A Place of No

I believe I can see the future...'Cause I repeat the same routine- Trent Reznor 

Yesterday a long time (because in your 40s "old" is offensive) friend stopped by for a visit. "You do too much," she said on her way out the door. She didn't say it to be rude or shower me with praise for my supermom capabilities. It was out of genuine concern.

In 2012 I launched The Bravo Bitch (which later became The Bravo Blonde and TBBReality) after reading Bethenny Frankel's A Place of Yes. The book was a guide to getting the things you want out of life by keeping a mindset that anything is possible so long as you believe you can, and go after what it is you want. Hormonal, and angry at the world that I was back to work after 9 months home with twin babies, I decided that my life was substandard. I was destined for bigger and better and it was time to go after it. My Place of Yes lead me back to my roots as a broadcast journalism major and desire to work in television. I started running a commentary and blog about reality TV, because after 6 weeks of bed rest followed by 9 months at home with infants it was all I really knew anymore. I was struggling to find my pace as a working mom. Teaching young minds by day and diapering even younger ones by night was more difficult than I'd ever imagined.

My Place of Yes lead me to exciting parties and premieres. Interesting friendships with people who couldn't ever relate to the real me. I had to adopt a new persona. I was living a double life. I often felt like Superman changing in phone booths, only I was changing into an evening dress in a closet or bathroom somewhere after a full day of work. My Place of Yes got me many great experiences and connected me with many awesome people I still talk to (and I'm not referring to the famous ones), but above all my Place of Yes left me exhausted. When my hell year of trying to sell a condo and purchase a house was over, I bailed on my Place of Yes. I disappeared from the twittersphere to get back to my own reality.

For the past 14 months I didn't blog and I barely tweeted. I kept my social circle small. I threw myself into the mundane everyday stuff of life that I was supposed to loathe. I said "no" to every event invitation and ignored all the emails to feature and promote products. Eventually I stopped checking my TBB email altogether. You know what? It felt great. I didn't even care that there was this whole other universe going on. I could turn my back on it without feeling like I missed out. My Place of Yes became a Place of No...and I was happy with it.

So as I sit here and type away on New Year's Eve 2016, I've set my goals for the coming year. That goal is to continue to come from that Place of No. It started when, for the first time in over a decade, I decided to not bake holiday cookies. As I scrolled through Facebook, I saw everybody's photos of their home baked goods. Did I feel like a failure? Nope. In fact, the feeling of one less thing to do and a dozen less ingredients to buy was more blissful than any Instagram "look what I did" post ever was to me.

I then carried my Place of No to my staff breakfast party. I don't exactly live close to my job, so getting my kids up early and dressed on a Saturday wasn't really appealing when I was already burning out from holiday prep. In the end it actually snowed that morning. I wouldn't have been able to make it anyway. "No" won again!

As Christmas faded and the holiday bills started piling in, I started to get anxiety. I have a lot of debt that was accumulated my first year in my new house when the kids were still in daycare. Saying yes to every thing I thought I and my family wanted and needed left me with more bills than I've had in years. So I decided to expand my Place of No to, "No I don't need it", "No I'm not buying that", "No I won't pay that much." I started it tonight when I canceled our traditional NYE sushi outing to bring in a much more cost effective pizza instead. The pizza tasted a lot better than another 2 hours out in uncomfortable clothing with nothing but another buck fifty on my credit card and a Facebook post to show for it.

Most importantly, my 2017 Place of No is to stop chasing perfection. It's totally unnatainable. I'm over trying to convince myself and my friends that I can do it all. How fitting that on December 26th my desk calendar, a compilation of "Inspirations for a simpler life" stated, "You can do anything, but not everything." Perhaps that was the message that was lacking from A Place of Yes. It was with this knowledge that I arrived at my friend's holiday party last night (after a day filled with two different repair man windows, my last workout at my gym that closed after 21 years of my membership, and having to chauffeur my husband back and forth to work while his car was fixed) with a store bought cake I forgot to defrost and an unwrapped gift in a bag. Perfectly imperfect and I survived.

So what will I say yes to in 2017? More time with my family, less time on the internet, the life insurance purchase I've been putting off, and of course that NYC Marathon on November 5th. Everything else is up in the air. Go ahead and ask me, invite me, tempt me with your wares...just understand I might say no...and I won't feel an ounce of guilt about it.


*Miles logged this week about 20. Days until Marathon 308.

Christmas Wrapping

It's December 23d...the night before, the night before. I am probably more behind than ever. There's a closet full of unwrapped toys and other gifts I vaguely recall buying, a credit card bill I'm afraid to glance at, and the nagging notion that this is the first year in aeons I've committed to not bake a thing. Ah, the sweet smell of failure. So what do I decide to do? Start a new blog. This, my friends, illustrates the charmingly chaotic chronicles to follow. I start, I stop, it's a wrap I say...and I start again.

Thirteen months ago I left the blogosphere. I'd had a successful enough run as a reality television blogger. Not a recap artist, but a real life behind the scenes pseudo-reporter interviewing z list celebrities and attending their parties and premieres. Helping them publicize their products and endeavors. At first it was fresh and exciting. Then it became stale...like that last Pringle in the tube that, instead of tantalizing your tastebuds, makes you nauseous and self-loathing, urging you to purge like Calista Flockhart in The Secret Life of Mary Margaret. Don't know what I'm talking about? You're probably too young to remember late 80s/early 90s Afterschool Specials and HBO Life Stories. Look it up though, it's an interesting watch.

So I was done, and I was ok with that. I moved on. I bought a new home and went back to my life as an educator, wife, mother of twins, and dog owner...and fitness addict. I've been busy enough and I've been very happy. I literally had everything and nothing going on. I toyed with writing again, but nothing felt right. I had nothing to say...I probably still don't. It was good though. I was enjoying the ordinary. Writing, blogging...it was a wrap.

It's taken me a long time, but I started getting accustomed to giving up on things. After the hot flare of midlife crisis, you get into an "I'm here and it's ok" phase. Along with writing I gave up another long held goal. After years of saying "I will", I started saying "I won't" to running the New York City Marathon. It took me 4 years to get in when I was in my early thirties. I got in, got pregnant, held my number for another year, got sidelined in training because of complications from that pregnancy, and gave up. It wasn't meant to be. I was content to run my yearly half marathon and leave it at that.

Earlier this school year a colleague asked me if I still planned to run this race that was once my "white whale." I laughed it off and said that ship had sailed. Then he reminded me our school would get two entries and I should toss my name into the drawing. I mulled over it for two months. By the time that drawing came on Monday I had decided I wanted that number...no I REALLY wanted that number. Tossing my name in, I sat nervously, knowing I now wanted this too much, and that probably meant it would never happen. I've never been lucky in games of chance, except for on Monday, when my name was called. At last the white whale was mine for the taking.

Wednesday in the bitter cold, I set out for my first post race commitment outdoor run. One of the few benefits of peri-menopause is the ability to withstand weather that used to make you walk like you were auditioning for the lead in Driving Miss Daisy (again showing my age).  All of a sudden the self doubt hit me like a ton of bricks. At almost 41 years old and 21 years running, what if this was the one race I couldn't finish? What if I looked like a failure in front of my colleagues, my family, my friends? That's when the idea hit me.

The race was never a wrap, neither was my writing. By sharing my marathon journey, I could get back to sharing myself in writing. If I failed, I would fail big. I would share my failure. If I succeeded, I would share that too, not for the purpose of the gloat, but the purpose to inspire. See we are all running a marathon. Life is a marathon, especially life in these times. We all juggle so much in so many ways and we succeed and fail multiple times just in a day.

So I'm back world and I'm back in the biggest reality ever. Not the phony glare of reality television, but the reality of life today. Of trying to look like I have it all together; like the perfectly wrapped packages I brought into my son's classroom the other day; while in so many ways it's falling apart...like his hair when I walked in that looked like it had never seen a brush. So here I go, literally and figuratively. I am The Run On Mom...sometimes running on emtpy, sometimes simply running...and right now I'm running out of time to be ready for Christmas. Back to wrapping...