then I walked to the Rose Garden and stood in the same spot where I got married  almost six years ago, and I let each one of them go. I watched (and tried mostly unsuccessfully to take pictures) as the wind carried them over the treetops and out of sight. Money briefly got stuck in a tree, but after a few minutes the wind yanked it loose and took it away. I can't say that any magic happened, or that God spoke to me, or that I was instantly happier than I had been the moment before. But I do feel that I am worrying less, remembering that shit happens whether or not you worry about it, recognizing that worry doesn't help me move forward. So goodbye worries, I don't need you anymore.

Obligatory year-end ruminations

Want to know my new year's resolution? Nothing. I'm not falling into the trap this year. I swear it. No list of goals. Not even one teeny resolution. Not even try to floss more. I realize I was right all along. I'm just stumbling along here, doing the best I can, and filing away a list of Things I Should Do To Become A Better Person doesn't change anything. It only serves to make me feel guilty. 2009 is going to be the year when I try to let go of striving and learn to simply be. No, that is not a resolution.

I do, however, want to use this contrived occasion of the "new year" to take stock of the year that was. If I had written this post even a few weeks ago, I probably would have said this was a hard year filled with problems (threat of layoffs, job rejections, insomnia, anxiety, negative self-talk) that served little purpose other than to make my life miserable. But just recently, I have come to a realization. All those struggles, all those long sleepless nights, all that chest-pounding stress — those weren't problems. That was growth. That was me cracking open, making room for the new sprout to emerge.

All those things brought me to the concept of mindfulness and the practice of meditation, which have already changed me for the better — and I have only just begun. They brought me to my decision to quit beating myself up, to let myself simply be what I am, and that has made such a huge difference. I can already see my life in a new way. I can see all the things I do achieve. I do have a meaningful job, and I'm pretty good at what I do. (And like a year-end affirmation from the universe, I got word a couple weeks ago that I'd won an award — my first since starting this job a decade ago.) I do have a demanding child, and mothering her is a feat to be proud of. I do add to the world, just by being who I am, the person who hasn't written a novel or landed a new job or volunteered to help refugees. On my birthday, a coworker said to me, "You're living the dream. You've got a great job, a house, a husband, a kid." Her words stuck with me, because I so rarely think of my life that way. I had come to think of it more for the things it lacked, for all the ways in which it was ordinary and unspectacular. But I think I am ready to say, "Yes. Yes, I am. I am living the dream. I have everything I need, all I could ask for and more."

Freeing myself from the list of goals has led me to actually accomplishing one of them. I started a Spanish course a few weeks ago, and I am loving it. I had forgotten how much I love to learn, all the ways that language excites and moves me. I can learn Spanish. I have a long way to go, but I'm working on it, and I feel so good about that. I am also at peace with what I'm not doing. I am not working on finding a new job, even as the economy falls to pieces and my company's financial picture gets bleaker by the week. Striving wasn't moving me forward. For the moment, I'm content with the idea that when the time is right, the change will find me. Recently, I was emailing with an old friend on facebook, summing my life up in a paragraph. "I'm working on learning to meditate, and trying to learn Spanish," I wrote. And as I typed that sentence, I felt satisfied. That is enough. I am enough.

I despise titles

I am trying to recover from one of my miserable down periods at work. When I am in this place, I have absolutely nothing interesting to say. Sitting dully in front of a computer screen really doesn't make for fascinating prose. I have started to believe that I need a job that keeps me separated from the computer. I'm thinking park ranger, Whole Foods cheese clerk, maybe even garbage truck driver. But I'm not supposed to be rethinking anything big in my life right now. So I'm going to take some more moderate steps. I'm giving up blog reading again. From this moment until Jan. 2, no blog reading allowed. I am once again making exceptions for cooking sites, and for knitting blogs used to help me with specific projects I'm working on. Otherwise, no blogs! Also, no games. No solitaire, no Pacman, no Snood. The computer has the power to suck the life out of me, and I am fighting back.

Here's another random thing I want to talk about. I have the most annoying habit in the world. I play with my hair. It's this thing I've been doing since middle school, where I take a small piece of hair between two fingers and rub my thumb back and forth across the ends. I do it every waking moment. So much that I think I am getting carpal tunnel from it. My hands and wrists get sore by the end of the day. And everywhere I go, I am holding onto my hair doing this constant, nervous motion that is probably making me look like a mental patient. I want to quit doing it so badly. But efforts to quit have only strengthened the habit. That feeling of my hair bristling across my thumb is like some sort of drug to me. Writing it down here makes it sound utterly ridiculous. But short of shaving my head, I don't know what to do about it. After more than 20 years, I am sick to death of this little hair fetish. I want to quit. I'm hoping that declaring this publicly is the first step.

Now, let's think about some happy things:

1. I signed up for a Spanish class. It begins Dec. 10. I rock.
2. I have been sleeping really well lately. (Furiously knocking on wood.) I'm on a very low dose of my sleeping pill and hoping to be off within a week or so. We shall see how it goes, but at least I'm close again.
3. I've been doing really well in my quest to stop pushing myself. I'm going to work, taking care of my family and saying "Screw it" to the rest. It feels so good.
4. I am into knitting again. After a long period of having absolutely no desire to knit for many months, I am inspired and interested again. I've got a million things I want to get on the needles. Scarves and sweaters and hats. Fun!
5. I'm having a big crowd for Thanksgiving and I'm excited about cooking a great dinner and having lots of people around. I have a good attitude about a winter holiday. It's a miracle. May it continue through the Christmas season. I have hopes, I really do.

Ah, I feel better. Thanks, little blog, you really do help.

A proclamation

I am so damned tired of myself. I am tired of getting up every day and going to work, taking care of my kid, making my dinner — all to the constant drumbeat of thoughts that I'm not doing enough, that this isn't good enough, that I should be doing more, more, more. I'm sick of not being able to read a book without thinking, Why haven't I written a book? Why am I just sitting here reading what someone else wrote? I'm sick of taking each step with the certainty that there is someplace better I should be heading. I should be earning a masters degree, taking in foster children, doing volunteer work, starting my own business, making new friends, learning to play an instrument, working harder at my job, finding a new job, having new adventures. I shouldn't be one of those people who just goes to work every day, goes home and eats dinner and watches TV, and repeats the cycle. I should be more, better, stronger. I make huge lists of goals and accomplish none of them, paralyzed at the enormity of it all. And then I use those lists as proof that I am a disappointment, a person who is failing to fulfill her potential.

I am so, so sick of it. And I think it's time for me to ask: Why the hell am I doing this to myself? Why? Right now, this moment, I declare an end to it all. This is my life right now. I'm raising a young child, working full-time at a job I care about, running a household and sustaining a marriage — and many days, those basic obligations take all of my energy. I no longer ask any more of myself. It is enough. I'm going to remember to give credit to what an important and exhausting job it is to mother a three-year-old. I'm going to give myself credit for the good I do in my work. I am going to feed my family local organic vegetables and rip ivy out of my side yard and play with Duplos on the living room floor — without thinking that I should be doing something more important. I am going to give myself a break, and remember that I don't have to achieve every one of my life goals this month, this year or even this decade. 

I am also going to burn the massive list of goals that I created for myself at the beginning of 2008. And I'm going to set for myself instead two small manageable goals:

1. Make some progress toward learning Spanish.

2. Do some basic research about careers I might possibly want to get into, starting with teaching.

These policies continue until I am sleeping normally and feeling 100 percent sane.

Wait, wait! I get it now!

Something came to me today at the gym: The fallacy is not that we have no control. The fallacy is that we have any control whatsoever. It suddenly makes so much sense.

I've been wrestling with my brain ever since I wrote yesterday's post. I wanted to give up my need for control, but my rational mind couldn't quite do it. I kept thinking, Of course I control many of the big things in my life. I chose my career, my husband, my house. Sure, unexpected things can happen. But many things the result of my choices, and if I cede control than my life is headed nowhere. Must keep pushing my life in the right direction!

But I suddenly see that control, of anything, is an illusion. If we had control over our lives, would any of us be overweight? How many of us would smoke, work in slaughterhouses, become prostitutes? How many of us would lose our car keys once a week? No one would choose these things, or at least very few of us would. A choice means considering all options, having all the information arrayed before you, and picking the best one. To make a true choice, you must also know every consequence. But we are never able to do this in life. We are constrained by our lack of knowledge, by our prejudices, by the physical horizons of our worlds, by time, by our finances, by our backgrounds and our inherited characteristics. Every "choice" we make is actually the result of happenstance, a million chance encounters and random events that begin on the day we are conceived.

For instance, my brain tells me that I chose my husband. But when I really think about it, that's a ridiculous idea. Did I study the resumes of every available man before settling on this one? No. Our paths happened to cross. I happened to get a job at the place where he worked. We happened to sit next to each other in a meeting one day. And I remained with him not because I sat down and considered all the implications and options — had I done that, we almost certainly wouldn't be together — but because of emotions and attachments that were beyond my control. We don't even control whether we draw our next breaths.

Somehow, this idea makes me feel immensely better. For so long now, I've been walking around with this feeling that the clock is ticking and that I have to make something of my life. That if I just make the right choices I can fulfill my potential, get some fabulous new job, leave some tremendous mark on the world. The pressure is intense. The idea that "whatever will be will be" is such an incredible relief. I don't have to do anything except be here on this path, exactly where I am, putting one foot in front of the next — and try to enjoy, or at least accept, each step.