Only pollen with enough genetic variety to produce healthy offspring will result in reproduction, which is why most plants require cross-pollination. Fruit borne of their own pollen alone would produce weak stock, vulnerable to blight and sterility, so a molecular defense exists to encourage only successful genetic combinations.

At breakfast the other morning, Wendy pointed out a forsythia bush on the edge of the parking lot. It was covered in half-open blossoms, spent before they could unfurl. I wept for it later, the poor sweet thing, doing its humble best to send fairy dust into the world, expending all that effort and energy desperately pushing flowers into a dormant, barren landscape. Tricked by unseasonably warm temperatures into performing for empty rows of hard metal seats, with nary a honeybee to carry its whisper, and only silence on its carpels.

Nature, for all her exquisite wisdom, delivers such cruelly objective consequences for her creatures’ timing errors. When the blooms open at just the right time, a pollinator that favors that plant and its best genetic crosses will visit just long enough to dance the timeless waltz of creation on its petals, leaving dreams and carrying wishes away on their furry legs and antennae.

The promise of fruit is made that very moment; if the plant is given enough sunshine, water and fresh air but is left otherwise undisturbed, the next generation will push forth from the stems, sent from deep within the all roots and veins, cell by cell, to make new life in the soil below.

The forsythia will most surely find itself frostbitten, frozen over, flowers encased in a coat of icy shards that will cut them to shreds upon thawing, leaving a pile of rotted mush to seep into its roots, inevitably restarting the cycle of life, birth and hope under the ground. Another chance to get it right.

My heart ached to impart some comfort, to reassure it that the secret workings of the universe are as impersonal as gravity: when the season and conditions are right the magical becomes the inevitable, the soil is richened for its failed effort, time and wisdom produce fruit sweetened by experience and patience. Gratitude for its timely reminder seeped from the marrow of my stiff and tired hips: buds and berries set on their own time, in their own way, thriving on a lack of human interference in the magic of nature.

It will have learn on its own the difference between January and March, and the futility of blooming at the first signs of warmth instead of having enough faith to wait for spring, that opening is just a start. In its struggle, it will discover that the beauty of its blossoms are just a vessel for its essence, which lays in wait for that familiar ancient whisper to awaken it to fruition.

I smiled as I wiped the tears from my cheeks, though, because I know the joy of mastering those lessons: an entire existence dripping with life and sustenance from every stem and branch, with roots enough to anchor and nourish, and wishes given flight on the wings of bees.

Sure, she had a smart mouth, broke the occasional rule, and was prone to emotional outbursts and displays of temper. She sometimes suffered an inability to accept a perceived injustice, and working so hard at being a good girl gave her a sense of entitlement. She had her resentment squirreled away in a savings account, to be retained as righteous indignation when she had her heart set on something that never materialized. Cath could be quite a handful in those moments, and her Mama likened her to a girl from a nursery rhyme:

There once was a girl with a curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid.

Cath’s parents were trying to teach her that life isn’t fair. They wanted her to learn to accept defeat gracefully, and to treat others well. She had to learn that one does the right thing for their own satisfaction, and not to gain favor or reward.

Somewhere, most likely at the intersection of life isn’t fair and you reap what you sow in the world, she misinterpreted the meaning behind the message.

Being a good girl means meeting others’ expectations, but you have no right to your own expectations. If you get what you want, it’s because you’re a good girl, and if you don’t get what you want, too bad- good girls are grateful for what they have.

Aren’t you grateful for everything we’ve given you?

For the next thirteen years of my life, I was a bad girl. Cat started drinking, sneaking cigarettes, doing drugs, going out with older guys, skipping school, speeding and generally doing whatever she wanted, fuck allwhat you thought of it. Her Daddy cured her of that her sixteenth year- he taught her that appearing to be a good girl was what counted, and that she could be as bad as she wanted if she didn’t get caught. He showed her that following the little rules made it easier to break the big ones.

Cat picked that up quickly, and she excelled at acting like a good girl and being a bad girl when no one was looking. She met a man who prided himself on that very same thing, and they fell in love. They were very happy most of the time; save his occasional failure to meet her expectations.

When she threw a fit, he gently explained to her that she wanted too much from him, more than anyone deserved, probably because her Daddy hit her and her Mama was closer to her sister. It was okay, though, because he loved her even though she was bad for being angry when he was cold or disrespectful.

Would I be here if I didn’t really love you? You’re just crazy. The way you depend on me is bad; I can’t be your everything. You need a life of your own.

She knew he was right, she was always bad that way, wanting more than she deserved, not merely gracefully accepting what she was given in exchange for being a good girl. He was right, she was bad, and she was so very grateful that he loved her anyway. So what if he was bad sometimes too, if he made her feel bad, it was her fault, for not just loving him anyway, for putting up with her. She loved him too well to expect the same in return.

Ever so slowly, she built a life of her own. Cat snagged an incredible professional opportunity, she made friends, she even started college. They bought a cute little house in the middle of nowhere, and she started to believe that her life might turn out better than she ever dreamed.

Once again, she had a great deal of responsibility for her age. At twenty-six, she was a wife, a homeowner, the Controller of a multi-million dollar company, and a student. All of these roles required suppressing that bad little girl. She was constantly belittled and criticized for her passion, intensity, honesty, and the clumsy new way she stood up for herself.

That’s when I became a verybadcat. The blog was first; verybadcat needed a place safe from criticism to start writing again, to tell the stories no one wanted told, a container for her badness. All those pieces and parts of her that were not honored and accepted off the page. Her deepest fears, darkest secrets, secret dreams and wishes. She was astounded to find that she developed a following, that people who didn’t know the good girl loved verybadcat. Twitter allowed her to communicate with those folks in real time.

Her life was finally full and fruitful, she gained confidence, which was just what the wasbund always said he wanted. Unfortunately, what seemed ideal in theory lost luster in practice; the career, the social life, the night classes and homework, and all of that fucking around on the Internet took time and attention away from him. She wasn’t content to sit on the shelf till he was inclined to take her down and dust her off. At that same time, his full and fruitful life began the agonizing process of unraveling.

The addition of financial stress and marital discord to her already demanding life left her with no room to move. Anything she wanted for herself: time, energy, recognition, space, respect, and especially love or money, she had to steal from the life she built. The guilt of resenting all of the pressure was crushing. Everything was a secret.

Her precarious financial position was a secret from her employer, because admitting that you are cold and hungry at night isn’t a good idea when you hold a key financial position in an organization. Her professional success threatened and intimidated her chronically unemployed husband. Her friends almost knew how bad things were, but she alternated venting between wholly separate social circles to keep the depth and breadth of misery a secret too. Most everything was a secret from her family.

She was two people then. Catherine did the payroll, and verybadcat kited personal checks to get to work the week before payday. Catherine made good grades and enjoyed being back at school, but sometimes verybadcat just let everyone think she was in class, so she could have her brain to herself for a few hours. Catherine felt badly about leaving her husband home alone with no food or heat for decadent business dinners, but verybadcat snickered over it after a few cocktails.

This arrangement worked beautifully until both girls went alone for a secret long weekend in Ohio to mourn her last living grandparent, followed shortly by a week in Atlanta to help her baby sister bury her first love and witness with abject horror the effects of chemotherapy on her previously strong and healthy mother. All of that mortality shattered the illusion that there was room in one life for two girls- because she had felt the precious fleeting nature of this life, and because it occurred to her that the collision of all of those secrets would have made her own funeral apocalyptic.

They both decided that Catherine would stay and verybadcat had to go, since Catherine was a good girl and verybadcat was selfish and shameful.

It didn’t work out that way. One after another, the expectations Catherine had to meet fell away, and more people came to know both girls. Suddenly, verybadcat found herself single and starting a business. Catherine couldn’t let go. She needed more than ever to prove she was a good girl, but for the first time in her entire life, there was no one there to define what that meant.

Picking up where her experience left off, she made a list that included just about anything that made her too happy. Surely she didn’t deserve those things; every mistake, every failure, every rejection, every missed opportunity was proof that she was just a broken piece of trash that snuck her way into a place in the world far beyond her worth. Catherine ran behind verybadcat with a clipboard, counting up demerits and doling out punishments in the form of deprivation. She labored tirelessly to atone for verybadcat’s constant self-indulgence.

On Friday morning, Catherine filled a page with evidence of unworthiness easily before noon. She couldn’t get to the punishment, though, because verybadcat was solving her problems by helping beloved friends solve their problems, who in turn made her own solutions better. Catherine tried to calculate the cost of the love and support she was receiving, and fretted about the total deprivation required to even it out.

She had almost finished cleaning out the kitchen cabinets Friday night when it hit her.

There are no more secrets. There are no more outside expectations. The people who love me the most are the people who know me the best. The world, this world, my world finally needs me in whole. There is no good girl, no bad girl, no Catherine, and certainly no verybadcat. There is just me, in all my flawed perfection, essential to the whole and lacking nothing essential.

Just like the integral cat.

Are you okay? I know this was a hard day for you, do you want to talk a little? I’d like to know how you’re doing.

We had just executed a mass-layoff in my office, including most of my staff, and my knowledge of this impending doom preceded theirs by a little over a month. I had cried at the prep meeting, while terminating my Payables clerk, and with some coworkers after they were handed their pink slips. I cried all damn day, and only worried a little about my professional reputation.

I’m okay. I meant what I said earlier- this is the right thing for the business, it’s the right thing for those of us who remain- but that doesn’t make it any easier. I know that I’ve been able to look back on my darkest days six weeks, six months, six years down the road and I’ve had the solace of realizing that if I hadn’t faced that hardship, I wouldn’t be right here, and that’s always been a source of comfort to me. To be able to say of the hardest things that they helped make the best things in my life. I’m sad tonight for the people we let go, but more than anything, I just hope that they can look back later on and see that this ending was the beginning of something better.

A relieved smile spread from his eyes to his cheeks, and we chatted for a few minutes before someone cut in and I excused myself.

A few days shy of my thirty-second birthday, I still believe that. I can’t defend it, I can barely explain it, the best hope I have is to point to nature and say it is evidence to me of a higher order that we have not yet grasped in our knowledge of the universe.

If faith is an innate knowing, then this is mine, and I understand it in my bones.

I don’t know why bad things happen to good people, and I don’t know why some lives end so early or so unexpectedly. I understand that people hurt people because they hurt, but I don’t understand the cosmic value in so much pain. Perhaps there isn’t any at all, and I only seek to ascribe it some value to make peace with it somehow.

Since my earliest years of awareness, I’ve been called an old soul. Certainly, I’ve had a few encounters with strangers that were more recognition than introduction, and have always read between the lines without really realizing it. What that means is beyond any of us to understand, and I won’t do it the injustice of pinning it down. Those kinds of things are still magical to those of us that want to see them, and I suppose my biggest question for my coincidence and science friends is, simply:

Why wouldn’t you want to think that things happen for a reason, even if we don’t understand how or why?

I’m incredibly suspicious of anyone who doesn’t believe in something, one thing, anything that they can’t see.

Last night, I sat in the kitchen nook. The steam from my soup kissed my cheeks, and the faint smell of woodsmoke sat in the back of my throat. My thoughts drifted to my upcoming birthday and the annual reconciling of reality against my visions and dreams.

As always, my life looks nothing like what I ever imagined for myself. The people and experiences that filled the gap between my dreams and my defeats are both precious and priceless in their own right, and I choose to believe that they put me right here, right now, with this particular perspective. Any variation on my history would not have produced this moment, with these people, and my capacity to appreciate them.

You can argue with that all you want to, and I would relish the discussion.

What you can’t argue with is the sense of recognition and belonging that strikes deep and true, past my neurotic brain and my poor schizophrenic heart, straight into the marrow. It produces a warm calmness that whispers above all the noise of doubt and fear.

You belong here.

On Friday night, I attended a house party with my faithful travel companion, his undeniably awesome college roommate, and an angel. Yes, an angel, with a halo of curly spun gold and kind, soulful eyes.

I slipped out and away from the crowd to admire the stars, and he came to me with his message, carefully cloaked in parable.

It appeared to be simply a meaningful conversation between two souls newly acquainted, until the anguish crept into his handsome face and he began to wring his hands.

“It isn’t that I don’t love her. I do love her. She’s a great girl. She’s beautiful and smart and wonderful. She deserves someone whose heart skips a beat when he sees her across the room, you know, she’s so worthy of that, and mine just doesn’t, it doesn’t, and I tried so hard, because I wanted it to be that way. But it isn’t. And she deserves that. I hate hurting her, I hate it, I do, and sometimes I miss her so badly, but I know that she won’t move on if I give her any reason not to, and I want her to be happy, even if I can’t be the one to give her that happiness.”

Everything in me wanted to pull his frame-  slender and tall, with an hauntingly familiar grace that one only recognizes by aching for and agonizing over every last inch- towards my own. I wanted to cover him in tears, rest my browbone on his collarbone and feel his strong but nimble hand in the small of my back.

I wanted to tell him that I loved him too, that I understood, but that I didn’t understand, really, that I never would understand why it wasn’t enough, what it was that was missing, how he could miss me so terribly and still think it wasn’t enough. My hand felt pulled like a magnet to the crown of his head, and the swell of my hip ached to sit just above his, and I wanted to smother him in kisses.

We were interrupted then, and to an outside observer, it seemed as if the two of us were having an incredibly intense and personal discussion. Only this angel and I could see the two other people with their hearts in their hands. I never did get to answer him, but I did insist on hugging him goodbye.

“Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground: but he touched me, and set me upright.”

The next day, I noticed that my heart had stopped waiting. For so long, I feared that my hope would slip away with the aching, that letting go was a resignation. Instead I found that the canopy had opened up to let the light in at last, and hope began to cover the forest floor like a carpet and bloom like the entire month of April.

I tried to find him, so I could thank him, so I could tell him that I heard his message, so that I could answer him, but he was gone.

Early Sunday morning, I met a King. He kissed my hand and held court for me, he flaunted his riches and fame with unabashed pride, mentioning only one defeat in a lifetime of battle. When I wished him blessings as I made my leave, he grinned true and wide and assured me that he was already blessed.

Concerned onlookers saw a woman having an animated discussion with an old man wearing a field jacket with a bible in the front left pocket, and nothing in the other pockets.

I couldn’t hold the front off the shore after that, and I wept openly with despair and fear, yes, but more than those, gratitude for all the love and light that keeps me safely sheltered from the war this man fights within and in the world. For family and friends that care so deeply and give so freely that though my net worth is only a little bit higher than the King’s, I am kept in so much finery. Enough to both raise and answer the question of my worth, in dizzying proportion.

As I entered the outer edges of familiar territory, I encountered a powerful healer. He was surprised to see me, but I knew better, because he always shows up when my emotional sea is churning dark, just before the wind lays down and the sun breaks through.

I told him what I’d seen and done, how I felt, and the questions I still had. He took it all in, as he always does, and said with quiet measure:

“I really believe we find what we seek- if you look for doubt, you’ll find it. I try to look for love, instead.”

Unending hunger for proving myself beyond all expectation has served me very well. It’s how an agoraphobic high-school dropout with an algebra allergy, the oldest daughter of a middle-class family, came to hold a key financial position in a sizable organization and earn half a bachelor’s degree by her late twenties- in two inch heels and a wedding ring.

It’s also what held me together through the darkness of that life’s unraveling and the emptiness it left behind.

As one would imagine, a desire for vindication is compelling motivation to survive divorce and a diverging of paths with a corporate conglomerate. My limited research reveals its endurance at roughly eighteen months, just in case you were curious.

The best and worst thing about both divorce and entrepreneurship, simply:

There is no one left to argue with.

Going out into the business or dating world in search of a worthy opponent is generally counterproductive, though it certainly is an all-too-popular approach to either endeavor. The alternative is to internalize the competition- every mistake or miscalculation becomes evidence against your worthiness and success is just the midpoint in a constant cycle of proving your worth again and again and again.

Others sense this preoccupation and rightfully withhold investments of value, lest they lose your attention and favor to some shiny object that promises redemption.

My first attempt to combat this weakness was self-control and lack of expression. I learned how to hide my desire, but the best I’ve ever managed is an vague seething that unseats people more than transparency.

Powerless against its force, I made it my scapegoat and tried to eliminate it. This is what led me to my fondness for the works of Buddhist monks; desire is suffering, and my suffering sure as hell felt proportional to my desire. I found untold comfort and wisdom in their logic, but the seeds of doubt and fear were sown in that soil.

If I ever manage to conquer my desire, who will I become?

Whether you love or hate it, my intensity is an integral part of who I am as a person, a woman, and a writer. Most of the time, I love my passion and drive. Except, you know, when it makes me miserable.

A dear friend and sage advised me not to “taste the carrot”. He was speaking of the tendency we have to place more importance on any particular goal than the effort of striving and the value of desire in the creative process. In contemplating that concept, an unrelated mention of the devil as a symbolic representation of ego fit perfectly as the last piece in the puzzle.

Ego tricks us into thinking we know the inner workings of the universe, that we are capable of divining which friendships will endure, the right place for us in the lives of others, or the role of others in our own lives, which business opportunities will seal our success, or even that we are meant to prevail in an endeavor.

Those failures touch that aching, ancient pain all of us carry in some measure- they prove our worst fears about ourselves. Victory carries its own danger, as I am beginning to understand. Walk on water a few times, and every damn fish pond starts to look like a dance floor.

When determination is fueled by a need to prove superiority in the face of rejection, one starts to see any trace of doubt as a direct challenge. Without consideration for what is healthy, realistic, or even possible; the more impossible it is, the more determined I am to make it happen.

Drive and intensity are my gifts, and they bear some of the sweetest fruit I’ve tasted. Love, success, joy, fulfillment, and contentment- these universal desires motivate us to pursue rich and full lives.

Misery only sets in when my ego attempts to dictate how I receive these things, creating objects of desire and perpetuating the illusion that those broad yearnings rely on any one outcome.

The devil really is in the details, y’all.

Admitting to the ache of a deficit in available resources shows weakness, hunger, and is guilty of consorting with entitlement or a lack of gratitude. We feel compelled to appear strong, satisfied and brimming with humility at all times, and when it takes great effort, we shame ourselves for falling short. Ironically, that pain merely increases the deficit’s emotional load to its failure point, leading to abject misery.

The whole thing is so damn silly.

If we were never consumed with desire for more, we would never be compelled to discover, create, learn and grow. The implication that discontent is rooted in a lack of gratitude is a common manipulation tactic that plays on our shame in hopes of silencing our drive to transcend the limitations others find convenient. It too operates from a place of scarcity rather than abundance, in assuming that whatever it is you ache for will infringe on their share of the resource.

The universe, in all its exquisite irony, rewards those who operate from a place of abundance. When we approach a resource with a sense of scarcity, we become insatiable. Instinctually, we are driven by fear, anger and doubt. This repels people and opportunity, which reinforces our perception of scarcity. Decisions made from perceived abundance are motivated in courage, love and faith, which is where all the magic hides

I wish I could tell you exactly how to transform an aching desire for something more and better into a sense of abundance. The letter I got from the universe yesterday, about not regretting love because it always fosters growth appears to be a clue. I’ve been thinking about time, money, love and regret all day.

As dawn approaches, it occurs to me that the regret is the only thing I cannot afford.

It’s a start.

The new light on the front of the house casts a warm glow on the entrance to my screened-in porch. The door is swung wide open, hanging lazily on worn hinges. I’ve had my eye on a new one for some months now. My cats are in no hurry to come in tonight- they have food left in their dishes, the air is warm, and they’re betting on the durability of the mouse population. The rhododendron that line the driveway are blooming, and there is just enough light to give the white blossoms an eerie shine. I can hear the trickle of the creek on the other side of my antique boxwoods. The lights from the barn next door peek through in places.

Three days worth of dishes clutter the kitchen counter, rinsed and neatly stacked but overflowing into both sinks. With a rhythm years in the making, I empty the clean dishes and load the dirty ones. Cool air rushes in through the open windows as my mind wanders aimlessly over the events of the day. There is nothing to hear but my thoughts and the gentle noise of the window fan in the laundry room, save the occasional clink of a glass as my hands line them up in the top rack. There is a recollection of information, and a noticing. A wide but brief smile, a practical mental note or two, that ache of regret, but nothing more intense than a brief flash before moving ahead with the process, this filing. As the stack in my mental inbox grows thinner, the pace slows and a clarity I’ve chased all afternoon settles in.

I can hear myself think again.

While the dishwasher springs to life, sloshing with a tempo just slightly too mechanical to be mistaken for tides lapping sandy shores but reassuring for its consistency, I line the wine glasses up next to the sink. Most of them can go into the dishwasher when it’s unloaded again, but my favorites need to be hand-washed. Wiping down the counters, I’m reminded of how many things in this room were gifts from those I love dearly. My blue stand mixer, the coffee grinder, my green and blue cookie jar, the basket that serves dual purpose as a bookend for my cookbooks and its intended use as a recipe holder. In it are my own recipes, several old family recipes, and a few clumsily torn pages from magazines, full of promise but yet untested. When I turn out the lights, the bulb over the stove paints a low buttery light on the counter tops. It’s off a shade or two, but it reminds me of the late arrivals and pre-dawn breakfasts received in my grandparent’s kitchen.

It is just this mood that often inspires me to write; a low hum of remembering and noticing without visceral reaction. Recently, I’ve found it useful for higher-level work: strategy, analysis, problem-solving. The quiet knowing that has brought me this far is much easier to hear when my part of the world is sleeping peacefully. The television, the animals inside, the forty-seven dogs and several sheep that live next door and even my dear sister produce an accumulation of energy that drowns out that frequency, rendering it a frustrating mix of broken broadcast and loud static.

There’s quite a bit of love and joy in that cacophony. It can be used productively for routine work and is often full of inspiration, but contemplation is near impossible for me by the light of day.

Hours slip by like minutes at my desk, music befitting my endeavor playing softly, coffee growing cold between breaks. When I notice the darkness lifting out of the cove, I gather my watering cans and fill them while the grey absence of light or darkness reveals the familiar landscape of my backyard and the southwest-facing cove of Ferguson Mountain. Oddly, if my schedule doesn’t dictate my waking hour, I will most likely open my eyes when the sun finally arcs over the ridge in the early afternoon.

The rooster crows next door while I move around the porch, sticking a bare finger knuckle deep into the soil of each plant and tipping the spout over the edge of the pot. I pull a yellowed leaf off of my crown-of-thorns, untangle the stem of my Grandma’s hoya bella that determinedly winds itself around the hook and chain it hangs from, pick a soggy leaf from her African violet, a protest to an ill-timed watering.

Inside, the living room walls appear luminescent as the first light of day shimmers softly against the creamy white semi-gloss I picked out last summer. I can still smell the paint in the cool, damp air while I attend to the plants that line the walls of the living room. The hoya carnosa I bought a week before moving to Asheville is overflowing from its nine inch pot, vines wrapped around the window shade and hanging just above the bookshelf below. My sister’s formidable bamboo specimen and the cuttings I took from it this spring are flourishing in the other window.

I’m lulled to sleep by the cool morning air and birds faithfully greeting the dawn. When I wake in the daylight, I’ll be deaf to these details. Their songs will be lost to the bright light and addling heat of the afternoon. My mind will hum an octave higher, so that the slightest interruption evaporates a thought before it can be captured properly.

So. That’s why I stay up all night. Wouldn’t you?

You don’t look like an accountant. My accountant looks like an accountant…

I thanked her. Who wants to look like an accountant?

The thick logs and dry tinder of various warnings and lectures about managing my image were sitting there, doused in doubt and fear. She tossed a lit match on the pile as casually as she knocked back the last of her drink and dissolved into giggles. That first flash wore off quickly enough, but there was just enough coal left to sustain a slow burn.

Should I try to look more like an accountant? Should I mock the stereotype? Are the people who express concern about the candid nature of my personal writing and tweeting actually right? Is that the cause behind my struggle to communicate a congruent and resonant marketing message for Words and Numbers? Do I appear untrustworthy?

Since the tender age of six, I’ve been warned about the perils of my precocious nature. The reputation lectures would come a decade later. Both are common themes in the constructive criticism I’ve received in my thirty-odd years. When I took over the accounting department, and then as a part of my assimilation when we were acquired by the borg, I found myself continually encouraged to tone down most aspects of my personality. On the record, anyway.

Off the record, I was received with awe and wonder for my versatility. Who the hell is this girl, that trudges into the office fifteen minutes late in flip flops and no makeup, but is stunning in a cocktail dress? How does one manage to hold her own telling lewd jokes on the loading dock and discussing economic conditions over a formal business dinner? How is it possible that the woman who constantly gets her hand smacked for her scathing wit and email grenades is also the source of valuable financial analysis and reliable data? Who is this foul-mouthed creature in a low cut sweater and two inch heels, keeping up with the boys’ club at the bar, at the dinner table, and in the conference room? How does she show up to an afternoon meeting with senior management in flip flops, with an extra large sweet tea in her hand and a pen in her bun and come out with the glow of meaningful praise? How can she write a genuine and eloquent recommendation letter for a former nemesis?

Out of this mixed message, I developed a useful metric for actionable criticism. When it related to anything I did that made me difficult to work with, I made a concerted effort to mitigate those tendencies and situations. I shared my online life with a few trusted work friends, after I password protected any entry relating to my work or my coworkers and some of the posts that were too raw with personal information and emotion for comfort. I lived in constant fear that my twitter feed would come to haunt me professionally.

This was all very much a part of why I was relieved when the borg spit me out, and why I went into business for myself.

When a friend and client warned me about the perils of my openness here and on my personal twitter account last fall, I quickly reminded him that it was exactly those two things that led me to that present moment: en route to an important meeting for a potential project. Our shared client was extremely conservative, and I pointed out my tea length skirt and light makeup in my dismissal of his concern. He chuckled and changed the subject, and an old neurosis found new life.

The writer within abhors any suggestion of oppression or censorship. Stories are for telling. The site name, twitter handle and tagline pay homage to my personal dissonance: the original full name of the blog was cattails: adventures of a verybadcat- a bad pun, a play on my given name, an acknowledgement of the unacceptable parts of myself. It was inspired by the wasbund, who often drew decidedly accurate parallels between his wife and her faithful pack of felines (predilection for napping, lack of concern with approval, moodiness, near impervious to direction or discipline, and the tendency to alternately demand and reject affection, respectively) and by my eternal and undying girl crush on Catherine Conners of Her Bad Mother. The crazy stops here… every fifteen minutes is an expression of my deep desire to overcome emotional dysfunction and the seeming futility of that pursuit.

I’ve trusted you with that conflict in all of my delicious honesty, and both the process and results have propelled me further than I ever would have imagined. The experience is what inspired me to honor two extremely different talents and skillsets: my attempt to make a living by making a life. By bringing my strengths to the promising startups and vibrant small businesses springing up around me.

The accountant within is thinking you can’t eat your principles, and in the name of conservatism, she dilutes the writer’s message. Writing credentials are downplayed on LinkedIn, the business twitter account becomes a container for business tweets. She links from personal accounts to business but never from business to personal accounts. The borg spit her out, and she wrings her hands on the sidewalk, muttering about kool-aid and chewing on the ends of her curls while ruminating endlessly over the message of indoctrination. You’re in a conservative field. You’re young and pretty and tumultuous. You can’t afford to let your work speak for itself.  You must always be beyond reproach.

These two are making me crazy, so I’m asking you: who would you put in charge of marketing?

I started this blog four and a quarter years ago; happily married, running the accounting department of a locally owned small business, attending college classes, and doing a little freelance bookkeeping. We’d been in the house almost a year. Somewhere in there, I started seeing a therapist for my bee phobia, at the wasbund’s request. My sister and I had just started to develop a friendship. The four of us took vacations together, visited each other regularly, gathered for holidays. Adicus was a little shy of his first birthday, and already a magnificent specimen. Nearly all of the ingredients for the life I’ve always dreamed of were at my disposal, and my struggle at the time was figuring out how to put them together and bake a cake. Those early posts center on my conflicts with gender roles, feminism, and modern marriage.

My heart broke wide open for this girl who had absolutely no clue what lay ahead. Her heart broke for me; she thought she was on the verge of becoming a mother. We wept together and were soothed by dreams that found breath and life in the years between us: starting a business, cherishing sisterhood, keeping the house, writing here faithfully. I love her for her innocence; she cherishes the wisdom I’ve found in the wake of so much loss and change.

The irony is a thick lump in my throat. I ponder whether a marriage can survive a reversal of traditional gender roles after I declare a clear preference for them, and then proceed to document the unraveling of my marriage under a reversal of traditional gender roles.

I’m so fucking good I foreshadow without even meaning to.

I’ll make no pretense of objectivity here- I’m not sure that I’m capable of that. The more success and fulfillment I found in the external world, the more success and fulfillment he lost there. The happier and more confident I became, the more miserable he became. Whether that was the force of circumstance or a symptom of unhealthy attachment is a knot that will probably never come loose.

The failure of our marriage only means that we were not capable of navigating the changes of our life together. It is not a testament to whether either of us are capable of it with someone else, or its possibility in general. I’m not proud of the way I treated him in those hardest moments, nor am I proud of the way I allowed myself to be treated. We let resentment, self-justification and contempt infiltrate our bond, and it died a slow and horrible death.

Being a single woman denies me the luxury of dividing labor and responsibility. My sister and I share my home and the joy and burden of keeping house. Admittedly, her masculine energy is stronger than mine and she attends to most of the typically masculine chores. One of her greatest gifts to me is her acceptance of my lack of interest and fortitude in tools and things with motors. I’m more than satisfied with the small victories to that end: building some of the shelving for my bedroom closet, running the wood burner, painting the living room.

A combination of time, experience and making peace with my mother has loosened my view on gender roles. I’m much more comfortable with myself as a person and a woman than I was then. It took not being a wife to realize that my strong feminine energy is an expression of my personality, not a function of role or status. I will never be the kind of woman that could leave her child with anyone else to work sixty hours a week in a traditional office. I still think it’s hilarious that anyone would doubt my ability to be happy and fulfilled as a full time mother and housewife, though I am much more aware of just what a personal risk it is.

Making such a definitive decision either way no longer seems likely or necessary; the gray area is much more spacious than it once appeared. I do still plan on finishing my degree, and I would also love to bring a child into the world, but I am no longer so concerned with how those two goals will fit together. I’m much more confident in my capability to balance them, and the right man will support me in my efforts.

Division of labor is of little significance compared to the dynamic of a relationship. How often is a division of labor argument really about the balance of power? More often than not, I suspect. Trust, respect, communication and commitment are much more important than who pays the bills and who mows the lawn.

My father has always said that I am looking for someone to walk beside me, not in front of or behind me. I would agree, with the caveat that they do most of the navigating, know when I need a direct order and/or a stiff drink, and are willing to take me to the airport at an ungodly hour. One last catch: he should do these things with the same loving gratitude I feel when I am cooking his dinner or balancing his checkbook.

Choose to be better, not bitter. Leave the losses, failures and mistakes of the past behind; you aren’t the girl who suffered those heartaches. You’re the girl that learned from them and triumphed. Keep that without clinging to the haunting details of your pain.

Realize that looking too far down the road is just a sneaky way of looking over your shoulder. Live by your beliefs and values in the present and take heart- this is all you can and should do for tomorrow.

Honor your intuition. It isn’t paranoia, though it might feel that way when you obsess and over-think things. Let your feelings prompt the question instead of trying to answer it on your own.

Value your creative life as much as you value your business life, in recognition that they both provide sustenance necessary for your survival.  Money spent for travel has the highest return on investment of any discretionary purchase, high enough to warrant liberation from the discretionary column.

Stop continuing the work of people who want you to feel small and undeserving to serve their own needs and fears. No, seriously, stop. Because you know damn well they try to trick you into playing small and low out of sheer terror for who you might become. You’re a force of nature. Memorize the affection and appreciation in peoples’ faces when they’ve said this to you, and own it, already.

Understand that punishing yourself for receiving is the exact opposite of humility; guilt holds no more virtue than entitlement.

Keep a balance between your need for solitude and your tendency to hide behind it. Go out into the world before the walls start to close in on you at home.

Absolve yourself for failing to forgive those who’ve betrayed you. Accept as your penance: not begrudging them the compassion of others.

Remember that all love is a gift, and that any time you are working to earn it instead of honor it, something is very, very wrong.

When a man asks you to see only him, take the opportunity to share your expectations. Explain what commitment means to you, because most people do not comprehend it on the same level. Do not allow yourself to be put on the shelf one. more. time. by someone who isn’t capable of sticking around. Let the challenge of winning you over become the first they face in the relationship, so you can make an educated decision.

Just so we’re clear: if they are anything else than willing, capable and utterly devoted, your decision should be to get back out on the dance floor and enjoy yourself. You’ve lived on crumbs for far too long. You know in your heart you’re happier on your own than with someone who settles for a pale rendition of partnership.

Wear high heels and avoid men who are uncomfortable with a level gaze. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and irritation.

Stop excluding your own body from the awe and regard you have for the rest of nature, and always tend to it with at least the loving care you show your pets and plants. Sleep when you’re tired. Eat. Play. Be strong and healthy. See yourself through the eyes of others when the mirror is too unkind. Throw the fucking scale out. Throw. it. out. Do your pants fit? There you go, no scale necessary. If you really want a number to obsess over, test your blood sugar. Yeah, I thought so.

Make more time for your people. They miss you. So you hate the phone. Text. Write. Visit. Send cookies. Do whatever makes you happy, so long as it demonstrates how much they mean to you. Do this often and at regular intervals.

There are two things in this world that provide both security and freedom. One is love, the other is money. Be a good steward of both and you’ll find contentment.

Resist the lure of cattiness and drama. Time and energy are too precious to waste on anyone that provokes it.

You’re an entrepreneur now, and that means that the work/life balance is a murky shade of gray. This a huge change from corporate life. It’s also the very reason that you want so very much to succeed at this. Work is life, and life is work. The right work does more than earn a living. It makes a life. The marriage of these two functions is the summit of self-actualization. A touch of altitude sickness is perfectly normal, but don’t let it overtake you. Just breathe, be present, and keep climbing.

It wouldn’t hurt you to ask for help once in awhile. I’m just saying. It only means that you are sweet and smart enough to surround yourself with people who shore up your weaknesses. Just like using Google Maps on your phone, it keeps you from heading in the wrong direction needlessly.