29 Years Ago....

Fall 1991, College of Charleston, Charleston SC.

His name was Carlos X — or at least that was how he signed the op-ed piece in The Cougar Pause, our biweekly student newspaper. He told his story of how he’d experienced racism on our fair campus.

People lost their damn minds.

There were multiple pages of letters to the editor in response. One was mine. And mine was one of two written by white students that didn’t automatically discount his experience. The other was J.J. Biondi, who if I recall correctly was a resident assistant at one of the dorms (or had been). We offered our apologies as they were, and offers of reconciliation and conversation. Funny the details we can recall. There was also a letter from Larry, a guy who was known for being somewhat militant around campus. Our very own Huey Newton or Stokely Carmichael.

I worked with two young African-American men in the computer labs. One was Trey, who was an absolute Mac whiz and who taught me what little I knew about Macs back in the day. We were working one morning and he suggested we go to lunch to continue a conversation we’d begin about the Carlos X situation. He personally knew Carlos. He told me things Carlos had left out of the op-ed piece, details which I knew were closer to accurate than not: how one of the frat boys (from a certain fraternity known to glorify the past) repeatedly called him boy when he worked the dorm check-in desk. I remember being dumbfounded. Trey opened my eyes that day to how he was seen as a black man on campus. I mentioned that I’d had classes with one person in the minority student council who was perceived as very militant.... he laughed and said, “yeah, that dude’s a bit extreme, and he’s just as wrong in some ways.” These many years later, I can begin to see why Nate’s views had been shaped that way.

A couple of days later, I was working with Troy, a sweet young African-American man in the computer lab. He always called me ma’am, no matter how much I tried to have him stop. He was polite to a fault. We were sitting there also having our conversation. He shrugged off the whole thing, and I really wanted him to take it more seriously, especially after my talk with Trey. In walked Larry and I asked how I could help him....

“You’re Annette McClellan, aren’t you?”

Oh shit. What had I done? I barely knew Larry, pretty much by name only, and his letter.

I squeaked our, “I’m Annette, and you’re....?”

“I’m Larry (last name), do you know me?”

“I know the name.....”

He held out his hand, “I came here to shake your hand. For being one of two people on this campus who doesn’t think Carlos is crazy.”

I exhaled, Larry smiled, and we shook hands. I told him I appreciated his kindness and he said the same. Troy eventually exhaled too. Larry went off to find J.J. to shake his hand as well.

And here we are, 29 years later. We’re still trying to figure it out. But things are different at C of C.  Just a week or so ago, it was announced that the college had revoked their acceptance of at least one student who had been shown in the past to make racially charged remarks, or other displays of racial insensitivity. We’ve made great strides.

And we have a long way to continue to go.

Bronze Thoughts on Golden Throats 3 (Sweethearts of Rodeo Drive)

It only took thirteen years after posting Silver Thoughts about Golden Throats 2, but I *finally* got Golden Throats 3 (Sweethearts of Rodeo Drive). One, back then, trying to find a copy was hard enough but if you could, it was in the $50 range. I was patient, kept it on the Amazon wishlist, and only 13 years later, it finally came in at a reasonable rate (under $15).

Was it worth it? For pure kitsch factor, absolutely. Let's face it, none of these folks will ever be known or remembered for being beautiful singers. Okay, maybe one, but......

Let's do a rundown, shall we?

• I Walk the Line (Leonard Nimoy) -- nothing out of the ordinary from all the other Nimoy covers I've heard. He has a serviceable basso-baritone that with some additional vocal coaching would have been just fine on the airwaves. But the delivery? Oh, the delivery. It's never as hammy as his Star Trek costar William Shatner, but always slightly stilted, as if he were still in Spock character. 

• I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (Goldie Hawn) -- it's not horrible. It's not great, but not horrible. Again, a little vocal coaching could go a long way. Or a couple of extra practice sessions.

• Hey Good Lookin' (John Davidson) -- Those thumps you hear? Hank spinning in his grave. This is a total lounge act rendition. Even Nick The Lounge Singer is going, "Okay, that's a bit much, dude."

• Green Green Grass of Home (Jack Palance) -- again, not horrible, but not great. Truth be told, it barely leans into the okay category. I'm waiting for him to say "I don't need (wheeze) some fancy cologne (wheeze)....." before launching into the virtues of Skin Bracer...... 

• Back Street Affair (Carol Channing and Webb Pierce) -- both well-known, both stars of their varied genres. Together, this is just a mess. Think an older, twangier version of Andy Gibb and Victoria Principal doing "All I Have To Do Is Dream" ..... or for the youngsters, imagine Bieber singing with one of the Kardashians. Moral: just because you can doesn't mean you should.

• San Antonio Rose (Michael Parks) -- no. Just no. If your name ain't Ray Benson or George Strait, then stay the hell away from Bob Wills' music.

• Almost Persuaded (Louis Armstrong) -- I love Satchmo, but no. Was he HIGH when he recorded this? I mean, I really have to ask. 

• Ringo (Lorne Greene) - this is all in French, and it's more a recitation over music as opposed to actual singing. Kind of like he drew inspiration from Sebastian Cabot. But oddly, it's probably the best offering so far (so what does that tell you?) And in his recitation, it's very similar (and I mean very) to the cadence used by Debbie Harry in Rapture. I'm waiting for Fab Five Freddy to tell me everybody's fly.....

• Tumblin' Tumbleweeds (Merv Griffin) -- and now for the WORST rendition on the record. God better have already had a word with ol' Merv for the murder of this song. Backup singers going, "Tumblin', tumblin' tumbleweeds." And sadly, Merv isn't a bad singer. He had a career prior to TV with the Freddy Martin Orchestra. But this.... in. ex. cus. a. ble. 

• Your Cheatin' Heart (Buddy Ebsen) -- weeeeee doggie, Jed sings. Well, kinda. It's very meh. The backup singers are a huge distraction, especially the ones doing the Kathy Najimy as Sister Mary Highnotes impression.

• Mule Train (Rod McKuen) - very meh. Nothing will ever make me forget the Frankie Laine original. 

• Cool Water (Walter Brennan) -- this one almost makes me wish for Merv Griffin's Tumblin' Tumbleweeds. It's everything you'd expect from a Walter Brennan tune. I was hoping Richard Crenna would show up and save Grandpa McCoy, but alas, no. I was also waiting for Forest Whitaker to offer to take some pictures for a friend of his in 'Nam, but........

• Folsom Prison Blues (Living Marimbas + Voices) -- this rendition would have fit in beautifully in the wunnerful wunnerful world of Warwence, umm.... Lawrence Welk. I can see the champagne bubbles now.......

• Desperados Waiting For a Train (Slim Pickens) -- Golldurn, Mr. Taggart, you use your voice purrtier than a ....... Actually, it's not bad. He doesn't sing as much as recite over music. I'm waiting for a sh...load of dimes for the jukebox on this one.

• I Walk The Line (Telly Savalas) -- surprisingly, not as bad as you might think. Telly actually had a decent singing voice. But I kinda would have enjoyed hearing "Who loves ya, baby?" at the end.....

• Peace In The Valley (Wink Martindale) -- Wink needs to stick to his Deck of Cards (both on record and on TV). I often laugh about the hoopla over Elvis, but Elvis had THE definitive version of this song and nothing else will ever compare.

• Games People Play (Jim Nabors) -- you might imagine, bombastic as hell. This is the Joe South song of "Games People Play," not The Spinners or Alan Parsons Project. Although I can imagine those would be just as bad. You know, him doing Nessun Dorma, sure. But him doing covers is just as wretched as you might guess. 

If you have never had the pleasure of listening to the Golden Throats series, and love kitsch as much as I do...... treat yo'self!!!

Purpose In The Time of Corona

Years ago, the big thing was The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren. It seemed that every church group or book discussion group was reading it. I probably have a copy from when mom's church ladies' group was reading it.

I never got into it. For one thing, I'd pretty well established my mission statement early in life thanks to another book -- What Color Is Your Parachute, which was big in the early 90s HR circles. Since I was a "permanent temp" myself back then (yes, that was a real thing) and we usually gave that book to recently displaced former employees, I figured it would behoove me to read it. It was a good read.... and I figured that my MISSION (big lights, capital letters, etc.) was more or less "to help people, no matter what job I found myself doing." And more or less that's ended up being the trajectory of my career. I kind of gravitated to those positions and shied away from anything that would force me to directly manage people. And over time, I've come to see I'm far better at managing data and the like than I am managing people. People are messy and I like my work to be neat.

But my purpose -- the WHY AM I HERE -- oh my. Different altogether. Answering "what am I supposed to do" is far easier than "why am I even here." The first, you can figure out in a few years with a lot of trial and error. But why am I here, why do I exist, what is the meaning if any of my very being?  That's something altogether different.

That takes nearly a lifetime of living. Of making error after error, of wrong paths and misdirected efforts. Of trusting people who weren't worthy, of eventually finding your tribe and loving them hard, of having your sweet fragile heart broken over and over again and deciding whether you're going to let it shrink you or expand you. It's learning who you are and whose you are. It's the process not so much of reinvention than peeling another layer to say, "Oh yeah, I'd forgotten that part was even in there!"

So here I am at 50 and a half (thank you very much). Corona-quarantine has given me much time to think (and I just took out an entire paragraph that I'll use for another post shortly)...... And tonight I was thinking about my purpose -- not my mission, but my purpose.

I want you to tell me how I'm doing. Honestly. 

I believe my purpose is to be court jester/fool in this life.

I didn't say to be stupid. Who was one of the wisest characters in King Lear? The fool. Lear's jester. He saw things others didn't see, especially Lear who was so caught up in his own importance that he failed to see what was real and what was not. Throughout literature, the concept of fools to convey a greater message has been used as a counterpoint to conventional wisdom.

If I'm not there yet, I'm on my way.

But you tell me.......

A Look Back at the 2010s

I think about the last decade — all that transpired in my life — and I’m grateful to still be here.

WORK: I was working in HR in 2010 and questioning and second-guessing EVERYTHING I did. To a couple of people there, nothing ever seemed to be to their liking, because I actually wanted to follow little things like correct hiring practices. By 2013, I was out of active HR (doing payroll support and some other things) but crying at my desk at some point almost every day. I kept thinking where had I gone wrong, where had this path diverted to this? I was technically let go that fall from that position and in the company, but given the opportunity to stay on in a different department. I felt like I had no choice -- I needed the benefits and the salary. So I made the move but I felt so defeated. Again, I questioned for months if I’d done the right thing — it ended up being one of the best things I ever did. I found my niche and I love what I do and the team I work with. That's not to say we haven't had our share of swerves, curves, and craziness. In the 2010s, I filled at least 8 different roles, worked on 5 different systems (and 3 different payroll systems too), had more bosses than I can count (5 this year alone) and one physical move to a new location. Most of the changes happened without me ever leaving my cubicle. (Reminds me of an ex-boyfriend who has never left his office and worked for 5 different companies thanks to acquisitions and mergers). Underwent a few of those as well …..

HEALTH: the 2010s were a case of "what else could POSSIBLY go wrong?" In 2010, I was at my lowest weight but finding lots wrong with my overall health. I passed out cold twice in the next two years, to be sent to cardiology referrals to figure out why an otherwise healthy person was passing out, and having pulse rates in the 50s. What I learned after a year of monitoring was that I had just a naturally low heart resting rate and strong vasovagal reactions, especially under extreme stress. Even now, at the highest weight I've been in a very long time, my resting heart rate still barely registers above 60 -- most of the time, the high 50s. In the midst of all that, in 2012, I got the call no woman ever wants: “hey, we found something odd on your last mammo, can you come back in?” Long story short, it took 7 weeks and an MRI to determine that “oh, it may have just been a bad area of film, you’re clear....” Starting that summer, the migraine disorder kicked into high gear. The old OTC remedies weren’t working. I begged my doctor for a neurology referral.... but instead I got sent to an ENT. I learned after almost a year of migraines and sinus/respiratory infections, that I have chronic rhinitis — meaning that there pretty much isn’t a damn thing they can do. My baseline is another person’s raging infection. Thanks for nothing, doc.  In 2014, the stress had gotten to me from all  this, and I broke out in a horrid case of shingles. I would not wish that upon my worst enemy.  I struggled with weight again — and after a foot injury in late 2014 which would worsen, my weight went up. In 2015, I had foot surgery to correct a bunion that was getting worse and straighten out the two adjoining toes which were almost in hammertoe shape. I was off my feet for months, so yeah.... you see where this is going. With other things (see later) that happened, I turned to food again for solace. And now on the entrance threshold of a new decade (even though technically, the decade does not end until 1/1/21 but WHATEVER)…… I find myself trying to figure out where to get back on track. 

MENTAL HEALTH: In 2014, after all the stress and the shingles outbreak, I also decided that I needed to get my ass into therapy. That for me was a MASSIVE step. My last experience with counseling had been a couple of quick trips to the counseling center on campus when I was in college, and I had stopped going once my crisis was over. Not this time.... I knew I would need some additional help. Some friends I lucked into a really good and caring therapist who diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder and thought there may also be some depression at play. She was a great therapist, and the only reason I stopped was because I couldn't make appointments while recuperating from foot surgery. But there was one more twist...... in the last part of 2015, although I didn’t see it at the time, I was spiraling into an awful place. I was snarly and snappy and just plain mean, and having the closest thing to a manic episode ever the last few weeks of 2015. I suddenly had a crapton of ideas and yet I felt like my skin was going to peel itself off me from sheer energy. Example: one night, driving home, I got the bizarre idea that I needed to pull in somewhere and buy a pack of cigarettes just to have something to do with my hands and the odd idea that in the rhythmic inhale and exhale of smoking, I might find a crazy peace. Now that is messed up (especially knowing that prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke will trigger a migraine). Finally, after my boss sat me down and asked me if the workload was too much -- because all my coworkers were going to her to ask what had happened to me..... the very next week, I sat with my doctor and got on an antidepressant. Best. Thing. Ever. Ever. Ever. Seriously - because without those meds I could not have made it through the next portion of my life.....

LOSS: 6 weeks after going on antidepressants, I was planning my mother's funeral. I had gone to the doctor near the end of January 2016. In late February, my mother had some sort of cardiac event and we had her taken to the hospital. She never came home. We know she had a heart attack, but we think either she also had a stroke of some sort because she pretty much became non-responsive -- or she just mentally checked out and it took the body a while to catch up. She ended up going into organ failure, primarily in the kidneys. In her weakened condition, dialysis was not a viable option. We did all we could do - so we had her transferred to Hospice House, where she held on for another 42 hours. Here I am almost 4 years removed from things, and I am forever analyzing and revisiting my relationship with her, what I could have done better, and yet knowing I did all I could. I was the last of us three to be with her at the Hospice facility. I sat beside her and talked and sang, and I did my best. I helped plan a beautiful send off for her.  8 weeks later, I lost one of my aunts by marriage. My cousin Lori and I were suddenly bound by a same pain. We had to suddenly navigate seas we weren't quite ready to sail on.  On the 9-month anniversary of mom's funeral, I had to say goodbye to my beloved Maddox. I thought saying goodbye to Mom hurt, but this one killed me. I held him as he began breathing his last deep slumbering breaths, and I still cry at the memory. Not even 2 months later, I said goodbye to one of daddy's sisters. My childhood was dropping around me and I was powerless to do anything. Then in May, I lost my favorite musician -- in 2016, some of the ones I loved most were all dying at a staggering rate, but losing Chris Cornell only 2 weeks after I'd stood 10 feet from him on stage (me in the pit) was heartbreaking. And of all the losses I would suffer, his is still the one that has no reasonable explanation, no rhyme or reason or anything which would make sense. But the worst was yet to come.....

RICHARD: Four months later, I was at work on a Friday, getting ready to work a weekend shift because we were so far behind after a system changeover. I was almost out the door when I remembered I'd left my phone at the desk being charged. I turned it over face up, and there was a string of messages from daddy, "Come home as soon as you can, I think your brother's having a heart attack." I lost the color from my face (so they said), and leaned against the wall. One of my bosses offered to drive me home, but I declined -- because by God, I was going to break whatever laws I had to in order to get home. I was going to say some decidedly unladylike things to the other drivers (and I did, be sure of that). I drove up right at 7:00 to see Daddy and his pastor on the porch. There was no news yet. Daddy and I started calling family members to tell them to pray and pray hard. Lori's response was unlike all the others -- while all my cousins and aunts and uncles were shocked and going, "Oh my gosh, what do you need, what can we do?" Lori gave me a quick, "Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm on it. Okay." The same type of response I give in crisis mode - no time to panic, just do. Daddy and I left for the hospital - Lori met us there, saying, "There is no way that I'm letting y'all be alone in whatever you need at this moment." They took us in a room and a lady came in. I knew who she was by her name badge: the coroner. They don't send the coroner in when they're telling you that he's still in ICU, etc. So I knew he was gone. But to hear her say it...… My cousin held me as I cried. She helped call the family to tell them the bad news. It's been 2-plus years, and I am still not over my brother's death. I don't know that I ever will be. There are times I look up to the skies and scream, "You ought to be here, you asshole! You left me here to do all this shit myself and I need you here, you little turd!" (These are my moments of anxiety when I'm scared to death at the thought of being a caregiver for my dad when those days come and having no one to count on - not that I'm sure I could have really counted on my brother, but that's another story).

And lest we forget: POLITICS: if the last three years haven't given me a breakdown yet, nothing will. But it has damn sure galvanized me and that is ALL I have to say.

So today I looked at an article that said, "If you have dealt with mental health issues in the past decade and feel like you haven't accomplished anything, WRONG! You survived....." I started thinking about the 10 years past and HOLY SHIT, I have survived. I haven't always thrived like I wanted to, but I have by God survived. And I've become more open about my struggles because I am not ashamed of them -- There are days when I throw my arms open and think, "you haven't taken me down yet, motherfuckers!" (But then I don't because I do not want to invite any bad juju, you know....)

So what do the 2020s hold? I don't even want to think about it. Literally. I spent a little time doing so the last few weeks and honestly, some of the options overwhelmed me so much that I had to take breaks to go breathe. I'm still holding out for a safe time and space when I can book the meltdown I so richly deserve.

But I have survived things that I never imagined I would. Pure grace and stubbornness and overwhelming kindness and the refusal to give in for even one minute. That's my odd mix of coping mechanisms. Oh, and concerts and plenty of dank humor that no one else would even begin to understand.

Oh, I, oh, I'm still alive...….

50 at 50: Doing What I Love

Another year-end reflection (I've been working on these over the last few days).....

Let's fall in love with music

The driving force of our living

The only international language

Divine glory, the expression.....

-- Andrew Wood, "Man of Golden Words"

The thing I'll remember most about the 2010s is that sometime around 2014, I fell in love again with live music. In my college days, we had live music everywhere — especially in a touristy artsy town like Charleston. I couldn’t always afford the cover charge (and being real, I’m not pretty enough to get a guy to pony up the cover for me), but there was weekly live music for free on campus. If you were really lucky, a frat might hire a local band for one of their parties and even if you didn’t go, you could hear the music nearby. My service fraternity had a yearly event with live music. Our College Activities Board sponsored at least one big concert a year.

It's been 30 years since I went to my first REAL concert. I was in college — Elton John on the Sleeping With The Past tour. Charlotte Coliseum, October 16, 1989. Some things you never forget. We were still making our way into the venue when “Bennie and the Jets” started. On the second song “Island Girl,” we’d finally made it in and I remember going up the stairs at nearly full speed (not easy for a fat girl, mind you) and I was in heaven. My next concert was just a few weeks later, a Jimmy Buffett show as a benefit for Hurricane Hugo victims and we were blessed enough to snag front row seats.

After that, I didn’t go to another show until 1995. Honestly, I was making crap wages, paying back student loans at a ridiculous rate (because private loans since my parents “made too much” for federally funded loans). I went to mostly some local gigs from friends or things with maybe a $10 ticket because again — low wages.

Finally in the mid-2000s, I got a decent job with awesome benefits, good living wages, and was in the process of regaining the woman I’d discovered in college and then quashed to make people happy. And it all started with a Facebook post from Marc Cohn: "Hey Greenville SC fans, where's a great place to eat when I come there?" That was it. I knew I'd have to go!

So I started out a little slow, with two shows in 2014 .....

• Marc Cohn (Peace Center Amphitheatre, Greenville SC)
• Steely Dan (Township Auditorium, Columbia SC)

And I was hooked again. There were no shows in  2015 (foot surgery instead) .... and then in 2016, it began for real. Eight shows that year.

It actually started with me finding out in December 2015 that Pearl Jam was going to tour. I was thinking, "Okay, so I'll just go to Atlanta because that will be the closest show....." Then the schedule was released: GREENVILLE!!! My brother -- who wasn't a huge PJ fan -- texted me immediately, "You ARE getting tickets, right????" So we went..... it was both the first and last show we ever saw together.

• Pearl Jam (BSW Arena, Greenville SC)
• The Mavericks (Peace Center Amphitheater, Greenville SC) 
• Chris Cornell / Fantastic Negrito (N Charleston Performing Arts Center, Charleston SC)
• Rick Springfield / Night Ranger / The Romantics (Midtown Amphitheater, Charlotte SC)
• Fantastic Negrito (Asheville Music Club, Asheville NC)
• Avett Brothers (BSW Arena, Greenville SC)
• Temple of the Dog / Fantastic Negrito (Madison Square Garden, NYC)
• Temple of the Dog / Fantastic Negrito (Paramount Theatre, Seattle)

Eight more in 2017.

• Bon Jovi (BSW Arena, Greenville SC) **NOTE: my brother was supposed to go with us, but he had an eye exam that day, and they dilated. He said, "But what if I have a ticket for the Bon Jovi concert tonight....?" and the staff laughed. Luckily, my friend Nicole drove in at the last minute and we enjoyed it together!
• Soundgarden (Carolina Rebellion, Concord NC) — also Eagles of Death Metal, The Cult, Every Time I Die, Radkey and probably plenty of others who played that I didn’t go see.  And I got to meet my friends Mike Z and Nancy C in person that day.
• Soundgarden / The Dillinger Escape Plan (Tuscaloosa Amphitheater, Tuscaloosa, AL) -- got to meet my friend Clayton B that day in person, and ran into someone I knew from one of the fan sites. She was wearing her TOTD shirt and I was wearing my white Soundgarden King Animal logo shirt.
• Steve Winwood / Lilly Winwood (Peace Center, Greenville SC)
• U2 / OneRepublic (Cardinal Stadium, Louisville KY) (The first show I saw after Chris Cornell's death, and I admit, I *cried* during "Running to Stand Still" and "One Tree Hill.")
• Lake Street Dive / Ron Pope (Pisgah Mountain Brewing Co Outdoor Pavilion, Swannanoa NC) -- left probably 2/3 of the way through the set because RAIN at 10 pm and a 2-hour drive home.... and a migraine starting. :(
• Foo Fighters / The Struts (Colonial Life Arena, Columbia SC) -- AMAZING! But it was the first show after my brother died, and before I realized it, I was singing along on These Days and the line "One of these days your heart will stop and take its final beat....." and I couldn't breathe for a few moments.
• Trans-Siberian Orchestra (BSW Arena)

Only six in 2018 (would have been 7 but unfortunately Brandi Carlile fell ill and had to cancel).

• Black Jacket Symphony as Pink Floyd: Dark Side Of The Moon (Walhalla Performing Arts Center, Walhalla, SC)
• Foo Fighters / The Struts (Turner Field, Atlanta GA)
• Black Jacket Symphony as Led Zeppelin IV (Walhalla Performing Arts Center, Walhalla, SC)
• Fantastic Negrito (Asheville Downtown After Five)
• 3 Doors Down/Collective Soul/Soul Asylum (Heritage Park Amphitheater, Simpsonville SC)
• Brandi Carlile (Peace Center) **CANCELLED**
• Black Jacket Symphony as Tom Petty: Damn the Torpedoes (Walhalla Performing Arts Center, Walhalla, SC)

I kind of made up for it in 2019:

• Asleep at the Wheel String Band / Kyle Petty & David Childers (The Spinning Jenny, Greer SC)
• Black Jacket Symphony as Queen: A Night At The Opera (Walhalla Performing Arts Center, Walhalla, SC)
• Alabama / Charlie Daniels Band (Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro NC)
• Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets (Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw NC)
• Tom Morello / The Last Internationale (The Orange Peel, Asheville NC)
• Drivin n Cryin / Gin Blossoms / Collective Soul (Heritage Park Amphitheater, Simpsonville SC)
• Weird Al Yankovic (Heritage Park Amphitheater, Simpsonville SC)
• Tedeschi Trucks Band with Blackberry Smoke and Shovels & Rope (Heritage Park Amphitheater, Simpsonville SC)
• Heart / Joan Jett / Elle King (PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte NC)
• Hootie & The Blowfish / Barenaked Ladies (PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte NC)
• Peter Frampton / Jason Bonham Led Zeppelin Experience (Heritage Park Amphitheater, Simpsonville SC)
• Adam Ant / Glam Skanks (Atlanta Symphony Hall, Atlanta, GA)
• Marty Stuart (Walhalla Performing Arts Center, Walhalla, SC)
• The Avett Brothers (Bon Secours Wellness Arena, Greenville SC)
• Black Jacket Symphony as Fleetwood Mac Rumors (Walhalla Performing Arts Center, Walhalla, SC)
• Robert Earl Keen / Shinyribs (Peace Center, Greenville SC)

(As you can tell, I love going to Black Jacket Symphony shows and I cannot recommend them highly enough!)

Two more were on the slate for 2019 but didn't pan out:

• Radkey (The Radio Room, Greenville SC) — I went to the venue even after a horrid day at the office with mass layoffs, then learned my cousin’s child passed that day. My heart wasn’t in it after that.
• Willie Nelson / Alison Krauss (Bon Secours Wellness Arena, Greenville SC) — Got cancelled due to Willie getting ill. 

And I already have 8 planned just through August of next year: 

• Black Jacket Symphony: Pearl Jam/Nirvana (Von Braun Center, Huntsville AL)
• Radkey (The Radio Room, Greenville SC)
• The Bellamy Brothers (Walhalla Performing Arts Center, Walhalla, SC)
• KICK: The INXS Experience (Walhalla Performing Arts Center, Walhalla, SC)
• Black Jacket Symphony as Prince: Purple Rain (Walhalla Performing Arts Center, Walhalla, SC)
• Lake Street Dive (Peace Center, Greenville SC)
• Black Crowes (PNC Music Pavilion, Charlotte NC)
• Weezer / Green Day / Fall Out Boy (SunTrust Park, Atlanta GA)

What I’ve learned is that there’s nothing quite like being in the crowd and singing along. There's nothing like the feeling of having music wash over you and cleanse you.

And oddly, as an introvert, I normally avoid crowds, and I also normally don't strike up conversations with complete strangers (my mother did this with amazing ease). But there's something about a concert crowd that's different. You're all there for basically the same reason. It's not a far stretch to say that in some places and some songs, it's a spiritual experience. And it's easy to talk to people over music. Example: I'm there at the Heart concert, and the guy two seats over from me had brought his young daughter for her first show! And during the intermission, a lady two rows behind me said, "Hey, Temple of the Dog lady!" (I was wearing my light gray one) -- to ask me if I had really gone and which show. She had wanted to see them so much and asked how the show was. I said, "Madison Square Garden was huge but awesome. Seattle was smaller and BEYOND amazing," at which point she was like, "I want to hate you for going to two shows but I can't!" :-) Ran into one of my college frat brothers at Hootie. Ran into a former coworker at two Black Jacket Symphony shows. Took / taking my dad to a couple of shows.

Music is my lifeblood. And it's why I hope to keep continuing to enjoy live shows for as long as I can.

50 at 50: Musical Memories

So I'm sitting at work a few days ago, listening to "Wingspan: Hits and History" (Paul McCartney & Wings), which I had bought a few years ago and truly enjoyed. And "Let 'Em In" came on -- whenever I hear that song, it's Spring 1976 and I'm laid up in bed with chicken pox. I'm missing my first grade class as I'm in quarantine, just me and my Woodsy Owl coloring book, a copy of Little Women and math workbooks (little geek that I was).

It  made me think how music can be an instant time machine. If I close my eyes on a certain song, I can still see the room I was in, the people with me, the weather outside, so many things that take me to another place and time. Not necessarily the first time I ever heard the song, but a visceral memory that has seared itself so much into me that I cannot separate it from the song.

The opening riff of "The One I Love" by REM? I'm a college freshman, fourth floor of the Stern Center, sitting in the fraternity office, working on some bit of studying and Tim G walks in. He says, "Hey, turn that up a little" and I roll in the office chair to the table where the little plug-in radio is. I can still see the afternoon sun starting to set over Charleston. I'm facing southeast toward the Battery and the ocean, even though I'm still a good mile or two from there. Tim's wearing a plaid shirt. Five seconds of a song and it comes rushing back.

Or "Cherry Bomb" by John Mellencamp. Roughly the same time frame, and I'm driving myself home for a weekend. The sun is slung really low in the sky as I drive northwest toward home. I can feel that mid-November fall air all around. Everything is in those fire-soaked autumn shades of yellow and gold and brown and red. I'm wearing a pale yellow heathered sweater that I'd bought on my first trip home in October from the store owned by my high school BFF's mom and dad. Funny what the brain retains.

Or "Nothing" by Dwight Yoakam. It's summer 1998, if I recall. I'd lost track of calendar time while still in shock from a breakup that I knew was coming and yet still couldn't believe had actually happened. Even now, I'm hard pressed to recall specific events for about a year-and-a-half time frame. I can think of maybe 10 over the course of 500 days. But it's summer, and the song comes on, and all I can dwell on is all that I lost. And I start crying -- again. And this little voice from the back of my head whispers, "What if you just didn't take that upcoming curve at the right angle and went sailing into those trees?" It is the first ideation I've had in years at that point and quite honestly, it snaps me out of the funk. I'm shaking and crying and I'm scared and I pull into a parking lot (I think for a church), and I sit and I cry and I'm more frightened by the idea that I would do such a thing over a guy. Am I really that sad and desperate? I cry it out for a while for a variety of reasons and then wipe my face and drive to my destination. I think that was the day I knew I really would survive.

Or "Blow Up The Outside World" by Soundgarden. It's late fall 2015 and I am spiraling into a funk I can't explain and I can't shake. What I do know is that my already-established dread of the holidays is intensified to a level that I've never known before. Every person on the planet is irritating me to an extreme. My head is exploding every few days with a recurring migraine that never seems to abate. And having to go into any retail establishment -- even to pick up groceries or office supplies -- is a trip into existential hell. My earbuds and MP3 player have become my best friends. And after exiting any store, I get into my car and cue up this song (#3 in the CD changer, song #6). And I sit there and breathe. I try to stop my skin from feeling like it's going to melt off my body and I try to ease the pounding of my head. These days, the song doesn't bring up that image unless I think about it hard (like now). But I understood that feeling of wanting to just tell the world to eat crap and die and isolate yourself. It would be a few more weeks before I would finally get on some meds that turned out to be a tremendous help.......

And then there are the funny ones that I shared with my brother. Yesterday, as part of their "Big 1000," the Big 80s on 8 played Rick Astley's "She Wants to Dance with Me." I had to laugh SO so hard -- not just because, hello? Rick Astley? But it also brought back a crazy memory: my brother changed up the lyrics (long backstory) but it was almost Weird Al-like: "She wants to pray with me / Yeah, I love when she clutches her rosary...." and I could see my brother singing it and doing the funky Rick Astley dance and it made me smile -- it also made me miss him but it made me laugh more!

So what are some of your favorite musical memories? I'd love to hear them. Drop them in the comments (note, comments WILL be moderated).

And I'm sitting here tonight, as 2019 rolls into 2020, about an hour or so left in this year, and I'm grateful for music and memories.

The Queen’s Christmas Message

Not Elizabeth’s but I like mine too....

For nearly every Christmas of my life, my mom would spend at least some of the time crying. In my younger years, I didn’t get it. As time went on, I understood a little more. I don’t know now if she’d be pleased or saddened to know that I get it. You’d think that years later, things wouldn’t make my eyes leak as much.

But that’s the beauty of a broken heart. When you have your heart broken again and again and again, something remarkable can happen. It has a way of breaking off the crusty exterior, so that as it heals it grows — and gets stronger. The old enclosure doesn’t fit anymore. I always hope that my heartbreak has made my heart sweeter, more tender and loving, more open. I don’t want a calloused-over heart but one that knows only two things: how to keep beating and how to keep loving.

I think a lot about this when I think of the tender babe in the feeding trough — the enfleshment of Love itself, so helpless and in need of care, and yet so powerful that time itself is measured by the presence. His love is immeasurable, far-reaching, unconditional, and immortal. This is how I try to model my life. Do I always succeed? Not by a long shot. But I will always keep growing and trying to emulate the love that brought him to earth, to live among us, as one of us, and so selfless that he literally emptied himself for us all.

May your holidays — whichever you celebrate — be filled with love of that ilk, love that’s immeasurable, far-reaching, unconditional, and immortal. May it saturate every cell, every fiber of your life, and in turn, may that love quench our arid world longing for living water.

Happiest of celebrations to you all!

50 at 50: That Was Then, This Is Now

So earlier this week, I saw a meme that said....

And I didn't post it. Not because I was scared of the answers - more that I knew who I was back then and I didn't like me. I didn't exactly want to be reminded of who I was.

I was arrogant, aloof, standoffish, and snobby. There, I said it. But I don't think anyone at the time (myself included) really understood why I was that way. I honestly didn't believe I was better than everyone else. In fact, it was the opposite: I worked my ass off to prove I was a decent person.

No one -- classmates, fellow students, teachers, administrators -- had any idea of the daily internal battle I waged. Every single day, I had to navigate how to silence the inner critic, for whom nothing was ever good enough. No person alive could ever criticize me nearly as much as that inner voice. High school in a small town also isn't the place to try to find your own voice, especially when it's married to a personality that wants nothing more than to please as many people as possible.

Far too often, a 96 on a test wasn't a cause for happiness, but began a search for what I missed (one question out of 25), and figure out why I missed it and resolve to never do so again. Getting a D, the only one of my high school career? A 10-pound loss from not eating because I was trying to figure out how to tell my folks, how to spin it for college transcripts, how I could make up the difference throughout the rest of the year to counteract it, and OH MY GOD, IF I HAVE TO STAY IN THIS PODUNK TOWN I'M GONNA DIE (commence to breathing in a paper bag).

So I buried myself in books, in music (especially in music), and in my studies. These were lifelines to worlds beyond my own, with people and characters who might help me figure this crazy inner world out, who might let me breathe. And it did. Oh my gosh, books and music, words and notes. They are still my refuge and my peace.

Some of these things I still battle. My over-perfectionist tendencies mean I get incredibly frustrated when I can't get things to mesh together as I think they should. I have a very high set of standards for my fun and my work -- sometimes even a little higher than I should set them, and I still make the mistake of assuming everyone else does the same, too. After nearly 28 years in the real world, you'd think I'd know better. Optimism dies hard, I guess.

But what I wish I had truly known all those years ago is that it's okay .... it takes a lifetime to find your voice, to grow into it, to love the person behind the voice. I don't know why I thought I had to figure all this out by the time I was 18. I'm just over 2 months away from 50 and I'm not sure I will ever figure it out. And it's really okay, because I'm finally enjoying the journey.

I'm going to say that again because it's the really important part. Ready? I'm finally enjoying the journey.

I was so focused on the destination -- getting out of high school, getting out of Dodge, getting somewhere and finally being whomever they thought I should be, setting the world on fire -- I did not take the time to enjoy where I was. There are always those lovely "What would you go back and tell your (x)-year-old self?" and I usually answer "Lighten the hell up, kid" or words to that effect. But I also know that no variant of my younger self -- especially anything under 22 or so -- would have paid attention and listened. But I do wish I could go back and give that little 5-year-old, 8-year-old, 12-year-old, 15-year-old, and even 21-year-old a huge hug, a shoulder to cry on, and just to sit there with myself in that pain with years of wisdom gleaned from all those mistakes.

To anyone I knew back then and who was hurt by my attitude or my aloofness, please know it was not intentional and not personal. I didn't make eye contact often because I was petrified that you would figure out I didn't know jack about jack -- and back then, that was a fate worse than death.

If your parents ever said, "Why can't you be more like....?" I sincerely hope you weren't. I hope you had things way more together than I ever did, and that you were far easier on yourself than I was on myself.

And to the me to come in the future, I sincerely hope that when I'm 85, I can look back and read this and be proud of my 50-year-old self -- and also laugh and say, "My God, you were always such a navel gazer, weren't you?"

50 at 50: Idealistic Me

I went to bed last night with a heavy heart, with another mass shooting in our nation. I woke to the news of another mass shooting. I'm lost somewhere between numb and angry -- I'm not numb to the pain, just numbed by the idea of "how many more lives must be lost?" And damn right I'm angry. I'm pissed beyond all hell that as a nation, we have turned one piece of a 225-plus-year-old document into a mantra, something that has been placed on an altar where inanimate objects of death and destruction are worshipped as an inviolable right, while the lives they have taken are treated as casual losses, just part of the collateral damage of the business.

God help us all. Not by some magical immediate end to all the evil in the world (let's face it, ain't happening) but by changing our minds and hearts.

I firmly admit that I'm an old idealistic sort. I believe in the power of love and in hope and in real prayer to change things. I believe prayer changes things not by magic but by our actions and our being the agents of change. I believe that we can still make a difference.

But I also came along with a healthy distrust of the government, the everlasting legacy of Watergate. I have zero confidence in elected authority to do the right thing at any time. I voted for people who I believed could be agents of change, and then......

I will always vote. I will always believe in the power of the people to make the real change. And so it's up to us. I don't know how but we've got to figure out how to do it. We have to be the ones to stand up and say "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH."

Because the hatred and ignorance and seething fear and unchecked racism is not the America I believe still exists, it is not the America I know still lives in our hearts. But it is the America that has lurked in a dark underbelly. It is an America that is foreign to me, even as a white female. Maybe because I have chosen not to foster it in my life. Maybe because I want to see things through the eyes of my minority brothers and sisters, to understand how in my privilege I have failed to see their pain and suffering. How I can use that privilege -- which isn't much, but it's there -- to empty myself and make things better. Thanks always to my dear friend Kevin (whom I hope to meet in heaven someday), I have learned not to be colorblind, but to see each person's beauty and their story through their eyes and their experience and to honor and love them for that.

I remember very well the idealistic 17-year-old girl who went off to college, fresh-faced, scared, but determined that I could make a difference. Well, here I am, inching ever closer to 50, and the idealism has been tempered by reality, but only slightly. I still believe in the collective power to do good - maybe not on the global level that I imagined all those years ago, but certainly where I am.

I will do it by refusing to entertain those who believe the color of one's skin determines one's worth. I will do it by refusing to single out those who come to our nation to better themselves. I will do it by standing up for wrong where it exists.

And I will love. I will love wholeheartedly. I will love without reservation. I will love regardless of condition. 

Because love has the power to change the world. Of that, I am sure.

50 at 50: Shades of Grey

Sometime when I was in my late 20s or early 30s (there were a few years that were indistinguishable), I overheard a contemporary say, "The older I get, the more clear everything becomes.... just BAM! there it is, laid out in black and white, right and wrong." She isn't all that much older than me, but boy, she was so incredibly sure of her words.She left, and I turned to my friend who was there and said, "Did I hear her correctly? Because I can guarantee the older I get, nothing is clear. It all gets fuzzier to me." My friend assured me that my view was probably closer to reality for most people.

It's been about 20 years and I am almost proud to say that I am even less sure of anything than I've ever been. There is almost nothing that's black-and-white, and every shade of grey I thought I knew then has mutated into a thousand microshades. Every time I think I am close to an absolute, something comes along to make me see that there is another aspect to the situation and I had best hold off on any pronunciation of surety.

My faith? Still solid in terms that I have faith. Gelatinous in what I know and believe. I've come to believe that the only certainty I have in the world, the only real command I need to follow is to love. Love without reservation, love without condition, love without measure. Love even the people I hate. As I said to someone the other day, even the person I dislike most (so much so that I do not even use his or her actual name) is still as much a child of God as I am, and for that reason alone, I wish them no harm. Anything other than that is dogma, and I will leave it for the theologians to battle. And when my end comes, I'll take a chance that I did the best I could. I still believe in an afterlife and that my loved ones are there ..... but I no longer want to rack up brownie points for some great reward. I'm better off trying to make life better here for people who really need it. I'm not saying I don't care about all the other stuff, it's more that I'm not trying to keep score anymore. I don't care. It's not important. Love is important and it should always win.

My future? I have no expectations. I have hopes and desires and plans, but no expectations. I plan for living as long as possible, but always with the knowledge that nothing is a given. This lyric says so much to me: "It's a fragile thing, this life we lead. If I think too much, I can get overwhelmed by the grace by which we live our lives with death over our shoulders...." And really, that's it. We are chased by that specter our whole lives but we cannot let it keep us from living. So I am enjoying life while I have it to enjoy.

My priorities? Thanks to Facebook, I get a daily dose of walking down memory lane, and where I was five or six years ago feels like a different person. And while I like that person and would like to be back toward that place physically, I also see where I was heading into a very obsessive place too. I see now where some of my anxiety issues came into play, and I don't want to go there again too. I don't care to be hyper-competitive anymore. I'll always have a competitive streak, but I don't want to play the game anymore.

As I mentioned in another post, when I hit 40, I was beginning to think I finally had it all in place, and life said, "Oh you're cute... let me show you something" and suddenly my life was all cattywampus. At 50, I'm laughing with life, saying, "Okay, okay, I get it. I don't know it all. I really don't know sh*t about sh*t. So I'm just going to roll with it."

So maybe it's not that I see a million shades of grey; it's that I see more of the entire spectrum of color that's part of the beauty of the world.

50 at 50: The Angry Season

It started in about 10 days, maybe 2 weeks ago, and it will keep going for another week or so. The relentless guilt trip that is Mother's Day.



My friends know that I've always had an ambivalent relationship with Mother's Day, maybe due to my imperfect relationship with my mom. In my 20's, it was a consistent reminder that my mom and I were often at odds, and we would never reach a point of seeing eye-to-eye. We lived a quasi-awkward detente for so many years. It was also a reminder that the idea that I would one day be a mom was slipping away. Don't ask how I knew this in my 20's -- some things you just know in your marrow so deeply that it's how you cope with a reality not-yet-real. Sure enough, my thirties rolled around, and I cared less how it affected me as a childless person. By that time, I came to realize that so many of my friends also had conflicted relationships with their mothers -- like attracting like, I suppose.

There's something about it that kind of rankles me in a million ways -- for all of us who are childless whether by choice, or by biology, or just by circumstance. For all of us who had difficult relationships with either our mothers or our children (or both). For all of us who feel that a woman's worth isn't dependent upon being a mother, but simply by our existence -- that we are whole humans regardless of our status as a progenitor or a caregiver.

The year Mom died, it was so very raw -- even more so for my cousin, who had lost her mother just days before, who had one of those great relationships that I would never have had. I remember standing in the craft store and seeing all those "make this for Mom!" displays and thinking, "Just another stabbing reminder that I don't have a mother anymore." I don't even remember what we did that day -- I think just treated it like any other Sunday, floating in a cocoon of emotional goo and waiting to birth into the butterflies we should become.

The next year, the grief was still raw, though lessened somewhat by time, and I was angry. I wanted all those damn advertisers to hurt as badly as I did. I never related to M'Lynn Eatonton as much as I did in that moment. I wanted to deliver a bouquet of throat punches and weiner jabs to all of them. I wanted to deliver a box of chocolate laxatives to them. Take them to a lovely dinner where the food had been salted with my tears.

Last year was a bit better but not by much. On top of that, by that point, I had suffered two more jarring losses. I had to cantor that morning at church, and it was almost too much. Odd -- the morning after Mom's death, I was in the choir, singing as if my own life depended on it, and now two years later, I suddenly can't? I made it through, but I went home that day and in our ministry scheduler, marked myself as unavailable on the 2nd Sunday of May from now on.

This year ...... I don't know. Part of me wants to wrap the blankets around my head and pretend the day just doesn't exist. Part of me wants to go to the cemetery and talk to Mama...... Part of me wants to smash things. I hear the ads and such (mostly on radio because I spend so much time in my car) and I roll my eyes and groan at the pandering and commercialism. I silently smile smugly at the knowledge that Anna Jarvis herself regretted establishing the holiday because of the commercialization.

I'll always be ambivalent and probably always a little angry. And sometimes, that's okay too.

I think Anna Jarvis would be okay with that.

50 at 50: Soul Sisters

I've never seen a truer sentiment than this:



If there is anything I've learned in my nearly 50 trips around the sun, it's that you find your tribe and you love them hard. Your girlfriends are there for you when shoes and hearts break. They're there for you when you have buried your mama and your dog in the same year. They're there for you when you get the promotion -- and when you get passed over.

In my life, I've noticed that a good many of my girlfriends all share either being a oldest child who happens to be a daughter, or an only child who's a daughter. I think we vibe to each other because we know what it is (especially by now) to care for a sibling and later a parent. Often we've parented those siblings and sometimes those parents (even in younger years). We know how hard it is to make your way in the world in a culture that still treasures boy-children as kings just because of their anatomical makeup, and expects us girls to adjust accordingly.

My girlfriends were there during all the fights with my mom (from elementary school on), during crushes and getting crushed, during the breakups that devastated me. They've held my hand and literally wrapped their arms around me to keep me standing when I didn't have the strength to do so. They've cheered my successes and ate ice cream with me in my failures. And a select few also look at me and say, "Okay, girl, you have bullshitted yourself long enough. No more" and I know that they say it with every ounce of love in the universe.

Some of them made their way into my circle early on. Some left as more came in but I believe in U's instead of circles where everyone has a place..... and in circling up when it's warranted for my own protection. Some of them I have yet to lay physical eyes on -- even after almost 20 years -- but the magic of the Internet has made those barriers nothing.

If I could teach young girls these days anything, it's that their vibe attracts their tribe -- so be aware of what you're putting out into the universe. But when that tribe comes together, you hold onto them for as long as possible. Men will come and go but your girlfriends will feed your soul. You may not share DNA but they are your sisters.

To every one of my soul sisters -- and you are legion -- thank you from the bottom of my wounded but still beating heart, from a soul overflowing with gratitude.

50 At 50: Real

I think that as I age, one of the compliments of the highest degree that I could ever hope to hear is "she's real."

It wasn't always thus. Not that I was false, more that I wasn't truly real.

I am a people-pleaser to the core. I'm not sure why, or what drove that instinct in me, but the need to please and to fit in was so incredibly overpowering. For much of the first portion of my life, I was a chameleon. I could adapt and blend in and everything was malleable and up for debate. It was kind of like Julia Roberts' Maggie in The Runaway Bride: with every new boyfriend came a new favorite type of egg dish. Finally, she realized her own favorite was Eggs Benedict. She'd been so busy trying to be perfect to please someone else that she didn't know her own life.

Hello? Hand raised?



Yep. If we hung out long enough and you decided you didn't like Italian food.... okay, that might be a deal breaker. But let's say you decided CCR was the worst band ever, then I would never ever mention that I like their music, or get very wishy-washy about my opinion on their work.

For example: Star Trek? Haven't watched an episode since he left but yep, loved it when he was here. (But to be fair, I'm still a fan of TNG and DS9 -- I just don't have my DVR set for every single time an episode comes on). Started liking Pearl Jam again after he was gone; stopped listening to the local morning show. You get the idea -- I hadn't been a huge fan of this or that or the other, and I quashed my own likes and dislikes in order to possibly gain some sort of advantage.

I'm not sure what triggers the change in someone to finally stop doing that and own themselves at last. For me, it was a lot of different things, all over the course of the rest of my life so far. Mostly, though, it was the realization that I didn't need to be artificial. People were either going to like me or not. It had taken long enough for me to learn to like, then love, myself. I didn't have the energy to convince others to do so. If you like me, great. If not, well, hate it for you but wish you well.

Being real is so much easier -- why didn't I do this back in my teens? (Easy answer: small town, and those "people pleaser" tendencies). 

Real is knowing that I'm most at home in jeans, a tee, a hoodie, and a comfy pair of tennis shoes or my beloved Docs. Real is laughing at my own awkwardness. Real is knowing my customer service voice went to Ivy League and my "come at me bro" voice is country as can be. Real is facing my shortcomings every day and knowing I gave it my best.

Real is pain, indescribable and sometimes almost unbearable. Real is joy from the depths of that same wounded soul. Real is walking around with huge holes in my life and not being embarrassed by any of it. Real is laughing with your girlfriends and knowing that they have your back and you have theirs. Real is holding their hands when bad stuff goes down - just like they held your hair when.... well, you know.

I'll take real any day of the week.

50 At 50: Looking Forward

This has been a difficult week in Cerveau de Moi. There has been a lot of upheaval, a lot of wistfulness and sadness, and yet some good in it as well. It gave me reason to reflect, and as I am wont to do, I meandered down a few paths.

It is still mind-boggling to think I am going to be 50 in about 7 months. For a couple of decades now, I've been 27 in my brain. There's always been this disconnect with my age and me -- as a kid, I was the little old lady in the bunch. Too serious, too mature. Now that I'm middle-aged, I don't feel it -- I feel much less serious. My body tells a different story, too many years of wear and tear and so so many years of fighting myself. I think I've moved myself up to a mental age of about 33 now.

When I was in my 20s, OH THE ANGST! OH THE EXISTENTIAL CRISIS! OH THE MELODRAMA!! To think of that time in my life, I'm actually quite sad at how much energy I expended in navel-gazing, and about things that weren't worth my time. I read my journals from those last couple of years in college and through my twenties, and I want to both laugh and cry. I laugh because again, THE DRAAAAAAMAAAAAAAH and so much of it self-induced!  I cry because I want to grab my younger self, and to tell her to snap out of it, that he's not worth this much emotion, that your mama is not the arbiter of your worth, that you don't have to live life settling -- DIDN'T YOU SWEAR YOU WOULDN'T? -- and yet, here you are. I wish I could take that girl who was so lost at 23, 24, 25.... and remind her earlier of who she was, and not to lose that person.

But because of that, my 30s were filled with rescue: rescuing my self-worth, my essence, my soul, my health, my career. I started with a slow crawl out of a tomb, shook off the cobwebs, unwound my graveclothes, and started living more. I remembered the young girl I'd been in college and resolved to find her again. I decided my health was worth saving. It wasn't always easy and it was one step forward, three back sometimes, but I arrived at 40 happy and becoming fulfilled. I finally started feeling comfortable in my own skin.

My 40s were life's way of saying, "Mmmm, not so fast there, hoss." Healthy was about to be a relative term. At 42, I had a cancer scare (that ended up literally being nothing, just "smudgy film"). At 43, it was a year of headaches that would not go away and a slew of work stresses that just exacerbated the issue. Worse, I had these nagging feelings that things were not as bright for me as they once felt. At 44, I was under such stress that I broke out in shingles. At 45, I had foot surgery and a continuing downward spiral pas de trois with anxiety and depression. At 46, the losses began piling up: my mother and an aunt in just 8 weeks. And losing my faith in people to do the right thing. At 47, more losses: my dog, another aunt, a beloved artist, and then my brother all within 9 months. At 48, I began holding my breath every time I had a twitch, wondering if I was the next one whose picture would be X'd out in some grand scheme of the cosmos. All along I was again losing my battle with the bulge -- and swearing it was going to get better. Right. I finally turned 49, and on January 1 of this year, I exhaled heavily when I hadn't lost anyone else in my immediate circle that year.

But on the decade as a whole, I gained just as much as I lost: I gained perspective and clarity about what really matters. I gained a completely new appreciation for my family, who rallied around me in my darkest moments. I gained friends for whom music was a lifeblood, as much as it remains for me. I gained a lot of compassion each time my heart was crushed, because it broke up the crusty outer shell and allowed my heart to grow all the more. I gained a sense of now-or-never. I had to really start living again. The years were no longer on my side...... I rediscovered my love for live music. The backbone that finally emerged around age 35 became galvanized.

What do my 50s hold? I don't know. I have some expectations, but if nothing else, I've learned not to count on anything - and not to count anything out either. I'm in this last year of my 40s having literally just gone through another head-spinning transition (one which caused a pretty decent spike in my anxiety). I know that whatever awaits me, I will meet the challenge head-on. What other alternative is there?

Forgive me if.....

Forgive me if I’m not myself over the next few days. This is probably my hardest week of the year, because so many things hit at once.

Today is March 4, 2019.... 3 years since the last time I saw my mom alive. Correction: since I saw her existing. She was on so much pain medication that she was out for all but about 10 minutes of the time I spent with her. I sang to her that day, and the songs “Given to Fly” and “I Am Mine” and “Scar on the Sky” still hold a very sweet place in my heart. They always will.

Tomorrow marks three years since that phone call .... 6:04 am. She’d passed at 5:55. I knew what it was when they wouldn’t speak to me but wanted to speak to Daddy. The resignation of “what time?” and knowing for sure. Dealing with things I never imagined — waiting on the mortuary, figuring out clothes to cremate her in (like it mattered but it was for us to see the body one last time.

The next day (March 6) will be both joyful and weirdly somber — Ash Wednesday and Daddy’s 75th birthday! I’m also getting together with some friends, one whom I haven’t seen in 5 years! I’m looking forward to that and will celebrate with Daddy over the weekend.

March 7 is back to somber — my maternal grandmother passed that day in 1982. There are moments it still stings as much as it did back then. She was the one person in this world who showed me completely unconditional love as a child. I miss that as an adult. We need more Grannies in the world who are here to do nothing but give unconditional love.

March 10 is another hard day, especially this year. My friend Tee from high school would have turned 50. It is still unreal to believe she’s been gone for 13 years now. It sucks that she hasn’t been in the world.....

March 12 will suck even worse. That would have been Richard’s 44th birthday. I am still not over the fact that my brother is perpetually 42 for the rest of my life. That I’ll never get to wish him a happy birthday ever. That I’m an only-again. Is there a support group for oldest-only-agains? There has to be somewhere.....

March 19 is a weird day too. It was my grandfather’s birthday but also the day his sister passed. My great-aunt Mary was like another grandparent to me. Weird to realize that she’s been absent from my life for all these years and yet I still remember how much she impacted my life.

And as always, there’s the 18th and 22nd..... days I never forget.

Maybe someday March won’t be weird......

Shades of Grey

I sit here on yet another grey day. It's been grey most of the winter -- and I mean levels and amounts of grey and rain that we'd normally associate with Seattle or Portland and other places in the Pacific Northwest. Grey, grey, grey. Variant shades of white going into black with occasional hints that there is blue beyond the grey. That somehow, through the veil of mist and fog, there is perhaps life in color and yellow sun. My yard isn't even green -- it's muted green and brown dead grass and pools of standing water. If it doesn't dry out soon, we may have mosquitoes in April.

I miss color in my day. I am trying to wear more color - not necessarily bright ones yet, but color just to break up this monotony of grey. Even my cubicle walls are a mix of taupe, brown, and grey. My phone is grey, the desk surface is sandy grey. The office walls and carpet are grey. Neutrals and blah-ness every-damn-where. I'm using Thieves and "Immunity Blend" essential oils in my diffuser to both ward off germs and to provide a little bit of fragrance to take the place of color. I've found a great rose-oil perfume that does something along the same line, because I need something to brighten things. I'm thinking of getting some sort of tie-dye banner or something bright to put in the cubicle to break up this far-too-dull boxy area. (OOOOH, World Market might have something!)

And if you think for a second that the greyness of the world isn't affecting my feelings and emotions, you'd be dead wrong. Several years ago, I bought a Happy Light (by Verilux) because Seasonal Affective Disorder (along with unmedicated anxiety and depression) made me a virtual monster one very grey autumn. It has paid for itself this year. I use it about 10-15 minutes each day and I swear by it. It may be purely anecdotal but...... I can't ignore the evidence. That and Lexapro have kept me sane this winter.

Punxsatawney Phil, your "early spring" better happen soon, buster. It's been four weeks tomorrow. You owe us.

50 at 50 (New Series)

So I'm going to be 50 in approximately 9 months. And I'm thinking it's probably not a bad idea altogether as I approach this milestone to reflect on things I've learned in those last 50 years.

Fifty. When I was a kid, 50 was old and getting ready for a rocking chair. I don't even feel even remotely like that. Instead, I feel like rocking out for the rest of my life. Do I have aches and pains? Gawd yes; Snap, Crackle, and Pop is no longer just a breakfast cereal. But do I feel like I ought to be 50 -- at least as I remember 50? NO. Not in the least. I've been 27 in my head for enough years that it's a nice place to be. I've kind of bumped it up to about 33 lately, but still, way younger than my calendar years.

My twenties were harder than I ever dreamed. The hustle wasn't happening and things weren't going as well or quickly as I hoped and planned and schemed. My thirties were better because I started figuring out what was really worth the pursuit and what wasn't. My forties were starting out awesome, then life threw me more curveballs than I ever asked for: a cancer scare, a parent in decline, whirlwind job changes, losing the first of my aunts and uncles, then losing more of them.... then losing that parent. Losing my dog. Losing a person I'd never met but who felt like a dear friend and mentor. Losing my only sibling. Losing my innocence. Having my cynicism bumped from a comfortable 5 to a plus-20. Losing a crapton of weight and regaining a lot of it in a grief-induced fog, and as I'm approaching 50 going, "Oh no, not this crap again."

But I'm here, I've survived and I haven't slit my wrists yet. And I have some things that I felt I've learned in that time and need to pass on somehow. The lessons may not apply to everyone but maybe I can have someone say, "You too? I thought I was the only one."

So over the next few weeks and months, I'll be doing this series. I'll tag it as 50at50 in the title, in case you're interested only in those posts. I hope they'll bring you as much insight and love as I hope to gain from doing them.

Square One, all over again.

Note: Cross-posting to Weighty Matters, Bad Catholic Anonymous and Birdcage Wisdom

Take the high road or take the low
No one but you and God will ever know
And you play rough and win or lose
Either way, you'll get the blues
-- Lucinda Williams, "Ugly Truth"

I found myself staring again at something I didn't want to see: ugly truth. The scale didn't lie, and neither did two-plus years worth of knowing I was eating to get away from what was eating me. But two anxiety attacks that awoke me in the middle of the night, scared to death of some physical ailment, the absolute fear not of dying but of leaving people behind and things unfinished -- and knowing I could damn well do something about it........

And facing my worst truth: I'm trying to fill a hole that can never be filled.

I haven't written much in a while -- or spread it out over other outlets -- because I was compartmentalizing things. General stuff here, weight stuff at Weighty Matters, spiritual stuff at Bad Catholic, mental health stuff and grief stuff at Birdcage Wisdom. But to quote the famous George Constanza, "Worlds are colliding" and I find them crashing down on me. The weight gain of the last two years is in direct correlation to a mental health issue from the last 4 years and the crushing weight of grieving 6 losses in 18 months and the effect it has had on my life and spirituality and OH MY GOD IT IS SO MUCH.

You know how Facebook has that "On This Day" feature where you get to look back (and repost) things that you posted on this day x number of years ago? I've noticed so many of mine from 5 years ago were of me checking in at the gym or from walking with my friend Sheri..... and so many of them from 2014 were of me in the early stages of going into another downward spiral of depression and anxiety. Of course, I see it in hindsight -- at the time, I was fine. Just fine. In 2015, it was my recovery from surgery; 2016, the loss of my mom and aunt; last year at this time, it was even more loss and a renewing focus on regaining my mental health. Recipes which 6-8 years ago were all veggie or healthy grains were replaced in the last couple of years by cakes and gooey things and all manner of sweet or unhealthy.

It was watching a person who had worked her ass off (literally) to become the best self ever disintegrate before your eyes back into what used to be.

I'm not crying. Hell no. I'm not sad, I'm not mad, I'm not even pissed. What I am is ready. It took long enough but I am ready. I've worked for the last few years on finding myself again -- while I was losing portions of myself at the same time.

What I am is grateful. I'm grateful for those freak-out, nearly-pass-out moments of anxiety at 2:15 am where I wondered if I was dying and being determined that if I could help it, I was going to ensure that I bury my father and not have him go through the agony of burying another child. I'm grateful for the opportunity to start over, with a few more years of wisdom under the belt, and leaving behind the drill sergeant persona I had developed with myself. The nearly 50-year-old me is going to be a lot kinder on my failures than the 38-year-old me would have been.

This me realizes my worst enemy isn't my body but my mind, but if I work with both of them, I bet we find a happy place where we all can live in peace.

I may never see "Onederland" again but I'm not sure that I care to, really.

What I care about is living. Plain and simple. Just living.

Time for Me

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. Okay, really when am I not pondering the mysteries of life and the universe? But really, lately, my mind has turned inward yet again.

I’m coming up on the second anniversary of mom’s passing. It’s the point where I stopped really taking care of myself and once again sacrificing my own self to serve everyone else’s needs. Not that they asked me to, it’s more that I felt compelled to act. It’s kind of what daughters do: we take care of others.  The care wasn’t enough to keep my brother. He died anyway. Daddy needed my care for a little while but like me, he’s a tough old bird.

In two years, I put back on a substantial amount of weight. I have to take it off. It’s not for vanity, it’s for my health, my sanity, and my general well-being. I don’t know that I’m going to use the same methods that I used before. Not that it isn't a successful way to do it — it’s really a monetary thing. And I just truly don’t have time for meetings. So there is that. I need to get my growing hindside back to the gym — not that the membership is that expensive. But right now, it’s wasted money. I need to use it.

I’ve been saying for a while that I’m DONE. D. O. N. E. Duuuuuuuun. And I am. I’m done with being everything to everyone except myself. The person I need to come by on most. Time to stop letting myself down. Time to love the one person again who needs my care the most: me.

Christmas Eve Reflections

12/24/17, 9:25 pm

As I get ready to take part in yet another Midnight Mass (27 years now, I think?) I always pause to reflect .....

I think back to December 2014 — the last year we had anything close to a normal Christmas. Mom was still fairly mobile, but was starting to have issues. Richard was here. Maddox was around. Dad had just retired for the second time. We were together .......

I think back on those three years since then.... I could focus on all the losses, all the pain and the many tears I have cried. I could look at my own struggles from foot surgery to staying sane through all the whiplash changes. I could concentrate on all the disappointments, the dashed hopes, the what-might-have-beens.

But instead, I want to be grateful for the many blessings. Through all those adversities, I have been abundantly blessed — the kind of flowing grace that makes me drop to my knees, sobbing in gratitude for the love I’ve been shown. Love that makes me want to share it out, paying it forward to a world desperately in need of unconditional love. Kindnesses that have been poured out on me like a rolling river, that leave me shaking my head and wondering what I have ever done in life to deserve such favor.

In the last few years, my faith has been shaken and stirred and made gelatinous. It has been shredded and reconstructed and my soul sewn back together as much as possible. My hope has at times wavered like undies in the breeze on Granny’s clothesline. But I pray fervently that I only grow in my ability to love without measure or condition. It’s all I know to do these days. Just love.

Yes, I have lost family members — and the pain is still raw and fresh and I still find myself tearing up at the blink of an eye. But I have  gained a deeper, stronger bond with my family as well. They have held me up so much since March 2016 that I can’t even begin to say adequate thanks. I am so glad we are close after all these years and I love you all so much!

And I also gained a worldwide “framily.” My framily contains people I grew up with; people from my young adult life; people I’ve just met in the last couple of years, and some I have yet to meet in person. You are all SO vital to my life, and I am so very grateful to you.

No matter the specific holiday you celebrate, the one thing we share in common is the light — whether Hanukkah candles, Yule fires, Christmas lights, or any other representation. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, as the sun has diminished and now as the days will slowly lengthen even as the cold settles in, there is light that darkness can never overcome. Be that light, reflect that light. May all of us find ourselves warmed by the light and the fire it generates in us and in the world.