Love is Not a Cactus

Love is not a cactus.
It does not grow
From thin and arid air
Waiting patiently for storm clouded moisture
From the heavens.
It does not sprout new buds
Of beginnings
From sand filtered nutrients sucked
Up through slender strands.
Love requires potroast
Nutrition, large portions
Piled deep and high.
Tired and weary love is static
And dies
Through no effort of your own.

Near Death Experience

I almost died today. I was merrily driving to work, thinking about my day, thinking about Chemistry Guy, thinking about Computer Guy, thinking about how much I was thinking. I was in the middle lane of traffic and as I looked in my rear view mirror, I noticed a huge semi barreling up behind me, which in and of itself was no cause for alarm. Just then, the Volkswagon purring beside me in the fast lane of the heavily congested sixty mile an hour four lane highway during morning rush hour, began edging closer….and closer….and closer. She was so close I could see the salt stains on her silver paint job. I laid on my horn, and she whipped her car back over to the left, overcorrecting, and narrowly missing the concrete highway divider ribboned down I75. I sped up a bit and hurried over to the left to get away from her.

My heart was thumping and I thought of all the things that would have been catastrophic if I had not noticed her, if she had hit my car, sending it pummeling into the line of fire of that huge semi. I didn’t care much about the audits that wouldn’t have gotten done, but I did think about my sweet youngest son, who is looking rather malnourished lately, seeing as I haven’t been there to ensure that he eats something besides potato chips at night. I thought about my middle son, deep in the throes of his first real love, chomping at the bit to get off to college, at the cusp of his life. I thought about my oldest son, still lost in adolescence, still struggling to find his way. I want to be there to see him soaring high and free.

It would be such a tragedy to miss all that, to not see the end product of these three children I have loved and laughed with for all these years.

I’m glad I was paying attention.

Short and Sweet

I don’t like blogging before I go to bed. Summarizing a day’s events does not have the hopeful quality I enjoy so much as when I write in the morning about the upcoming events of day. Past tense allows no room for fiction.

Tonight may be an exception. It was a delightful day; full of hard work, full of accomplishment, full of commitments met and realized, full of hope and creativity and even a bit of enchantment.

I will smile as I sleep.

Outside, the still winter wind blusters about in a flurry of unfinished business.

Uncertainty

I didn’t work all weekend, but had almost no downtime at all. I had two meetings on Saturday, lunch with a friend, then went to see Lucy Kaplansky with SAHD-Guy and his girlfriend. Computer Guy went with me, but just as friends. He brought me dark chocolate with mint filling and two Lucy CDs. He was the perfect companion, and after having told him that I was going to pursue whatever will be with Chemistry Guy, all I could think about was whether or not it would be ok to kiss him at the end of the evening. I didn’t, but how absolutely Betty of me to obsess about it all evening.

Sunday was spent going to Quaker meeting, grocery shopping, visiting my mother, and making pot roast in anticipation of the Oscars. Greg invited some friends over, so I made Skyline Chili dip, sampling just a bite.

I am a bit disjointed and unfocused today. I watched the Oscars last night, spent some time with Chemistry Guy, slept well, but have been tired all day. Even with movement towards something meaningful, I am still haunted with uncertainty.

Will it ever go away?

Gratitude

I sat in the Quaker meeting wishing
for guidance through the
quagmire facing a single mother in her forties.
I waited for guidance and instead found
gratitude, abiding thanks for the
tulip bulbs of hope
that lie in darkness beneath the surface
soil of my soul.
I am reminded
by the birdsong outside my window
after long months of cold
that spring really is on her way,
disguised as she is
by the shroud of winter white
from last week’s ice storm.
Just because we can't see spring,
can’t see hope,
doesn’t mean she isn’t on her way.

Just for the Record

I am writing every day, it's just that the things I wrote yesterday and today, I can't post. I'll have a nice, long one for tomorrow, updating you all on the Chemistry Guy saga, but I doubt if I'll be writing a whole lot more about him. You see, things are looking good where he is concerned and I don't want to jeopardize anything.

Paying Paul

Busy season continues at a frenetic pace. Snow days interfere with our best laid plans, on occasion, and we simply bring our children into work with us. Or should I say, those with children too small to be left at home. Kevin only comes with me when there’s work for him to do, and he expects to be paid for it. I’m glad to pay him. I am not the type of mother who hands out money like bon bons at Halloween. I have a thing about money that hasn’t been earned, both receiving it, and paying it. I love to reward my kids monetarily for a job well done, but have a real problem with just giving it to them.

Does that make me stingy? I don’t do this because my parents adopted this parenting technique. In fact, because my parents were so reticent to part with their funds, at least when it came to their children, I would ordinarily do just the opposite. My heart tells me not to just give them money, just like it tells me not to do their homework, or follow them around with reminders and to do lists. I want my children to be self sufficient. I want them to learn the value and satisfaction of money earned.

Kinda like what I’m doing now, during busy season. I’m earning money. And it feels good.

You know what else feels good? A good hard workout at the gym. I am amazed at how good I feel when I finish, and also, while I’d doing the work. It just feels good. When I first climb onto Larry, I always run my hand down my thigh, feeling the contours of the muscles, stiffened and ready to work, just beneath the surface of my spandex pants. I slide my hand around and feel the gluts standing at the ready, waiting for the push of the pedal to start the body moving. It feels good to have firm, confident mass under my hands, instead of hesitant and wavering flesh. When I lie in bed at night, before I drift off to sleep, I run my hands down my stomach, marveling at the firmness of my abs, the toned biceps of my arms. I am proud of myself, proud of my hard work. The payoff may not be monetary, but it is indeed, a rich reward.

I have not let busy season rob me of my workouts this year. I have hastened out of bed in the wee hours of the morning to make it happen, but I haven’t missed a morning so far.

Passing Time

The work keeps me going. Going. Going. I’m tired, I’m worried, I’m scared.

It won’t be for much longer. Soon, the flowers will seduce me outside, and instead of tip tapping on the computer, my time will be occupied with dirt caked fingernails and redolent weeds. I will feel the same anticipation, but for sprouting tubers instead of phone calls.

I look forward to that time.

Minefields

As a by-product of my forays into heart laden minefields, I have made a few friends. Friends with heartache of their own and as they say, birds of a feather flock together. As a result of our similar stanced romantic experiences, we have bonded. When they hurt, I hurt. When they are treated badly, I feel the kick in my own gut.

The freeze out, the poof, is truly the worst and most cowardly way for any human being to handle the fear of intimacy. I think there should be a law against it, a tribunal of members of the opposite sex who objectively stand in judgment of people who willingly and perhaps intentionally cause emotional distress in matters of the heart. There ought to be a law.

If there can't be a law, there ought to be a required course in junior high, high school and college. Everyone should have to earn a minor in managing heartache. Think how much easier life would be if people were TAUGHT the right and wrong way to end a relationship.

I have no message of hope, other than the sad assurance that we've all been there. My story might have a different ending, I'm still not sure. We are both taking a couple days while he is out of town to think things through. We’ve been forthright and honest about what we need and fear from each other. We didn’t make any decisions, but at least he's talking, and I'm talking. When the talking stops, it sure makes it hard for it to be anything other than over.

One of the aforementioned friends cautioned me against writing much more on this subject, suggesting that I might appear foolish and undignified if I reveal many of the details of the next few weeks as we both decide the direction of our romantic attachment.

Undignified? Moi?

The person who wrote about being snuck into the Opera Gala? The person who wrote about a skin tag on my right hip? The person who wrote about losing 50 pounds? About 50 first dates? About being asked to go home when she was sure breakfast was included in the invitation? About six months of self imposed celibacy?

Nah. Undignified is simply not in my repertoire….

Working Late

It's 10:00pm. On Saturday night. I'm at the office, having just finished a big project. One more to go tomorrow, then I'll be caught up. My house is a mess, dishes piled up in the kitchen sink, fast food wrappers scattered across my family room, the living room. I even found some in the bathroom. The laundry is growing penicillen in the heaps next to the washing machine. Paw prints adorn the white doors leading to the front yard. Dust bunnies procreate under the couch. They wave to me when I shake my head passing by. They know they are safe for now. It is still at least two weeks before my hand will be touching any brooms.

I do this every year. The house gets a little ragged. My children run a little wild. The dog still greets me with the same enthusiam when I walk in, weary and worried, at the end of the day. This time will pass. As bad as I make it sound, I enjoy working this hard.

It beats sitting home sad and lonely, eating myself into oblivion.

Love Letter #2

I love you.

For this moment,
for right now,

I love you.

Because you tuck your dog into his bed at night
And give him cheese and biscuits and pig ears
And cut your evenings short because he’s a dog
And can’t hold it forever.

I love you.

Because you lecture your father
About his diet and buy him sugarless treats
Although there were few treats for you growing up.
Because you visit him and worry for him and wonder if he’s happy
Even though he did little of that for you.

I love you.

Because you delight in your daughter’s attention,
Look forward to her visits and phone calls
Though for several years
They were few and far between.
Because you proudly pronounce that your most treasured
Clock will leave your mantle simply because
Your daughter asked for it.

I love you.

Because the aunt who loved you in wordless ways
Has a priority in your life, like you had in hers
When you were small
And even now.
I know you’d give your right arm
To ensure her happiness.

I love you.

Because of the color aligned shirts on plastic hangers in your closet
and the brand spanking newness of your eight year old truck
Because of the carefully tended flowers in your yard.

I love you.

Though I cannot know the way of the winds of tomorrow
And I cannot be certain of what you feel for me
Through your fear and my fear and the fear of the lovers long before us
I simply know this,

I love you.

Right now.

This moment.

I

Love

You.

Happy Valentine’s Day

I overslept this morning, due, no doubt, to my late night cookie making escapade last night. This morning, a single sample from each batch accompanied my coffee. I made a rich, chewy, dark chocolate and cherry cookie (three different kinds of dark chocolate with dried cherries) and a light white chocolate macadamia nut cookie, using Ghirardelli white chocolate with vanilla beans. Both cookies, in the light of day, cooled, were exactly as I had hoped. Crunchy on the edges, chewy in the middle, all the flavors resplendent with sweetness.

I sat here, at the computer, with my coffee and my cookies and a bird started singing just outside my window. It is too cold to take my coffee out to the fishpond, but the bird sensed that I needed cheering and sang her heart out for me. A cardinal song, I knew, a redbird singing for me on Valentine’s Day.

I bought myself some Valentine’s Day presents, because you know what? I do love myself. I want to treat Betty well, show her some appreciation. I got her some garnet earrings because she has a garnet necklace and a garnet ring, but no earrings to match, and besides, they were red and match the red dress she bought for her nephew’s wedding. I bought her some black socks that say I’m Too Sexy with red hearts. I bought her some Ghiradelli milk chocolate with caramel, of which I will have two pieces today, just because it is Valentine’s Day. So, rest assured that Betty has taken care of Betty, as she always does, while she makes sure that everyone else in her life is also taken care of.

I packaged up the cookies, the chocolate cherry ones for Chemistry Guy, the white chocolate macadamia ones for Computer Guy and the leftovers for the office and for the boys in their Valentine’s Day bags. I won’t keep those cookies in my house. I re-read the poem I wrote for Chemistry Guy and I really like it. I am still not ready to share it with him, but I’m pleased with my work, and pleasure in my own writing is really what it’s all about. It’s why I do this.

Yesterday, I went to a lunch meeting. I belong to a service club of mostly white haired, republican men. One of those white haired, republican men is a client of mine whom I dearly love. He has mentored me for decades, and has been instrumental in my business success. They started admitting women about three years ago, and as soon as they did, my client recruited me. I sat there, surveying the crowd; the sea of shirted ties and receding hairlines, and I thought I should do a public service announcement. I should clue these gentlemen in on the importance of the next day. I fantasized about offering them gift giving ideas, based on their individual circumstances. I imagined the looks on their wives’ faces as their husbands walked in the room with the perfect Valentine’s gift. I imagined them actually listening to what I had to say.

Then I awoke from my reverie. White haired, republican men were not going to listen to me. If they didn’t listen to their wives, they weren’t going to listen to a middle-aged sex goddess preach to them about romance. And if they did listen to me, it would be for lascivious reasons, not romantic ones for their wives. No, I wouldn’t be doing anyone any favors with my public service announcement, and the women of the world would have to deal with Valentine’s Day on their own, as they always have.

Kevin has brushed his teeth and is ready to go get a Valentine’s Day donut, to go with the cookies he just ate. My work is up to date, I have a writing class tonight. The dog gave me lots of love this morning, Greg hugged me before he left for school. Scott is coming in to work with me again, and all is right in Betty land.

Don’t you all worry about me.

I’m doing just fine.

Ready or Not

I’m ready for Valentine’s Day. Got my boys each a little something, got sexy socks and Dove chocolate for my staff. Baked cookies for Chemistry Guy. And, I baked cookies for the guy who is still unnamed. This new guy asked me out for this weekend, and I didn’t know what to say. Chemistry Guy had said we would do something, but I have only talked with him once since Friday, and that was when I called him on Monday. Nothing since, other than a few forwarded funnies. Then, I got a Valentine from him today. Yes, I know, he has now met my minimum. The Valentine was really sweet, used the L word without committing himself to anything. Made me wonder what is really going on in that pretty little head of his. I don’t know if he will do anything tomorrow, but if he does, I’m prepared. And if he doesn’t, my staff will get some really good cookies.

Snow Day

No long post today, just a checkin. I'm writing poems for my boys for Valentine's Day, and maybe a few others, but I can't share them here until I've shared them with the recipients.

Snow and ice and no school. My client called me to postpone our meeting until 11:00. It's scary outside. I brought work home with me, so I'm staying productive, in between poems.

Love Letter

I stood in line at the grocery store checkout Saturday night, my cart modestly filled with the makings of a steak dinner for me and my boys. I had considered taking them out for dinner, but after a 10 hour weekend workday and due to the fact that I hadn’t showered nor curled my hair nor put on a speck of makeup, I had opted for a nice dinner at home. Made by me, of course. Also, I wanted to have a family meeting to talk to the boys about helping me out a bit more than they had been during this whirlwind worktime for me. The day before, after working 14 hours, I had come home to a sink full of dishes, a coffee table playing host to fast food wrappers, ketchup laden salad plates, cups and glasses and bottles of soft drinks and bags of chips with the last few crumbs waiting to fall on the floor. I was disgusted and irritated and that was all before I found the two piles of dog poop on the carpet in the living room.

I like a neat house. I keep it cleaner now that I’m doing the work myself (with the supervised help of the boys) than when I hired someone to do it for me. But the time had come for a “come to Jesus/Momma” talk with my boys as I gently encouraged them to help me out a little more over the next six weeks. I wanted to have the talk while their mouths were munching on well prepared food that I knew they would like. Hence the steak dinner.

I stood in line, contemplating my upcoming talk, thinking about the work ahead of me and behind me and lying in the cart waiting my attention as soon as I walked in the door at home. I looked around. I saw a wizened old man, graying whiskers accumulated, it looked, for two or three days in the style bewitching on Hollywood’s leading men, but looking like neglect on the old man’s face. He smiled at the clerk as he handed over two twenties and a five for his three bags of groceries for one. He struggled slightly with the milk and the orange juice, lifting them into his cart, the bread, the eggs, the oranges following suit. Although his gait was ungainly and his grip on the handles of the cart absolute, his joy at just being there, still alive, although most likely alone, was visible and tangible and beautiful.

I smiled to myself.

I made him my valentine.

I sent him love energy for as long as there was life left in him. I hoped for him, for me, for all of humanity, continuity of joy so obviously a part of his soul.

In the next moment, he was gone and the scanner started beeping with the groceries of the person between my cart and his. My gaze shifted to the father and son ahead of me. Mom was busy rummaging through her purse to find her wallet. Dad was holding his four year old boy, explaining why he couldn’t get the magic markers displayed in the checkout aisle, nor could he have the deck of cards, resting to the right of the markers. He was gentle and kind to the little boy, but unrelenting in his refusal. The little boy considered a tantrum. I could see it in his face, puckering in protest. Dad sensed it as well and chose that moment to raspberry the little boy’s neck, distracting him from the moment and sending him squealing in delight at the teasing antics of his father. Mom glanced up from her task and smiled a tired smile of appreciation.

I noticed their faded clothes, the generic groceries, the haunted look of the struggling working class.

I made them my valentines, too.

I sent the little boy wisdom and love and generosity, because although he wasn’t getting magic markers and playing cards, what his daddy gave him instead was so much more important. And his daddy…oh, how grateful I was to see a Good Daddy at work right in front of me. No harsh words, no smacked hands, no insults, just love and consistency and distraction. I loved the Mom, too, at that moment. I wished for her a spark of passion at the end of the day, a bubble bath now and then, a really good romance novel and a warm cup of tea on a Sunday afternoon. I hoped that the partnership obvious even to me between herself and her husband would last as long as the two of them were alive.

I watched them leave as the checkout girl snapped her gum in rhythm with the scanner and my steak dinner for my boys slid into the waiting hands of the stock boy bagging them in handled plastic. The Dad still held his boy, the Mom pushed the cart, and boy paused in his chattered repertoire to rest his head on his daddy’s shoulder for a moment before popping back up to clamor for a gumball.

I loved the whole world in that moment.

I hope I can hold onto this until Thursday.

Thinking it Through

It’s Friday night and I’m contemplating my bed after a long day, a long week, of getting up at 5:30 every morning and staying late doing countless chores, meeting endless obligations. I spent the evening with Chemistry Guy last night and…drumroll, please…he asked me out for next weekend when my youngest will be with his dad. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that he intimated that he was unavailable until next weekend, and didn’t mention Valentine’s Day at all. Sigh. The depths of despair that I will feel if he neglects me on Valentine’s Day is indescribable. I don’t think our relationship could survive. Did I say relationship? It has been two months. Nine weeks. How long does one have to date someone in order to call it a “relationship”. I still don’t dare call him my boyfriend. I don’t even think about calling him up at the end of the day to see how he is. I’m still very much in the “only return calls from him” stage. I don’t think that meets the definition of relationship.

I had breakfast with Color Guy this morning. I think we have a bonafide friendship developing. He tells me to dump Chemistry Guy post haste, but he says it with a bit of a smirk and an acknowledgement that he is not an unbiased observer. Actually, my friends say I should dump him. His friends say he should dump me, but regardless of what our friends say, when we are together, the rest of the world disappears. He looks at me with the eyes of a man in love.

I’m sure I’m wrong. I’m sure I’m just looking at his eyes through my own wishbone rose colored glasses. On the other hand, he was kissing me passionately within thirty seconds of opening the door last night and ladies and gentlemen, I don’t call him Chemistry Guy for nothing.

I got a pull off calendar for Christmas called Wise Words from Wild Women. Today’s quote was from Liz Winston. She said, “I think, therefore I’m single.”

Nothing against all the married women in the world, and for seventeen years, I was one, but people, I think she has a point.

While I was breakfasting with Color Guy, I came up with a theory. He was saying that his reservations relating to his lady friend were based on concerns about their long term potential. I suggested that his concerns were premature, because first, he needed to fall in love before long term potential issues even made it to the table. My theory is first comes love, then comes marriage…if you don’t have the first, what’s the point of worrying about whether or not you are capable of the second?

I suppose the planner in people wants to try to avoid falling in love with people who present long term attachment issues, that people want to sidestep the long term issues by picking who they fall in love with. I think that’s all backwards. I think that those who I could fall in love with are so few and far between that if I can find someone worthy of my love, who is capable of loving me back, then the rest of the long term potential issues melt away. If I found that person, and that person found me, we’d find a way to work it out, like water finds it’s way down the side of a mountain, regardless of the boulders in it’s way.

But then again, I think too much.

And maybe that's why I'm single.

Balancing Act

Some days, it seems as though I have never been happier. The birds, singing their early songs of spring, pick their repertoire just to lift my day. Kevin grows an inch as I stand in awe, watching him brush his teeth in the tiny confines of my bathroom. The boys blossom before my eyes, and I feel fulfilled as a mother in ways I could have never imagined.

The drive into work is joyfull as I wonder at the people passing by whom I will never know, but for the fleeting seconds when they flash before my view. Tip-tapping on my computer, analyzing numbers and words and putting pieces of the audit puzzle together, I find my work to be a creative expression of my soul. I route my comments to my clients and my staff and I revel in my desire to leave a positive mark on the world. They all respond with appreciation for my nurture and care.

I feel an effervescence of goodness and belonging, and I cherish those moments. I recognize them as fleeting, just as I know the down days don’t last for long, either. These intermittent days of delight make the tedium of routine in the precarious balance in between, tolerable.

Lethargy of the Past

The days rush by in anonymous oblivion. I’m busy, every day, every moment. It feels good, in many ways, but parts of me miss the savoring lethargy of my less productive life. I remember wasted hours in the morning, reading blogs, breakfasting at 10:00, coffee by the fishpond, long and luxurious workouts with Larry, arriving home soaked in sweat and adrenaline.

Now I rush through my workouts, lightspeed my shower and makeup, off in a cloud of dust with Molly at 8:15am, logging 9 or 10 hours of billable time. I’ve been packing my lunch at night, and making two nights worth of dinners at a time so that I get a few moments of downtime every other evening….except those evenings I concede to a dinner date. Then it’s rush, rush again, and it takes even more energy to summon my charms and smiles and humor.

Does it sound like I’m complaining? I don’t mean to. This increase in activity is good for me, as good for me as losing all that weight and working the gym routine into my daily schedule. Better mental health. And that may lead to a much happier Betty, in the long run.

It does wreak havoc on my writing, though. Not as much time to sift through my thoughts. Fewer nuggets of philosophical epiphanies, more ramblings about not much of anything. And I’m doing it every day.

Poor you readers.

Unless of course, hearing about the aches of my heart is entertaining for you.

Coffee Date Guy confirmed that no, he has no desire to meet me. What a blow to my ego. Somehow, in my eager appreciation of the beauty of his writing, I did…something...and it turned him off. Funny, he’s not a particularly handsome man, but I was so very, very intrigued by his writing and the thoughtful expressiveness of his words, his dreams, and a vague melancholy with which I could so relate. I talked to him on the phone tonight. His voice was out of synch with my expectations, and chances are, had I met him, so would have been the chemistry. It is disquieting, though, to never know, to wonder, to imagine rather than remember.

I struggle, sometimes, with understanding other’s fears, with remembering that others have different measures than I, different decision making processes than mine.

I struggle.

I see Chemistry Guy tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to it. I know some of you are shaking your head, waiting to waggle an “I told you so” finger, but I’m moving ahead, anyway. I enjoy my time with him.

I just need to figure out a better way to handle the times in between.

Integrity

Soft rain drums a rhythmic beat on the skylight in my bedroom, reminding me that life isn’t always sunny, and romance has dark and stormy moments. But I already knew that. I was weaned on that knowledge when my first boyfriend, at the age of 3, would call my name and I’d go running, only to be slapped to the ground. Up until last year, I could still remember his name. Just now, I’ve forgotten.

I’ve not been in an abusive relationship since then. I simply don’t seem to attract mean people, although I know they are out there. I see them in relationships with other people, but never with me. Of course, it’s been a long time, and when I am in a relationship, those rose colored glasses work pretty effectively to blind me to the bad things. I haven’t worn them for so long, I can’t even remember what it’s like to look through them.

My coffee date was cancelled. It seems that my coffee date’s heart wasn’t in it, that he was rejected by a girl he liked and was hoping that the coffee date with me would lift his spirits and in a burst of integrity, decided that a coffee date spent thinking about someone else would not be fair to me.

Of course, he’s right, but my Goddess, how many times have I spent peering over the top of a cup of coffee at a face that was kind and attractive, and thought about the one that got away. Countless times. I always justified it because I figured the guy on the other end got quite a bit of entertainment value, because let’s face it. I’m a lively and enlightened coffee date, regardless of who else is on my mind.
So, no meet up, not even a telephone conversation, no chance to display my charms other than through my words, which certainly seemed to be charming him.

The three most important things in a romance are timing, timing, timing.

My timing has always sucked.

Better luck next time.

Super Bowl

I watched the Super Bowl with my two youngest sons. Each of us had a friend over, so I guess you could call it a party. I made Skyline Chili dip, bought fresh mozzarella at Findlay Market yesterday, and served almond stuffed olives. My friend and I each had two glasses of wine. I played with the dog, sparred with my sons, bonded with everyone.

Nice.

More romantic angst tomorrow, but right now, I'm heading to bed.

THE BUSINESS OF YOUR BUSINESS

I volunteered to do a presentation on starting a business to a group of mostly African American entrepreneurs. I prepped most of the morning, practiced once through, and was proud of my presentation. One of the other speakers was a woman who published a book. I bought a copy and she signed it for me: To Betty, the only accountant who could make me laugh.

I was on tonight. Everything came out the way I wanted it to. I had written out the intro and the conclusion, outlined the body of the presentation. I forgot to do the written intro, but here is my conclusion.

In the business of YOUR business, there are no knights in shining white armor and no place for damsels in distress. In the business of YOUR business there is only life, your life. You make the decisions. You take the responsibility. You reap the benefits. The benefits you reap will be directly correlative to the benefits you sow. Your treatment of your employees will be reflected in their longevity. The trust you earn from your clients will be reflected in the trust they put in you.

Always remember how easy it is to vote with your feet. You’ve all done it, or you wouldn’t be here. Hold to your ideals and principles. Recycle. Waste not, want not. Be HONEST…even with the government. If you have it to give, give it away. It will come back to you. You cannot give away kindness. It always boomerangs right back.

Wicked

Wicked was wonderful. Thank you, Brett, for sending me the soundtrack. Thank you, SAHD-Guy, for insisting that I go, even if you didn’t get to go with me. Because of Brett’s soundtrack, I knew most of the words by heart and could concentrate on the music.

One song is stuck in my head this morning. “Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but because I knew you, I have been changed for good." There are so many people in my life, in every person’s life, to which this song applies. People come into our lives and leave their indelible footprints. They don’t always stay in their physical form, but their presence remains with you, sometimes for the rest of your life.

Before the show, I went to a fancy Italian restaurant with Chemistry Guy, and we spoke of friends we lost when we were young. Lost in the permanent sense of the word. He spoke of his buddy when he was in high school who died from leukemia. He choked up, unexpectedly, noting that he hadn’t cried in over 10 years. I told him about Judy Mason and her 15 year old son, Matt, who were killed by a drunk driver three weeks after my wedding. Matt was 10 years younger than me. When he was 10 and I was 20, he asked me to wait for him to grow up so he could marry me. He’s the only other person besides Rexford who ever wanted to marry me, so yeah, I can’t forget him. Judy was kind, compassionate, and modeled for me what marriage was supposed to be like-unglamorous hard work, but filled with love and resourcefulness and honest compromise. I think of her every time I hear “Fire and Rain” by James Taylor.

I wonder who thinks of me, when they think of those that changed them, even if not for the better, but definitely, changed for good.

I hope the list is a long one.