5 Truthful Tips on Waiting for Acceptance from Others

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192H

I’m sitting outside my creative writing professor’s office. Waiting. I’ve been here every Wednesday for the past eight weeks during his office hours. Waiting. You see, last semester, for the first time in eleven years I shared a portion of my novel with another living being.

Let me tell you, that wasn’t easy.

I haven’t shared my novel with a.n.y.o.n.e. Period. Ever. But with the coaxing of some very dear friends I found my courage, buried somewhere in the trash bin of my mind under some broken eggshells and a couple used ketchup packets, and just did it.

This professor was supposed to read sixty pages of my novel and offer feedback and a critique. As he had hundreds of other “shitty first drafts” to sift through, he said I could pick up my critique on the first day of Spring semester. I’m still waiting. Read more

How to Get Married

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A while back I was gifted with a psychic reading. I’m always a bit nervous before these calls. What will she tell me? Will her voice get deeper and more mysterious as she says that I am going to choke on a Teddy Graham on a random Tuesday night while watching Glee? My mind goes crazy for a moment. Will the invariably hot ambulance drivers come to pick up my body and see the skin of my throat stretched over those little brown sugar legs? It’s terrifying really.

My reading lasted about an hour and, more than once, I had to stop pacing and sit down because of the knowledge this woman had about my life and my thoughts for the future. She was just dead-on, no pun intended. And, to my relief, this amazingly gifted woman didn’t portend my death. No, it was much, much worse. She told me I was going to get married.

After we hung up the phone I scoffed, snickered, ALMOST choked on my Biscoff biscuit, and then fell to floor laughing and thought, when the state of Texas is turned into a glacial iceberg and the wooly Mammoth makes its return in San Antonio, then I will get married again. Read more

“Go West,” Young Heathen

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211H

So… I’m heading West in my covered wagon. Okay, fine – it’s a shiny black Beetle convertible, and the soft top keeps the wind out much better than those flaps of old. But those are just semantics.

For those who didn’t know. Surprise! My Inner Nomad is ready for a change. I’ve been in Cleveland for almost 9 years now and I’m approaching my limit, itching for something new, that North wind of Chocolat fame is a-blowing.

And I have no idea where I’m going to go.

I’m reminded of Joan Didion’s book Where I Was From. Her ancestors seeking a new adventure in covered wagons through the Oregon Trail and Donner pass, meeting death along the way. Didion’s family carried their treasures; Rosewood chests, flatware, a hand mirror- if memory serves. I think about what I will carry in my own “covered wagon”; my beloved pup So-Kr8z in his doggie car-seat, 42 boxes of books, and a passel of memories from my time here.

If you read my previous article you’ll know that dreaming of my home in San Francisco caused me to break out in a hell of a rash. I don’t think this means I won’t end up there, I’ve just realized that I can’t cling so tightly. In fact, I got an email from the Universe post-rash that caused my morning coffee to spurt from my nose:

“Uncertainty, Melanie, only means I’ve yet to decide how to surprise you best, based upon all you’re thinking, saying, and doing.” ~ The Universe

Wow! I love that. And… as Lissa Rankin says, “Sometimes we ask for a Pinto, when the Universe is trying to give us a Rolls Royce.” Who knows… maybe I’m asking for San Fran and the Universe is trying to give me Europe.

So, I’ve stopped worrying about the “hows” and the “wheres” and am focusing instead on the “what I want to feel” in this new place of mine.

I’m only sure of one thing, at this point: I’ve started packing.

Are You Missing the Most Important Steps in Creating Your Vision Board?

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I have a rash and I can’t quite figure out why. Do I have an infestation of the dreaded bed bugs currently humping their way across the Midwest? Or… (bear with me here), could it be the way that I envision my dreams? Is it an allergic reaction to the dust on my Vision Board? Or, perhaps, it’s my inner critic causing these hives?

For months I’ve been daydreaming about my home in San Francisco. Each night, before I fall asleep, I picture the color scheme of my kitchen, where my Wolf stove sits, the dear friends laughing around my dining room table, and the commissioned artwork that hangs above my fireplace. So when the ball dropped into 2011 I didn’t worry too much about updating my Vision Board. I was busy working with Lissa Rankin on a product for Owning Pink and I was “visioning” my dream home every night anyway. Not to mention the fact that there were big gaping holes in the success of my Vision Boards of the past. My understanding of “The Secret” had been that you cut out your little pictures representing what you want, paste ‘em up, and forget about them altogether. Hence the dust. Read more

Painting a Life: A Work in Progress (Or So I Thought)

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HVHN7KSUQC

This is a story about a half-painted bathroom. That might sound really dull, ironically much like watching paint dry, but bear with me because this is also a story of how a half-painted bathroom represented my state of mind.

In October 2002 I took a gargantuan leap of faith and left my ten year marriage, packed up a U-Haul with 2 boxes of photo albums, 31 boxes of books, a single, stained twin mattress, and drove 1,721 miles across country to Cleveland, Ohio.

My friends, my family, and my husband thought I was nuts. Many were sure that I’d found someone else, a few thought I was going through a mid-life crisis at 33, still others just shook their heads and never were quite able to understand it. I’d be included in that last group, hitching my hand up in the air to be counted. Read more

How To Be Alone

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I’m about to get real, folks. Really real.

I like to be alone. I’m not simply saying, “I like my alone time.” Nothing puny like that. I’m saying, “I utterly love being alone.” I take a lot of flack for this — from society, from those whom I love, from therapists around the world spouting “connection” and “human interaction”. I have frequent conversations with myself wherein I ask, “Am I normal? Is there something wrong with me?” When I allow myself to buy into society’s spigot of “norms”, I’m pretty certain that I’m whack. Except then I feel that rush of joyful bliss that makes me giggle out loud when I’m all by myself and all of those theories flush right down the drain.

The How

Make Thanksgiving dinner the night before Thanksgiving because you simply cannot wait and you’re not expecting company anyway. Prepare only the foods you love, mainly those with a sauce of some sort. Prep your $1100 mattress for a canvas o’ culinary goodness and feast on roasted turkey with sage, whipped mashed potatoes drizzled with real butter and smooth, creamy gravy, baked yams with bubbling brown sugar sauce, and Waldorf salad swimming in sugar syrup, minus the gross bananas. Watch Disney movies while you eat and spill blobs of said gravy onto said mattress. Lay there after your gorge, feeling like a sixteen year old boy who just lost his coveted virginity in 3.2 minutes. Sleep in the wet spot. Read more