We walked the trails through the marsh, doing what we’d always done, sharing victories, frustrations, amusements and outrages. I had the honor and pleasure of meeting her daughter. A perfect, beautiful, healthy six month old baby. The entire afternoon was quiet, gentle, wise and sweet- so much so that it I didn’t realize how incredibly overwhelming it was until I left.

To have her friendship and love in my grasp again, to get some advice, some bras that fit, maternity clothes for the summer, a few other invaluable items. Holding that sweet child in my arms, leaning down to smell her head and realizing that this is why I can’t brush my tongue anymore, that this is my reward for the crying jags, the mouth-watering queasiness, the exhaustion that leaves me limp and sour like a wet dishrag. My gratitude washed over me like a warm tide; tears of joy and relief rolled under my chin and down my neck, and I left them there because the breeze through the car windows on wet skin made the heat a little easier.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about the people I love the most, the inner circle of family and friends that are so caring and giving, steadfast as hardy perennials. I thought about how my knot slipped loose with this one, how careless and foolish I’d been, and for what? I’m not entirely sure anymore, but it seemed fairly clear at the time, and here we are, and she’s breathing much-needed light into my life. I hope she got some in return.

My thoughts occasionally drift to other loose knots, some completely undone, like slipped stitches in a blanket. The loss of love pains me, even and perhaps especially when it becomes necessary for my own well-being. But that’s the thing about becoming a mother- it starts with not eating things that don’t smell good to you that moment and evolves into realizing that you’re responsible for teaching a real person how to live and love by example.

I leave for Vegas on Thursday, and I was concerned about feeling well, doing well, and fitting in. Then I remembered who they are, and how much I love this, and how badly I want this baby to understand the capacity for light in the world. So I stopped worrying and started shopping.

I’ve been steadily feeling better since we took that walk in the park. Hearing the faint echo of a heartbeat, and then a loud, clear, strong heartbeat didn’t take my breath away, as I thought it would. It restored my breath and my strength, like a freight train rushing towards me, my feet humming with the pitch of the tracks.

The quality and quantity of people who have, in their own way, walked in the park with me is a wellspring of joy and comfort. I’ve been atrocious about keeping in touch, and even more elusive to see in public, but they march on, inquiring, advising, inviting, and lo, I am blessed.

Pregnancy isn’t a walk in the park, but love ought to be.

Certainly, my mother ensured that the Christmas tree burst forth with mountains of gifts on Christmas morning, all painstakingly wrapped in pretty paper and mile upon mile of pigtailed ribbon. My childhood Christmases were nothing short of magical, even after I recognized her familiar script on Santa’s gift tags.

The weeks leading up to Christmas morning, however, were entirely about love, kindness and charity. We baked endless cookies, to be delivered to neighbors and damn near every staff member at school by yours truly, a personal thank you from Mama to any soul that ever looked out for her kids.

We bought the softest, warmest gloves and hats for my elementary school’s “mitten tree”, and she made sure that I understood the heartbreaking connection between its purpose and my classmates who were carefully sent to the library for recess: their parents couldn’t even afford proper clothing for the Michigan winters. I hoped that my contribution to that tree would have them sledding and slinging snowballs with the rest of us in the new year.

It wasn’t until high school, when I got involved with Junior Civitan that I really understood the desperation and sorrow behind the mitten tree, the canned food drives, and the wish lists from social services. I met an angry single mother that hissed insults at us as we unloaded a full Thanksgiving dinner onto her kitchen counters, and an elderly couple living in a tin shack with dirt-packed floors. It frightened and saddened me indeliably to truly understand the depth and breadth of my blessings.

A few short years later, I was finishing some last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve when the oil light lit up my dashboard. Panicked, I pulled into an oil change place and prayed that someone would at least be around to sell me a few quarts of oil for my old, dying car. There was a guy in the garage, he’d come by to pick something up he’d forgotten the night before. He filled my engine and put a case of oil in my trunk, with strict instructions to add a quart every time I put gas in it, and refused to take even the money for the two or so quarts I could afford.

Just a few years ago, a coworker was distraught over a mistake in her checkbook register that meant she couldn’t afford the big gift she planned on for her son. B and I hardly even had to exchange looks; we both put a few twenties in an envelope and slipped it into her inbox, unnoticed. We were eventually discovered, unwittingly, and I found myself staring into a pair of big brown eyes full of guilt, shame and disbelief. She wanted to know why we were compelled to fix her “stupid” mistake, and she wanted to “make it right” when she could.

“Because we’ve all made that mistake in our checkbooks. Because your kid deserves that wide-eyed gasp I always had. Because I have it to spare. Because that’s how my Mama raised me. Because it made my heart light and happy. Because I love you. Because this is what Christmas is really about, and don’t you dare give a penny of it back.”

We wept in each other’s arms.

She offered it to me later, driven by the hopelessness behind my eyes, and probably the knowledge that B was helping me sneak the space heater out of the lobby at night and out of the trunk of my car in the morning. I still refused, because forty dollars wasn’t even close to solving my problems and because I’m so damn prideful sometimes.

This year, I haven’t had an opportunity to perform a significant act of kindness, so I’ve decided to settle for sending tidings of comfort and joy to people that have made my life so much sweeter. I’d like to start with you, whoever you are. If you’re reading these words, you’ve encouraged me to keep writing, and in so doing, you’ve compelled me to live and love better. Your silent witness casts a soft, moon-lit glow on the path that leads me home. Thank you.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

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.

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.

You never let me down, and that sensation of being so tenderly cradled by a community bursting with so much talent, skill, wisdom and passion sustains me in my darkest moments. The smallest acts of kindness are as precious as the grand gestures; not every mountain can be moved swiftly. Those of you that have spent years raising callouses on your hands one shovelful at a time have rightfully earned my undying loyalty.

If there exists one value that my parents instilled above all others, it was that we are put on this Earth to love each other while we’re here. When I expressed my gratitude to my father for all of their sacrifices, gladly made on my behalf, and my fear that I couldn’t ever reciprocate, his response carved deep grooves in my soul.

You know how you pay it back? You do for your sister, you do for your baby cousins, you take the help that comes your way with humble gratitude, and you pay it forward. Every chance you get to bring your resources to bear for someone else, you do that. That’s how you repay me, by starting the cycle over again.

My father never turned anyone down for a meal- it was a challenge for your Grandma sometimes, to stretch the menu for unexpected company. But he never let a soul leave that house hungry, you know, no matter who they were or what he had to share, and I’ve always tried to live that way, and I think that’s why I’ve always had support when I’ve needed it, because I’ve always given it when I possibly could.

So, if I have an opportunity to cook for you, to rework your resume, to show you some measure of comfort or ease of hardship, I’m delighted to do it. I consider it a blessed opportunity to put just a fraction of the love and concern I’ve received back out into the universe; a calling to honor what I’ve been given by sowing some hopeful seeds for another soul.

I’m not the girl that always keeps up as well as she should with personal correspondence and social visits. Despite my reputation otherwise, I don’t always have the right words to express how I feel about each of you personally. My introversion and mercurial emotional weather create artificial distance in many of my relationships; my thoughts and feelings are sometimes so loud that they drown out the voices of others, no matter how fierce my affection for you.

Please know that I hold you all in my heart, that your love and kindness are the stars in my night sky. Thought does not translate into communication near often enough, and I’m working on that, but I am always here, loving you and wishing you all the strength and peace that I’ve found in your friendship.

My love is a rock.

and as you’re searching for peace in your world,
you may find yourself spinning around and around and around,
while the pain you’ve endured only serves to make you surer
of the strength that you’ve found, and then

my love is a rock, an immovable force
anywhere that you are, my love is right here
with any tick of the clock life can change its course
but my love will not, my love is a rock

-reo speedwagon, “my love is a rock”

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.

In our timeless dance, I poured my anguish at his feet. The little things, the big things, the secret things, the hardest things- my frustration, fear and pain rushing over him like water over rocks, attending but unyielding to the force of the current. His quiet, thoughtful reply stunned me.

You have everything you need to make the life you want. You know what to do. You know how to do it. You have more support available to you than you avail yourself of, even. What is missing? What it is in your way?

The stark reality of his words haunted me for days. I picked at my past, at the pain; I stared down the wallpaper until I could see myself behind the pattern.

My dreams one night were vivid recollections of the past year, flashes of sense and emotion in certain clarity against a set of oddly familiar but inaccurate surroundings. Resting my cheek against a barrel chest. The hard edge of steel cutting into my hip. A gentle squeezing of my thigh just above my knee. Soft, spicy-scented whiskers. Huge, strong hands that dwarfed mine and the steady tenderness of their weight on the small of my back or the firmness of their grasp on my hip. Powerful arms that lifted me up as effortlessly as they grounded me and drew me near. A gaze as steady and curious as my own.

In that first moment of wakefulness, before reality permeated the lucidity of those memories, I felt safe, secure, confident, focused. Warm and happy. As the last traces of that feeling evaporated and the cold aching truth returned, I remembered a lullaby my mother used to sing.

you are my sunshine
my only sunshine
you make me happy
when skies are gray

you’ll never know, dear
how much I love you
please don’t take my sunshine away

the other night, dear
while I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms

but when I woke, dear
I was mistaken
someone took my sunshine away

I have hated that fucking song for as long as I can remember living.

These men are every bit as incredible and imperfect as I am, and my affection for them builds on genuine appreciation for who they are as individuals. Our connections and experiences have taught me invaluable lessons; I can say with some measure of certainty that our time together was mutually beneficial in that and most other regards. For one reason or another, something didn’t work out. None of that was any more or less complicated than it ever is; but the loss I felt seemed a little too deep, too ancient, too devastating. As if I were losing a part of myself, each split took on the gravity of a little death.

Tucked safely behind my camera lens, eyeing bare branches against the horizon, I noticed that it disappeared entirely. Layers of cold white and gray clouds blended seamlessly into the drifts of ice at the shoreline and the elusive open water. With admiration for the beauty and strength of the trees despite the harsh conditions they endure, I noted that my own circumstances felt just this way: barren, frozen, an endless horizon of gray despair, clarity and success disappearing into frozen shorelines and snow clouds charging in.

I was born and raised here. There was a time when this air was not so cold and raw to me, but it borders on unbearable now. Why is that? What happened? Why do I feel so completely overwhelmed by the life I want so desperately to create? Has my intuition become a self-fulfilling paranoia in those relationships? Did I enter them with an unconscious selfish motive that burdened these men unfairly? Is my affection for them driven by it? Perhaps more importantly, why don’t I feel so overwhelmed when I’m not single, despite the reality that my relationships increase demands on my time, attention and energy?

Besides, my father has started intermittently opening my car door for me. We all have our strengths.

Sometimes I forget where I came from. While I unarguably blossomed under the hot Atlanta sun and rooted deeply in the cradle of the Southern Appalachians, I too easily forget my Midwestern beginning. Before I swilled sweet tea and snuck cigarettes on the balcony of our suburban apartment under the intoxicating scent of honeysuckle and jasmine. Before I chased the ephemeral wildflowers up the ridges and the fall color down the ridges.

Grade school days spent catching tadpoles and cutting cattails in the marsh of mid-Michigan, hoarding lilac stems in my shoebox of a bedroom until my father’s telltale tears and sneezes snitched out my secret garden. Summers spent on countless lakes, in boats of every size and shape: fishing, swimming, driving a speedboat full throttle through a light chop, skiers in tow. Maple trees wearing crowns of crimson fire, trick or treating in winter coats. The idyllic vision of colored Christmas lights glowing off freshly fallen snow in the front lawns of three bedroom split-level ranches, and long, dreary winters that have driven hard men to madness.

This is what I seek now- that little girl that baited her own hook, climbed trees, returned home caked in mud, relished the wind in her hair as she charged across the lake. The girl who once ate the head from the first live smelt caught in the dipping nets while her father roared with laughter and his friends recoiled in disbelief and horror. That girl huddled around the hole augured through the ice, stealing sips of whiskey and eyeing the end of a spin rod for that telltale tug.

We are born with everything we need in life and love. The secret is in knowing how to untie your own knots, to go back to what was under-developed and lovingly tend it until it bursts forth in bloom.

As for love, self-actualization and higher love have always seemed a dual pursuit for me. We learn to live and love in our original families. From the moment we are born, we begin a battle to survive, and the skills we develop in our attempt color us indelibly. We bring this perspective to the world around us; only through living and loving successfully in it are we ever truly self-actualized. I see self-actualization as contentment and higher love as happiness.

The last day of my trip, Daddy packed us into his little green car and took us to Dow Gardens. We stood at the incubation boxes inside the conservatory (a giant terrarium!) and I listened as he explained to a beautiful blonde ten-year-old girl.

Those butterflies have to hang there until their wings are dry. Wet wings don’t fly right, so they sit there and wait.

A few minutes later, I was concentrating on not falling into the small pond in the middle of the room while attempting to snap a picture of a butterfly on some palm fronds. My mother’s voice broke the spell, and I turned around to see a crowd of children around me. A huge blue butterfly had perched on my shoulder.

“Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder… ” -Thoreau

My close relationship with my father is no secret. The line that most everyone fails to draw is more subtle. He is undeniably the head of his household, but my mother was always the breadwinner. I filled in the gaps she was too exhausted to defend; I catered to my father and delighted in an opportunity to share his interests as much or more than I relished his attention to my own interests. Perhaps unwisely, he rewarded the responsibility I undertook with power and privileges. My undiluted adoration of my father earned me the ability to make illogical and unreasonable demands come to fruition with a touch of lower lip and batting of eyelashes.

A hair-trigger temper and random bouts of violence and cruelty, the worst of my father’s faults, developed an ultra-sensitive intuition on my part. I could detect a change in his emotional weather often before he realized it himself. This talent was not a parlor trick or the result of an unhealthy intimacy. It was a survival tool developed out of necessity; if the hand that feeds you is also prone to delivering terrifying violence, you had better understand the context with which it approaches you.

I brought the skills and talent I learned at home into my professional life. As an intelligent young woman in the business world, particularly in accounting and finance, I began a long and successful career as the faithful right hand of the man in charge. Whether he was a doting mentor or a frightful ogre merely determined whether my service was a joy or a burden; I am bred equally well for either role. No woman has ever lasted six months as my manager, whether by circumstance or intervention.

I also never gave up the habit of reading the emotional weather of the men in my life and internalizing it as a threat to my utter survival. The wasbund consciously or unconsciously manipulated this sensitivity and the attending fear of rejection and abandonment. He very literally kept me so insecure in seeking his approval that I very rarely had time or energy to assess my own approval of him. It worked well for a decade, then it did not work anymore, and so we did not work anymore.

Two years ago, we celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary. I had just returned from my Grandma’s burial, which I attended alone. We had no way of knowing that in four days, I would find myself driving down to Atlanta to attend to my sister’s grief, alone. I had no way of knowing as I drove home that my marriage had degraded to incurable that week. My response to all of the grief and tragedy was a renewed appreciation for my husband and the family we would make, for my own mortality, for the precious commodities of time and life.

It took me another three months to realize my marriage was over and end it. Between devoted friends and family and the borg, I enjoyed an enviable level of support in my decision and the emotional aftermath it wrought. Even the men I previously considered ogres came forth with offerings, both tangible and intangible. Mostly this was innocent and helpful, but I would come to realize that my sexual eligibility now complicated nearly every platonic relationship I had with men.

This is part of the reason that I cherish the friends of my husbands so dearly; they are safe sources of assistance. I am a friend of the family, a lovely girl who has found herself without a man around the house. At in time in my life when my male friends were propositioning me left and right, the bestie husbands were protective older brothers with innocent intentions. The only thing I owed them for their contributions were praise, gratitude, love, and the occasional six-pack or meal. Some of them outright refused even the beer and dinners.

The greatest mitigation of risk is diversification, and so I always (mostly subconsciously) maintained a healthy sea of men in various parts of my life to provide a well of masculine energy to draw from. My greatest instability and deepest insecurities are shallow sandbars lurking beneath the depths of that sea, so that they show whenever the tide goes out.

The best of my capability without that energy to draw from is survival, and I found the very edge of that endurance last week. It has always taken more energy than I have to thrive on my own. In my shame, I found perfection in the art of endurance. I have always been a tough girl, but I never quite mastered the art of being a strong person.

My father’s mortality has become undeniable; a recent cancer scare, the stiffness in his knee and hip and the white whiskers in his five o’clock shadow pierce any illusion of his invincibility. As if that were not terrifying enough, it is also a stark reminder of my own limited time here, and the mile-long list of things I have left to accomplish in it. I am a thirty-one year old single woman, an entrepreneur and a homeowner.

Our lives are never what we imagined they would be. I have spent the last thirty odd years perfecting the art of the feminine and its use in attracting and harnessing masculine energy for my pleasure and benefit. This is lovely if you wish to gather rain, but I need to make it.