Frailty, Thy Name is Human...

I've always thought of myself as a kind person - compassionate, empathetic, and understanding. As I have been recovering from my injury these last few months, I realize I may have been giving myself too much credit.

Don't get me wrong, I think I am indeed a kind person, maybe even compassionate, but empathetic and understanding, yeah, now I'm not so sure.

You see, I've always been the kind of person who, much like the Weebles of my childhood, doesn't stay down for too long. Weebles wobble but they don't fall down. But even if I do get knocked down, I get up again pretty quickly, because, let's face it, there really isn't much other choice. Keep on truckin', as they say.

I'd listen to friends/colleagues/employees talk about problems, sometimes even really awful, life-altering ones that were physically or mentally debilitating, and although I felt for them, and felt genuine concern, my reaction inside was always, "Enough already. Time to get back on the horse."

Until recently.

Recently I've learned the lesson that sometimes even the simplest things we take for granted in daily life can become huge challenges.

I've always been an anxious person, worrying and obsessing over the smallest details. Reliving mistakes over and over. But recently, as I'm learning is common for some patients recovering from head injuries, especially women, the anxiety is stronger than ever. Every minute of every day, I'm mindful of how I feel -- Am I better? Worse? The same? And I'm just as mindful about what I'm doing -- Am I doing too much? Not doing enough? Is it too noisy in here? Are the lights too bright? Am I going to be feeling this later?

I can almost hear my grandmother's voice in my head: You need a hobby. A hobby that isn't worrying.

I wouldn't mind all of this so much if it served a purpose, and it stopped there. I don't think it's unhealthy to ask myself those questions -- what's unhealthy is to be thinking those things ALL the time, to the point where it interferes with daily life.

Acupuncture has been helping my anxiety a lot. I also have a prescription for Zoloft, the presence of which makes me feel reassured, although I have yet to take it. I'm not against taking it - it's just one more thing to obsess about.

Although anxiety is no stranger, I've never been someone to be slowed down by it. I travel all the time, frequently by myself, and it doesn't bother me a single bit. Post-injury, I find myself scared of even the smallest, most random activities, like waiting in line. Ever present in my head is the fear that I will pass out, despite the fact that I haven't passed out one time this whole journey. What I really fear is a loss of control and being vulnerable. Friends and family try to convince me that New Yorkers are essentially good and that, if I did pass out, someone would help me. And if the worst happens, if I fall over and die on 9th Avenue, I'll be dead and won't care.

Intellectually I believe them, but emotionally, not so much.

Taking the subway is a challenge, being underground at the mercy of the train really revs my anxiety, my heart feels like it's going to explode and I'm sure the person next to me hates me because I fidget constantly, but I force myself to do it at least once a day. Mainly because I know that I can't afford to never ride the subway again. If I stray too far from my neighborhood, I tell myself that escape is at hand if I just put my hand up and hail a cab.

Sometimes I'm more successful than others.

Just today, I was walking around my neighborhood, running some errands and trying to burn off some energy, trying to push the anxious thoughts from my head, knowing that exercise would help. Then I went into Starbucks, a Starbucks where I had been dozens of times before (although not Len's daily haunt). The line wasn't long, surprising for a Sunday at noon. I ordered, and then it hit me, a full fledged panic attack. I felt like the whole place was spinning, I was nauseous, my legs were trembling, my hands were shaking and all I wanted to do was run. I thought I'd die. Somehow I managed to talk myself down, tell myself it was all in my head, quickly paid and then fled.

And as soon as I was on the other side of the door, outside in the cool spring air, I felt two immediate thoughts wash over me -- One said, "You need to get home right now." And the other, "This is what it felt like for J." "J.", as I'll call her, was an employee of mine who only worked for me a short time - a time plagued by frequent absences, and ultimately, a medical leave. J. suffered from mental and physical illness, which as a human, I thought I understood and felt compassion for, but as a manager, I candidly didn't have much patience for. She rarely showed up for work and, more often than not, when she did, she was distracted. I just couldn't wrap my head around some of her actions -- how she would call and say that she had gotten halfway to work and then had to turn around, she just couldn't make it all the way in. "How hard is it," I would ask myself, "For her to just stay on the bus and come to work?"

Now I know the answer: Pretty damn hard.

In the midst of my heart-pounding, gut-wrenching panic, I felt compassion for her, and for anyone else suffering from things they can't understand or control. I thought of all of the times I had judged others for what I perceived as weakness -- but the truth is I've never judged anyone more critically than I judge myself. Safely on the other side of my apartment door, I cried tears of fear, sadness, empathy, and relief.

I know that I will keep marching myself defiantly back into that Starbucks and onto the subway until I can do so without fear, even if it takes 1,000 more panic attacks to get there.

Because I know that feeling this way won't last forever. This too shall pass.

The perspective and compassion I've gained I hope stick around a little longer. If everything happens for a reason, and I do believe that's true, they have been worth the price of admission.

Defying Gravity

Tomorrow brings the biggest day of my professional career each year -- our annual signature fundraising event for Girls Inc.

It's an intimate gathering of about 800 people, raising nearly 1M, so it's a simple affair. Ahem.

All I can say if, should I ever get married, I won't be stressed at all about planning a wedding. Having worked on this event seven years running (with plenty of help and, in the past several years, in the capable hands of others on my team), plus hundreds of other events, I'm sure my little chapel wedding at the Shady Pines Nursing Home in 50 years should be a snap.

As much work and pressure as it is, I love this event. And the main reason is it reminds me how much we can make a difference in the lives of others.

The girls served by Girls Inc. are by and large "at-risk." 70% come from households earning less than 30K a year. Most are girls of color. Nearly half live with only one parent, most often their mother.

Most Girls Inc. programming takes place after school, so for many, it's their safe space to go after the school day ends. Girls Inc. offers research-based programs delivered by trained professionals -- programs designed to meet the unique needs of girls.

But beyond that, it's the people at Girls Inc. that really make a difference. At Girls Inc., girls find caring adults they can trust. Adults who believe that they can do anything. Because they can.

Our event is so special because Girls Inc. National Scholars, winners of our annual scholarships, stand in front of this room of nearly 800 people and aren't afraid to share their stories.

And their stories aren't easy ones. Gangs, physical and mental abuse, parental substance abuse, illness, extreme poverty and homelessness.

But the one thing they all have in common is that, at Girls Inc. they found a home away from home, and within those walls, they found people who encouraged and believed in them. And that made all the difference.

So they stand in front of this room now on the way to college and careers that they never dreamed possible.

I love this event because it reminds me that the possibilities in life are infinite -- and perhaps more importantly, it makes me think of how fortunate I was to have people in my life who believed in me and my abilities, who encouraged me, and who saw possibilities where I saw obstacles.

We all have people like that in our lives. For some, it's our parents, but more often, it goes beyond that, to grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, friends, neighbors, coaches.

In a world where the most negative news stories get top billing, where we build up public figures to tear them down again, to stop and think about how we can be forces for good in the lives of others is a powerful thing.

So tomorrow when we celebrate these girls and our event honorees, women who have achieved great success in their respective fields and now serve as role models for girls forging their own paths, I'll be thinking of those people who supported me along the way and sending them a silent thank you. As the song goes, "Because I knew you, I've been changed for good."

And I'll be reminding myself to repay what has been given to me by encouraging others to reach beyond what they think is possible, and by doing so, I'll be reminding myself too.

So even if the lights go off, the sound system fails, or our slideshow presentation gets Rickrolled (please God no), I'll try to remember what's really important and be thankful.

And then I'll be ready for a really long nap.

Butter & Oil

I don't know how many of you caught this week's SNL with the spoof of Paula Deen.

If not, catch it here: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/weekend-update-paula-deen/1389907

I thought it was hilarious, even though I do love me some Paula Deen. I want to go to her house and eat ham biscuits and red velvet cake. I confess that, as a diehard NYer, I picture all middle-aged white women from the South looking just like Paula Deen. If you're from the South, and I haven't met your mom, whenever you talk about her, I picture Paula Deen. This is terrible, I know, but I can't help myself.

Part of me wants to be Paula Deen when I grow up, without the diabetes and without the actual cooking part, since I don't want to turn on the stove. I have lived in my apartment for four years without turning it on once and I have a record to maintain.

I hope the allegations of racism and sexual harassment against Ms. Paula aren't true. They sound pretty awful and I would find it very upsetting if proven true. Her food looks mighty good (butter and oil) and I find her personal story to be inspiring. She's flawed and I like that. I also like that Paula has two sons that have followed her into the family business. I don't have children (yet) but I always thought I'd be a good mother to sons, and Paula's wiseacre sons make me laugh. It's rare that men follow their mother's lead into business, but I like how they built the business together and how Paula admits that she couldn't have done it, become Paula Deen, without all of their efforts. I'm not sure what family business my sons would follow me into, since watching television is not a family business that I know of, but give me time and I'm sure I'll think of something.

I recently watched Paula on Oprah's Next Chapter and was riveted by the agoraphobia she suffered from for two decades. Essentially both of her parents died within a short period of time and Paula somehow got it into her head that if she just stayed inside, she could protect herself and her family from additional heartache and loss. So that's what she did. For twenty years. Twenty years people. Somehow hearing that makes me feel reassured and a little less crazy. I could see my controlling self thinking exactly what Paula did, but thankfully I haven't gotten there yet.

Above all, I admire Paula because she's not afraid to pee her pants on national television, which I'm pretty sure she did on this episode of Oprah's Next Chapter. (I can't find a good clip but Google if you're curious.) Getting on the trampoline that she had built for her grandkids, she warned us that she might, her whole staff said she might, and I'm pretty sure she did.

I don't know about you, but from where I sit, getting from being afraid to leave your house for twenty years to not being afraid to pee your pants in front of millions of people while wearing your nightgown is a pretty big leap to me. Now, I'm not endorsing peeing your pants in public, but I found it refreshing, and yes, a little inspiring to see that she was able to face her fears in life and not let them control her. She moved forward and built a life ... a life that includes peeing your pants on Oprah. I'd pee my pants for Oprah. That's good tv.

So whenever I'm feeling like things seem a little daunting and overwhelming, I'll think of Paula and remember that if I just move forward one step at a time, day by day, and keep a sense of humor about yourself, you never know what can lie ahead.

Like an endorsement deal with Depends.

Law & Order

I read an article this week where it was reported that 85% of Americans report they have been treated "rudely" by another person. Ever. This was quoted as a staggeringly high statistic.

And I thought, "That's it?" Who are the other 15%? Babies? Animals? Deaf or blind maybe? France? Betty White perhaps?

I feel like all I have to do is leave my apartment in the morning to be set-up to be treated rudely. And sometimes even that's not necessary because I can be pretty awful to my own self.

Now granted, I do live in New York City, but I don't buy into the stereotype that New Yorkers are ruder than any other group. I personally think it's a numbers game -- with so many people here, you're bound to run into someone rude or be a party to rude behavior; it's inevitable. I've actually been treated far worse in allegedly more civilized places, like the suburbs.

And that's not to say that I'm a saint either. I've been known to eye roll with the best of them when waiting my definition of too long for someone or something, and I am the person you hear behind you muttering, "We're walking, we're walking ... oh, are we walking backwards now?" when you're meandering down the street and I'm in a hurry (which is always). And yes, on the subway platform, impatiently waiting for a train and frustrated that I couldn't see around the head of the person next to me, I did say, "Oh my God! Move your freaking head..." only to have the person turn around and force me to finish the sentence with "Steve Buscemi..."

Maybe I'm a cynic (maybe) but this leaves me thinking that maybe the other 15% just aren't recognizing the rudeness or, unbelievably to me, maybe they're just not taking it personally. Maybe they're just letting it roll off their backs. What's that quote about how you can't control things but you can control your reaction to them? Sounds like I'm lacking in the wisdom to know the difference department. Maybe I could learn something from them.

Maybe.

For those of you who know me, it likely comes as no surprise that righteous indignation is the fuel that I run on, it's the air that I breathe. I am pretty much always worked up about something not being "fair" or "right," with most cases not involving me at all (read: none of my business), so it's not that easy for me to walk away from the rude. It's likely not an accident that my career involves helping to right the wrongs of social injustice and helping to level the playing field.

I'm not sure where this comes from, but coming from a family with a lot of cops and firemen doesn't help any. Add in the thick layer of Irish Catholic guilt and there's a recipe for disaster right there. Right and wrong is in my bloodline.

In one of my earliest childhood memories, my dad decided to unload a fish tank and a trunk and some other treasures (aka junk) by selling them at a yard sale. He put me in charge and sat me down in the yard to keep an eye on them. He then went inside the house and about his business. Well, clearly I wasn't doing a great job being the keeper of the crap because next thing I knew the stuff was being loaded into the back of a van by a couple of guys. I nonchalantly told my dad, who quickly sprang into action to catch these "thieves." He ran back into the house, grabbed something (which my memory tells me was his gun from his police days but that may be a figment of my previously established overactive imagination) and sped off in the car to chase them down, leaving me alone in the now crap-free yard.

When he returned a bit later, albeit empty handed (I guess he didn't catch up to them), he was ranting and raving about how these guys had taken advantage of a child (me) by stealing right out from under my nose. These punks were pretty much taking candy from an actual baby.

Yeah, that's right, that junk was mine and they stole it! How dare they?

That fish tank with a hole in it and that broken down trunk were my precious treasures! My inheritance! I tell you, my life would be complete if I had that trunk.

Now, part of me thinks that even my four year old self knew that stuff was crap, which is why I let them take it without even an eyebrow raise, and 35 years later I'm even more sure that those guys thought that stuff was garbage and that it was being given away. Or maybe I was thinking, "If you put a four year old in charge of a yard sale, this is what you get." And I won't even start in on how you shouldn't leave a four year old completely alone even in the name of justice.

But nevertheless, my lifelong overdeveloped sense of justice was born, fed by both my parents, and especially me.

And even though I consider myself to be a compassionate person, when right or wrong is concerned, I show no mercy. I mounted a campaign at one of my jobs against a corporate wide e-mail screener they had installed -- designed to scan all of our incoming and outgoing messages for "profanity." Unfortunately, the scanner was as zealous as Kenneth on 30 Rock working in standards and practices, stopping emails being sent to people legitimately named "Dick" and designating the word "gay" as profane. I called our Human Resources department and let them know that "gay" certainly isn't profane and it sure would be a shame if, I don't know, GLAAD, found out that our company now felt this way. The screener disappeared but I enjoyed calling myself Norma Gay for awhile after.

And witness my nemesis - a woman I run into daily at Starbucks. She's nasty, pushy, and rude. When I see her, my blood pressure rockets and I immediately tense up.

She's also a quadriplegic in a wheelchair, which, for most people with a human heart, might make a difference -- they might show a little empathy, understand that her road is not an easy one. Not me. Rude is rude.

Just yesterday I was walking through midtown, and there was a couple trying to take a picture of their kids (actually there were millions of people taking pictures, this just happened to be the scene I came across). I said, "I'm so sorry," and smiled as the mother was waving me through the frame, then I realized that what I thought she said, "No worries, come on," was actually "Hurry up, come on," and my pace slowed to that of a snail's. I think we sprang forward and fell back in the time that it took me to walk through that shot. I may not have a lot of patience, but to make a point, I can pace this three foot patch of land all day, destroying the potential for countless family memories if I have to.

I'm not proud I feel that way, but I do. Wrong is wrong. And that's just not right.

But what is right?

Damned if I know.

Having spent most of my life focusing on the wrong, I'm not sure I could identify right in a lineup. To me doing right is not doing what I perceive as wrong.

I like to think of myself as an optimistic person, and I think I am overall. I believe in the power of positive thinking, I believe that most people are good, and that you manifest what you put out there, which is why I'm becoming a little concerned with this wrong business. Apparently, what I'm putting out there is not what I want or what I think is right, but what's wrong. How is the universe, using me as an agent of change in my own life, supposed to bring me what's right with this kind of misinformation?

Somewhere Oprah cries for me. Maybe Gayle too. And probably Dr. Phil. Dr. Oz has already given up.

What do I want? For you/me/them/my Starbucks nemesis to NOT do that, that's what I want. But when you're always thinking in don't's and wrongs like I am, you lose sight of the do's and the rights.

It's like Kenny Rogers says, maybe the "best you can hope for is to die in your sleep." Maybe what I need to be grateful for are all of the bad things that AREN'T happening to me.

It's come to my mind a lot lately too as I recover from the concussion, and take steps forward and steps back. I know when I feel bad, but I'm not as good as recognizing that I feel better, and I worry that's slowing this whole situation down. I was telling this to a true optimist the other day and he actually couldn't understand me. He made me repeat it several times before he could actually somewhat understand. "But you ARE better, right? You are getting better." He's right. Overall I'm a lot better and that is very right indeed. The more I can focus on that the better but for me there's always a but -- "What am I doing wrong? How could I make this better?"

Right doesn't exist without wrong in my mind. Two wrongs certainly don't make a right, but can't we have some rights without a wrong? Can't I find a way to define the right without the wrong? Is it even possible?

It must be for that 15% percent of mystery people who have never experienced rudeness. All they know -- or claim to know, which I'd argue is the same thing -- is sunshine and happiness. Is that the best way to live? I don't know. Maybe, like everything, it's a balance, a middle ground, a place of grey.

But grey has never been my color (I'm a Spring after all). The middle ground is not a place I feel comfortable. I'm the kind who goes down swinging.

I'd rather be in the 85%. I guarantee that's where all of my friends and family are. It must be boring in the 15% -- they're probably not complaining or gossiping or feeling put upon. So let the 15% cure cancer or whatever important things they must be doing with their time. My people will be watching the Jersey Shore.

So maybe the trick for me is to learn what right is for me, and let it exist without wrong. Let myself be happy and revel in right when it happens, instead of waiting for wrong to arrive and let the other shoe drop.

And when wrong arrives, I can still give it a little hell. If I didn't, I wouldn't be me. Maybe it will arrive a little less often, since I won't be looking for it so much.

But I guarantee it still makes an appearance each weekday at 8:45 a.m. in Starbucks, in line squarely in front of Len.

Ask Again Later

I was in the back of a cab the other day running some errands, on the way to the brassiere store, as my grandmother might say, to buy some (can you guess?) new brassieres, when I saw a friend of mine crossing in front of my cab. As you do, I got all excited seeing her, and started to roll down my window to yell out hello across 5th Avenue when all of a sudden I remembered something pretty important:

We're not friends anymore.

Or at least I guess we're not. No one ever told me this. There was no big blowout, no declaration of non-friendship, but she stopped returning my calls and emails a couple of years ago, including a last ditch effort I made a few months ago essentially saying, "If I did something wrong, which is highly possible, let me know and whatever it is, I'm sorry for it."

She's a wonderful person and it's sad to not have her in my life anymore. But I was happy to see her looking well and happy. Smiling and laughing, she seemed to be the same kind, fun-loving person I always remembered -- and not the person I pictured in my mind deleting my texts, emails and voicemails automatically, and yes, a little devilishly.

So, instead of saying anything, my cabbie and I drove on to the land of overpriced brassieres (also known as the Upper East Side) and I pushed it out of my mind.

The next day, exchanging emails with a mutual friend on other topics, I admitted that I had seen her. She let me know she is having the same experience -- for reasons unbeknownst to her, just as they are unbeknownst to me, this friend isn't responding to her either and has seemingly dropped her as a friend too.

Now, I'll admit, this made me feel much, much better. I know that I make mistakes essentially every five minutes and I am sure that it's possible that I did something wrong in this situation, but I really couldn't think of what it could be, and sadly, she wasn't giving me the opportunity to find out and try to right this wrong. Which is wrong.

All of a sudden, I wasn't sad anymore. I was worked up, not so much on my own behalf, but on behalf of my friend. How could she treat her like that? Unacceptable. And it got me thinking again about why things like this happen. What is happening in her life that she has decided to cut people out of it? What's going on in her head?

I know plenty of people who, in times of stress or upset, shut down and stop responding to emails, calls, and texts. On the other side of that it's hard to know what's up -- radio silence is telling but can be misinterpreted.

My, I guess, now "ex-friend" maybe really doesn't know why she cut at least a couple of us out of her life. Heck, if asked, she may not even think she's doing it. Or she may well know exactly what she's doing and have plenty of reasons. I might just never know.

So how do we bridge the gap? How do you know when it's really over? And if you care for someone, how do you know when to stop trying?

I sometimes think it would be very handy to have the ability to read people's minds. You'd know what everyone is thinking, and you wouldn't have to go through as much BS to get to the truth. It would be right there for everyone to see. Is this person happy/sad, etc.? Does that person hate me, or find me fascinating? Does my hair color really look natural? We'd all be each other's Magic 8-Balls, but the answers would be the truth instead of a generic response.

Then again, it could be like that episode of Gilligan's Island where Gilligan discovers those seeds that, if you eat them, you can know what the other person is thinking, and it turns into a big disaster with everyone mad at each other.

I'm not so sure I want to know what people are thinking about me all of the time. Would it be more or less depressing to realize that it's not always about me?

And I'm equally unsure that I want others to know what I'm thinking either. Maybe I'd be a nicer person thinking nicer thoughts if I knew people could read that I think they have no business wearing gold lame jeggings, but probably not. I just don't have that kind of self-control and as a general way of being, I am a control freak, so I don't need anyone all up in my business.

Now each week at acupuncture we sit and go through how I'm feeling -- a laundry list of ailments thankfully improving each time, and a discussion of how I'm sleeping and feeling emotionally.  I had been so focused on what I was trying to fix through our sessions -- i.e. my physical symptoms -- that I had blinders on as to how my emotional health could even come into play so I just gave the appropriate knee-jerk emotional responses -- I'm fine, doing great. When actually, I know intellectually that our mental state plays a huge part in how we deal with any positive or negative situation in life.

More often than not, I think it's just as much about what we're not admitting to ourselves as what we're not telling each other. How did I feel? Pretty good, I think.  Emotionally, great, well, except for the three times I burst into tears uncontrollably. Had I been sleeping well? Yes. Oh wait, you mean all the nights of the week, not just last night, and you mean, sleeping through the whole entire night, oh well, then, no, no, I haven't been sleeping well. At all.

Fortunately or unfortunately, in polite society, we don't often ask those kinds of point blank questions, of others -- or of ourselves. We keep our respectable distance. We wouldn't want to pry. I was talking to two friends this week who hadn't seen me since my concussion and they were both kinda stunned. They really had no idea what had been going on and asked me point blank why I hadn't told them, well, point blank about how I was feeling and what support I needed. I didn't really have a good answer and it made me kinda sad. Why would I create a situation for myself that didn't have to be that way?

Unfortunately, at least in my case, I often think that others have raided Gilligan's stash of mind reading seeds and know what I think and what I need, and not only is that unfair, but it's impossible, since half the time, I don't even know what I want or need nevermind expecting others to.

It's the gap between what we say and what we don't say. And when you add that up with the gap between what we say and what people actually hear, and the gap between what we think we know and what the truth is, it's a wonder that we can communicate at all.

So, what about the my relationship with my friend?

Outlook not so good.

But am I sorry that I've spent time reaching out and trying to make it work?

My reply is no.

I know we were friends for a reason - even if that reason is to teach me something as simple as the hard lesson that you can only know me to the extent that I allow you to know me, and vice versa.

It is decidedly so.

But we can help each other along by staying open and challenging each other.

So concentrate and ask again.

All signs point to yes.

My Valentine, My Self

It likely comes as no surprise that, as a child, my favorite activity was reading, and I would read everything I could get my hands on. Unfortunately, since I was the youngest of three girls with two older sisters, 7 and 11 years older than I am, what I got my hands on most often was Cosmopolitan magazine and Harlequin romances.

My mother's philosophy, which I don't disagree with, was, if she told me that reading those things was bad, that I would equate reading with being a bad thing that my overachieving, goody-goody self shouldn't do, so she just shook her head and let me read away. I remember bringing a copy of Cosmo on a school field trip when I was, oh, about 9 years old. The chaperone, someone's mom, I can't remember whose, saw me cracking open my copy of the latest issue, looked at me like she was debating whether to say something about the appropriateness of my reading material, then, deciding against it, asked to borrow it when I was done.

I must have read hundreds of magazines and romances during my most formative years. Our local library had (still has) a book sale every Saturday morning, and I would go and get 10 used Harlequins for $1.00. Since they take about a couple hours to read (not exactly War and Peace), I easily burned through at least a book a day, sometimes more.

Most of the stories took on one of the following formulas:

a. Damaged boy meets damaged girl, girl hates boy (and/or vice versa), boy and girl are thrown into some madcap/terrifying/ridiculous situation together where they realize just how right they are for each other, everyone lives happily ever after.

b. Boy meets girl, they are forced into an arranged or pretend marriage of some sort, they realize just how right they are for each other, everyone lives happily ever after.

c. Girl is in relationship with a very rich boy, poor boy comes along and makes girl realize she does not, in fact, love rich boy, but loves poor boy -- everyone lives happily ever after especially when, SURPRISE, turns out poor boy is in fact a VERY rich boy after all. Hooray! Everyone wins!

d. Girl is kidnapped into slavery by some sort of foreign royalty, girl and boy fall in love despite the horror of said slavery (which no one seems to acknowledge is a bad thing), everyone lives happily ever after.

Now, I'm not recommending this reading regimen to anyone, but it sure helped to shape who I am today, for better and for worse.

For one, I can't believe that I have lived this long without being kidnapped into slavery by a member of the royal family of some exotic distant land like Scotland. It's almost insulting.

(A Note from my Conscience: I am kidding! There is nothing funny about sex trafficking, which is a huge problem, especially here in NYC.)

But perhaps most importantly, it's made me, despite my supreme feminism and raging independence, a total romantic, absolutely certain that a happy ending in love is out there for me. Not a happily ever after ending filled with wine and roses and a release from slavery, but a realistic kind filled with bills and home repair, the stuff that real life partnership is made of.

Essentially, my happy ending involves it also being someone else's problem when the toilet is overflowing, not just mine. And that my cat has someone else to stalk and attack, to give my poor legs a break; I'm running out of unmarred real estate.

And despite the fact that I don't have a technical Valentine this Valentine's Day, I don't think it's a bad thing to be an eternal optimist about love. Valentine's Day doesn't make me depressed but optimistic and grateful -- grateful that I have a heart with a capacity to love a lot of people, places, and things and not just one day of the year, but all of them.

Sure sometimes I get disillusioned, wondering when I'll settle down, but no good can come out of thinking that way. I mean, I'm not Adele, turning heartache into gold, so I may as well keep on keeping on.

I've also learned a thing or two these past few months about being your own Valentine -- and by that I mean putting yourself first -- making healthy choices and setting boundaries. Realizing that only I know what's best for me and how to make me happy and fulfilled.

And I'm not just saying that to justify the fact that I bought myself several Valentine's Day gifts.

So bring on the red outfits, the love songs, the heart shaped candy boxes, flower delivery people, and grown men dressed as Cupid.

Especially the grown men dressed as Cupid. That's some hilarity right there.

Come February 15th, when many have a love hangover, I'll still feel the same. I'll still be playing love songs on my iPod, watching The Bachelor and, yes, tearing through the latest Bertrice Small book.

And I am happy to share the love and lend it to you when I'm done.

(As a footnote, I was going to close out this entry with a list of my top ten songs about love. But for anyone who knows me, you know that's impossible -- ten became twenty, which became fifty, then one hundred, so insert your favorite love songs here and enjoy! xoxo)

All That Remains

My uncle, my father's brother Lawrence, passed away this week after a long illness. Unfortunately, this is not the saddest part of this story. In many ways, his passing was a blessing after so much suffering. The saddest part to me is the relationship between his branch of the family and mine had become virtually non-existent over the years, and so, we found out he passed not from my aunt or cousins, but from a family friend who happened to tell my mother's sister, assuming she knew.

As I checked my cousin's Facebook page for confirmation of his passing, I was struck by some comments people had written about my uncle -- things I had never known, like that he, a Captain in the NYPD, was one of the first officers on the scene the night John Lennon was shot. It made me wonder how much more I never knew about him, and even still, how much he never knew and will never know now about my own family. And ever a romantic dreamer, it made me wish that things had turned out differently -- that instead of finding this out from a stranger's comment, that I had my own memories, "Uncle Larry, tell us again what happened the night John Lennon was killed."

Sadder still, stories like these aren't rare: they're all too common. But it still mystifies me how they happen. How do bonds disintegrate so much? How do things come to this state? How did we get here?

I think about my own nieces and nephews and how close we are, and how I can't imagine not having a relationship with them. I think about my mother's four siblings, their spouses and my many, many cousins, and how they have been so much a part of my life that I can't think of any major event that they haven't shared with me -- good or bad.

The relationship with my father's side of the family, at least in my lifetime, has always been awkward and strained, although I understand from my mother and from looking at old family photos, that that wasn't always the case. But time and circumstance change, people change.

My father was an alcoholic and became difficult to live with. As a result, my parents separated, but even when we weren't seeing my father regularly, my mother made sure that we kept in touch with his mother, my grandmother. And we would see my uncle Larry and his family whenever we visited my mother's mother, as he lived just down the block from her in the Bronx. We didn't see them very often -- perhaps a handful of times a year, but they were still a part of our lives, unlike my father's other siblings - a sister and a brother, technically a cousin that had been adopted by my grandmother when his own mother fell on hard times. They, for reasons I'm sure unique to each of them, which I will never know, stayed away.

When I was 14, my father was killed in an accident. I remember my mother getting the call that Saturday morning from my uncle. He had been struck by a car by a nurse coming home late at night from work. And as much as our lives were changed in that instant, I remember feeling sorry for that nurse, and how her life was changed too, how she was just coming home from a hard day at work and now she had accidentally taken a life. She, like my family, would never be the same, but at least, in some ways, we had been prepared that it could end like this. With an alcoholic/addict, you are always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the phone to ring with another bit of bad news, but the fact that his death had happened in this way was shocking. In some ways, his death was freeing -- for him and for us. He didn't have to struggle anymore and we could know he was at peace.

We saw much of my father's family at his wake and funeral, where we felt like outsiders. My parents had never technically divorced and it was certainly awkward seeing relatives I had never met or hadn't seen in years. Not exactly the time for a happy family reunion.

After that day, the distance grew wider. We didn't hear from my uncle as much. We would sometimes see him on television, on the nightly news. High-ranking in the NYPD, he would often be the spokesperson for various cases and we would see him sharing news of some big arrest or the details of some horrific crime. Whenever I would see him, I'd feel proud and wistful -- what if my own dad's life had gone differently, he was in the NYPD too, maybe that would be him instead of my uncle? But that wasn't his path in life.

As the time moved on, phone calls placed weren't always returned. Still, when my grandmother passed, he did let us know and my sisters were able to go and pay their respects. After she was gone, it seemed like the bonds were even more strained, as if it was out of respect for her that he stayed in touch. And since then, we rarely heard from them.

In the last few years, I noticed my uncle and cousin were on Facebook; I friended them but we didn't really communicate beyond that. Then two years ago, my father's cousin, a man I'd never met, reached out -- like many men of his age, he had retired and become interested in genealogy and had found me through my uncle's Facebook page. We struck up a strangely comforting e-mail exchange -- he shared stories of my dad as a child, in happier times, said how much he had admired and loved him, and how much my father, even as a child, had taken care of them. He talked about his own struggle with alcoholism and how it had destroyed so much of their -- our -- extended family.

He let me know he had reconnected after many years with my uncle, and, as a result, had discovered that he, and my father's other relatives, thought that there was ill will harbored on my side of the family; I assured him there wasn't and asked him to please extend that message to all who would listen. My family never had any ill will toward any of our relatives, largely because, as the saying goes, "Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." There's just no point to it.

About a year later, late on a Saturday night, my phone rang with an unfamiliar number. At a noisy event, I didn't pick up. When I retrieved the message, it was my uncle Larry, but his words were incoherent. Surprised and thrown off, I didn't know how to handle the call. I hadn't spoken to him in 20 plus years. Soon after, I heard from my cousin, who let me know he wasn't well and that he really wanted to talk to me. "Absolutely," I said, "Just let me know when."

I'm not sure what happened after that, but I never heard back. We never had our call. I try not to spend too much time wishing that I had picked up the phone that night, but, being obsessive, I can't help myself.

My mother later heard from his wife, my aunt, that my uncle wasn't well at all, and that he was no longer lucid. What he was sick with, they wouldn't say, so we don't know. Irish people have a long history of never admitting health issues and other weaknesses and instead use euphemisms. I can't count how many relatives died of the "winter disease" or the "summer disease." This makes giving my medical history at the doctor's very interesting as we'll never know exactly what those conditions were; the "winter disease" isn't exactly in the medical books.

And it was through Facebook I learned last week he had been admitted to hospice, and yesterday, we learned he passed, again, through a friend of my mother's sister, who mentioned it casually, as if my aunt knew. My aunt called my mother, assuming she did indeed know. Because it wouldn't be off base to assume that, but alas, we did not.

I'm not sad that my uncle passed; from what I understand, his body and mind had deteriorated to a point where his life was no longer a life. I'm sad for my cousins and my aunt, and everyone who knew and loved my uncle -- and that includes my mother, sisters, and me. I'm sad for any time he may have spent wishing that things were different without knowing how to fix them. He and my dad, and their siblings, didn't have an easy life and as a result, none of them communicated their feelings well. Perhaps he just wasn't sure what to do to rebuild our relationship. Most of all, I'm sad for how things turned out, and what they could have been.

They say that when you know better, you do better. When my dad died, I learned a lesson in how not to leave things unsaid. We weren't in good touch then; when he would call, often after a few too many, I would refuse to speak with him. I was a child and I couldn't handle it. He died shortly after his birthday. I had sent a birthday card to his last known address, but he moved around a lot. Several days after he died, his birthday card was returned to me, "No longer at this address." I never forgot that. It was a lesson to me to not let anything -- good or bad -- go unsaid with the people you care about. I'm not saying that I'm 100% successful at it, but since that day, I've tried my best to do better.

And my uncle's passing is another reminder - a reminder to do better, but to also realize that everyone has their own holes to fill, and crosses to bear, and sometimes, no matter how much we want relationships and situations to be different, sometimes they just can't be, and we have to accept that.

I hope that my uncle is in a better place now, ideally reunited with my father and others who have passed before, and I hope they both know that, when we see each other again, there needn't be any awkwardness. We've already wasted too much time on that.

But I can tell you this: I am SO going to want to hear the one about John Lennon.