Offers

What the hell was I thinking? Apparently you put your house on the market and then people actually come and see it. There aren't enough hiding spots for my dirty laundry.

I got a call at 3:30 that there are people who want to come and see it at 4:30. An hour to try and pretend that I am a person who folds her jeans and puts them away. I was in the middle of doing my taxes. Have you ever tried to do your taxes after you have lost your hard drive and didn't back anything up?

Five people came over to look at the house but really five people looked at my life. I knew I wouldn't like the feeling.

The agent is back with an offer. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Moving Forward

I need to move out of my house because I think it has bad Karma. It has taken two divorces to come to this conclusion. While I am quite sure that both those husbands would have you believe that the reasons for the demise of the marriages fall squarely on my shoulders, I don't care. I think its the house and I am getting the hell out of here.

It isn't easy to sell a house. It is much harder to do it by yourself. I agonized over the decision for six months. I figured that was a good time period to make a well thought out plan. I have never sold a house without a husband and truthfully when I started out, I never thought I would have to.

It took me four days to call the Real Estate agent. I drove by her sign a whole bunch of times and promised myself that I would write down her number the next time I drove by. I didn't. Great excuse not to call. Then her smiling face taunted me from an ad in the newspaper. I felt like I couldn't avoid it anymore. I dialed and was thrilled when I got her voice mail. Turns out she picks up her messages.

She came over, walked around, told me what needed to be fixed and gave me a list of documents that she needs. More procrastination and panic. Where is my certificate of location (I think exhusband #1 took that one when he left...)? Tax bills? Proof of repairs? A level of organization that I aspire to, but will never achieve.

And today she called me to tell me that there is an offer. Which means that someone wants to buy it. Which means that I could be moving. Which means that I could be starting over. Again.

Naked

Writing a blog feels a little like being naked. Naked is great when you are alone in your house. Naked is great when you are with someone who you trust. Naked is not so good when you don't know who is taking it all in. 

I don't know how other people feel about writing but for me it is like opening the door to get the paper in the morning with no shirt on. It reveals parts of me that I don't feel that comfortable sharing but people who see it will probably find it interesting to look at. You feel the most vulnerable when it is someone you know who is doing the "seeing". I can handle it if total strangers are learning who I am, not so much when it's people who I know. 

Last night, someone who I really respect told me that they had read this blog and knew about my plans to write a book. It kind of made me want to run away and hide. What did they think of it? Of me? Did it confirm the thoughts they had about me? Did I want their thoughts confirmed? What are their thoughts?

I am not writing this book, or this blog to get anyone's approval. I am writing because it is my dream to help women like me who need to start over and just don't know how. The difficult side effect is how exposed my life, my struggles and the way I think are to the outside world. It's not a bad thing, but I would be lying if I said I was totally okay with the feeling. And now you all know...

Inspiration

I didn't set out to be an inspiration to anyone. If anything, most of the changes that I have made in my life have felt more like a struggle to keep my head above water. It never occurred to me that I was doing anything special. It was only when I realized how utterly paralysed people get in their lives that it dawned on me that I had a really good handle on how to deal with change. It isn't that I am superhuman or able to do things that others can't. It's because I have a simple set of rules that help me move forward. 

Learning how to throw caution to the wind and jumping at opportunities that may or may not work out is something that took me a while to get good at. I have learned to tell myself that the worst that can happen is that it won't work. I send out emails to people that I don't know, I apply for jobs that may or may not be a right, I force myself into situations that will stretch my comfort level. I have accepted the fact that the worst thing that can happen is nothing. The odds are that if I try ten things, at least one will work out for me. 

I had no confidence in my abilities when I adopted this attitude. I felt like a total impostor in everything that I was doing- but I pushed myself anyway. The more I tried, the more I achieved. The more I achieved, the more I believed that I actually could. Eventually, my experience level caught up to the things that I was doing and I no longer felt like someone would find out that I knew nothing. 

All that to say that when people learn about my life and the hurdles that I have overcome, it often makes them feel like they can do it too. When I hear that I have inspired someone to take a leap and make a change, it makes me feel like everything I have gone through is worth it. 

Energy

Starting over takes energy. Lots of it. Sometimes I wonder where I get it from. Starting over is sometimes like ripping off a scab and other times like being let out of a cage. Either way, the energy that it takes to get to that point where you are ready to start over can seem impossible to muster. Starting over isn't easy but nothing in life worth having is. 

Today I am worrying about my kids. They don't need to start over. They already have. They need to continue building and moving forward. Hopefully nothing will drag them down but if something does, I will put on my supermom cape and save the day-or at least try.

I feel like my role in their lives is to be like base in a game of tag. As long as you are touching me, nothing can touch you. I think that's the reason why tag is for little kids. You have to be young and stupid to believe that touching an inanimate object protects you with an invisible force field. Although I can sort of protect them now, I know that there are things that can hurt them that I can't do anything about. 

So I think that I have given them a gift that may protect them way more than base if they are tagged and have to be "it". I have taught them that no matter what happens, you need to keep moving forward. That doesn't mean pretending that you don't feel things or burying things that need to be dealt with. It just means that every experience in this life can be used to create positive movement. 

My grandmother used to have an expression, "Put a little rouge on, and go out with a smile on your face".

I'm smiling grandma, with Purr lipgloss on....

Another Start Over

In true start over brilliance, I have lost the piece of scrap paper that has my book chapter ideas on it. How I lost it, how I didn't think I should put it somewhere like, I don't know, a safety deposit box, is mind boggling to me. 

Can you tell how frantic I am?

If this were the first time that I did something like this then I would expect some sympathy and maybe some help looking for it. Alas, I do this all the time. Papers for my taxes, for the kids school, bills that I have to pay, notes for important meetings are never where I need them to be. 

I have systems. They don't work. Files for everything, places to put things, cabinets, drawers. I've got them. None of them have the paper with my chapter ideas.

I am going to have to start over. But since I am the start over woman, I am going to be cool with this. 

Chapter one....

Jobless in America

NBC news did a piece tonight on the dismal job market for new College grads. They reported that there are no jobs, that people are desperate and that most are willing to take much lower salaries than grads who job hunted in good economies. They also reported that these poor souls will never make up the loss in salary. 

While everything that they said is true, and sounds alarmingly hopeless, it is actually good news because now people are going to get creative. Creativity usually results from a shift in the order of things. In this case, there has been a big hit to the linear path of graduating and finding employment. For all these energetic young people, they will have no choice but to come up with innovative ideas to pay the bills. After all, there is nothing worse than moving back in with your parents after you have tasted freedom for four years. 

Enter the entrepreneur. 

Until the job market recovers, and this could take years, making a living is not going to be so easy in the conventional sense of the word, and we are going to see a huge increase in the number of business that are started. I have no idea what these businesses will be but I am sure we are going to look back on this time and say that it was incredible. We are going to hear stories of countless people who couldn't get work in predictable ways so they started businesses and never looked back. 

Until access to credit loosens up, they are even going to have to be creative about getting financing for these new ventures. I've seen it before, they will. They will borrow in innovative ways from innovative sources and they will get their businesses off the ground. The economy is breeding a new crop of risk takers, idea people, who will learn how to play by these new rules and beat everyone at their own game. 

Happy Graduation Class of '09!