Everywhere I look lately people close to me are pursuing their dreams. My sister is doing research for an historical fiction novel based on the lives of some of our not too distant relatives. My mom is getting her Masters degree. She's 54. My Dad and "not-brother-in-law" are investing in the invention my Dad has been working on and have started a company together. One of my best friends, who I can't name because she'll kill me, has made it through 3 rounds of auditions for a television program, that I can't name because she'll kill me, that is not only reputable but could make an already successful career even more rewarding. I am proud of these people. I love these people. These people inspire me.
But then I looked around and realized that there are a lot of people NOT close to me pursuing their dreams as well. Don't hate me, but I love American Idol. I L-O-V-E it. And yes, the people that can't sing are funny, but I truly admire every single person that gets up in front of those judges and sings for them, good or bad. I would throw up. I would throw up and I would shake like I had had ten red bulls AND there is NO way I would ever remember one word that I intended to sing.
I actually have dreams about it. Scratch that. Nightmares. I have a nightmare that I'm on stage auditioning for American Idol (sometimes it's So You Think You Can Dance) and I'm never prepared and I never know what I'm going to sing (or dance) and usually I'm wearing a bikini and pearls. Pearls? WTF? Anyway, it takes guts to get up on that stage. It takes guts to pursue any dream. Guts I usually don't have and haven't needed up until now because I never had a dream. Seriously, I never had any idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. And then I grew up and I still didn't know. I wanted to do something I loved and I never tried anything that I loved enough to pursue, which is why I kind of followed my Dad's advice and went into software. Parts of it interested me. The process, the big picture, the logic behind the code. But that was it. Nothing to wrap my arms around. Nothing to love.
And then I started to write. And I really like writing. I would like it even if no one were reading it, but people are reading it. People close to me and a few not so close to me and now I'm inspired by them and their encouraging comments and their support. It took guts to publish the first one of these and I got butterflies in my stomach before I clicked "Publish" all 5 times I've sent this blog into my cyber social network, but what I've realized is that the nerves are a good thing. The nerves mean that for the first time ever I care. So for the first time ever I can truly say that I have a dream. I want to be a writer. I love writing and I love it that the people around me inspired me to try. I don't even have to be a successful writer. It's reward enough knowing that I'm going to have something to show for myself at the end of my life. And at the end of the day if I can inspire someone else to pursue doing something they love then I've got even more motivation to keep pursuing this dream and THAT is something I can totally wrap my arms around.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
My weekend - Saturday's blog
2008 was an awesome year for us. Michael started a new job under a new boss that he actually liked and got along well with, we bought a gorgeous new house in Brookhaven, and our second little girl was born, healthy and beautiful, in December.
So where 2008 was pretty stellar, 2009 really kind of sucked. Everything got hard and without going into too much detail we ended up having to "downsize". What led to the downsizing caused a lot of stress and it's at times like these that marriages really get tested. Egos really get tested. And loyalty really gets tested. I'm not going to lie. We had our share of screaming matches. He's a red-headed, english, hot-head and I'm a foul-mouthed, liberal, hot-head so not only were these fights loud, they were often pretty "adjective-intensive". But, to our credit, these fights never involved blame and NEVER required us to sleep in separate beds. They were more a result of the toxic stress eating away at us under the surface. Committed or not, that stuff boils over once in a while. I have to say though, that in all the knock-down-drag-outs we've been in I've never questioned my choice and I've never questioned our commitment. We've been married for 5 years and we're in love. Even in the midst of the downsizing we still save money and make the time for "date night" because I still enjoy his company more than anyone's.
Last night was date night. We went to our new favorite place. We've been 6 times in as many weeks. Michael and I are nothing if not consistent. We find a place we like and we go there every time we go out until we get invited somewhere else we would have never tried on our own and that becomes our new favorite place. We do it with everything. We find a new recipe we love and we'll have it 3 times a week until we never want to eat it again. We hear a song we like on the radio and we download it to our iPod, buy the CD and put it in the car and listen to it 10 times a day until we get to a point where we swear we never liked that song and can't figure out who bought the CD for us. We find a new drink, like we did this summer (sweet tea vodka and lemonade) and we drink so much of it that (for me anyway) I feel queasy at the mere mention of sweet tea anything.
I don't know what this says about us. Are we afraid of change? Disappointment? Obscurity? Obscurity... See part of the appeal of going to the same place again and again is the "Norm" factor. Everybody knows our name. OK, not mine so much as Michael's. But still. We walk in together and my glass of pink bubbles appears from behind the bar. We decide to duck in last minute at 8 on a busy Friday and magically never have to wait for a table. We always get something for free and never ever pay our full bill. It may be shallow and it may seem highly unimportant in the midst of all the tragedy going on in the world right now, and it is, but in a year defined by downsizing, date night with my favorite man at our favorite place helps me feel a little less down.
So where 2008 was pretty stellar, 2009 really kind of sucked. Everything got hard and without going into too much detail we ended up having to "downsize". What led to the downsizing caused a lot of stress and it's at times like these that marriages really get tested. Egos really get tested. And loyalty really gets tested. I'm not going to lie. We had our share of screaming matches. He's a red-headed, english, hot-head and I'm a foul-mouthed, liberal, hot-head so not only were these fights loud, they were often pretty "adjective-intensive". But, to our credit, these fights never involved blame and NEVER required us to sleep in separate beds. They were more a result of the toxic stress eating away at us under the surface. Committed or not, that stuff boils over once in a while. I have to say though, that in all the knock-down-drag-outs we've been in I've never questioned my choice and I've never questioned our commitment. We've been married for 5 years and we're in love. Even in the midst of the downsizing we still save money and make the time for "date night" because I still enjoy his company more than anyone's.
Last night was date night. We went to our new favorite place. We've been 6 times in as many weeks. Michael and I are nothing if not consistent. We find a place we like and we go there every time we go out until we get invited somewhere else we would have never tried on our own and that becomes our new favorite place. We do it with everything. We find a new recipe we love and we'll have it 3 times a week until we never want to eat it again. We hear a song we like on the radio and we download it to our iPod, buy the CD and put it in the car and listen to it 10 times a day until we get to a point where we swear we never liked that song and can't figure out who bought the CD for us. We find a new drink, like we did this summer (sweet tea vodka and lemonade) and we drink so much of it that (for me anyway) I feel queasy at the mere mention of sweet tea anything.
I don't know what this says about us. Are we afraid of change? Disappointment? Obscurity? Obscurity... See part of the appeal of going to the same place again and again is the "Norm" factor. Everybody knows our name. OK, not mine so much as Michael's. But still. We walk in together and my glass of pink bubbles appears from behind the bar. We decide to duck in last minute at 8 on a busy Friday and magically never have to wait for a table. We always get something for free and never ever pay our full bill. It may be shallow and it may seem highly unimportant in the midst of all the tragedy going on in the world right now, and it is, but in a year defined by downsizing, date night with my favorite man at our favorite place helps me feel a little less down.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Unfulfilled Potential
Unfulfilled potential. My curse in life. I was supposed to go to Stanford. I was supposed to be some kind of entrepreneurial genius and wear designer suits and have a penthouse in Manhattan. I was supposed to rule the world because I'm pretty, I'm smart, and I'm confident.
I used to be able to do some serious math in my head on the fly. No more. I used to read 3 books a week. Mmmmmm, now it's more like a month. I used to have engaging conversations with adults about subjects, like politics, religion, and more importantly, those entrepreneurial dreams of mine. I always had an idea that I wanted to turn into a business.
Examples: I wanted to start an after school program for the kids of parents that want them to learn about all religions and their history. One hour a week to give kids a more well-rounded education and a historical perspective that isn't being taught in public schools.
I wanted to start a concierge business in Buckhead for people who needed their dry cleaning picked up, or couldn't sit around all day waiting for the cable guy, or who couldn't get home at lunch one day to walk their dog because they were stuck in a meeting. Hire cute college kids in matching t-shirts and provide a whatever/whenever service for everyone.
Then there was the nail place. I hate getting my nails done. It's like a chore. It takes forever and it's never fun because you sit there with an awkward smile on your face while a woman intimately touches and massages your feet. So you either hide behind a magazine the whole time, embarrassed, and feeling guilty or you try and make small talk with her while she pretends to care that your best friend got a boob job and now one of her nipples points due north. I wanted to open a nail salon that was more like a spa with chairs that had their own TV screens with headphones, wi-fi in the whole salon and a strict "no-talking" policy so that no woman would feel guilty for not making the aforementioned small talk.
But instead of Stanford it was UGA (Go Dawgs!) for me. I graduated, worked for a while, talked about all of those great ideas and yet never did anything important or even memorable, partied my ass off, got married, partied some more and then became a mom. It's been 6 years since I held a full-time job and I feel like it's been that long since I've used my brain. My brain is mush and other than the couple of times a week I bamboozle myself into thinking I can beat my husband at Jeopardy there is no brain building/expanding/training going on in the Gilgallon household. And I heard somewhere that people that do not actively keep their brains engaged are at a much greater risk of developing Alzheimer's Disease. Downer!
I felt for a long time that I had let people down by never achieving any of my "supposed to's". I felt I had let myself down and my Dad and even my sister a little bit even though her only motivation is to see me be my best. But this is what I realized today: All of those "supposed to's" weren't MY "supposed to's". I love being a Bulldawg. I hated corporate life, I'm a big ideas person, not a "run-my-own-company" person and after living in New York, San Francisco and San Diego at different intervals I ALWAYS come back to Atlanta, because I love it. So instead of feeling guilty and feeling like I've wasted my potential, I am now going to write my own "supposed to's".
I am supposed to be happy. I am supposed to do something I love. I am supposed to be a good wife, mother, sister, daughter, granddaughter, friend and I am supposed to fill up my own potential. The end.
I used to be able to do some serious math in my head on the fly. No more. I used to read 3 books a week. Mmmmmm, now it's more like a month. I used to have engaging conversations with adults about subjects, like politics, religion, and more importantly, those entrepreneurial dreams of mine. I always had an idea that I wanted to turn into a business.
Examples: I wanted to start an after school program for the kids of parents that want them to learn about all religions and their history. One hour a week to give kids a more well-rounded education and a historical perspective that isn't being taught in public schools.
I wanted to start a concierge business in Buckhead for people who needed their dry cleaning picked up, or couldn't sit around all day waiting for the cable guy, or who couldn't get home at lunch one day to walk their dog because they were stuck in a meeting. Hire cute college kids in matching t-shirts and provide a whatever/whenever service for everyone.
Then there was the nail place. I hate getting my nails done. It's like a chore. It takes forever and it's never fun because you sit there with an awkward smile on your face while a woman intimately touches and massages your feet. So you either hide behind a magazine the whole time, embarrassed, and feeling guilty or you try and make small talk with her while she pretends to care that your best friend got a boob job and now one of her nipples points due north. I wanted to open a nail salon that was more like a spa with chairs that had their own TV screens with headphones, wi-fi in the whole salon and a strict "no-talking" policy so that no woman would feel guilty for not making the aforementioned small talk.
But instead of Stanford it was UGA (Go Dawgs!) for me. I graduated, worked for a while, talked about all of those great ideas and yet never did anything important or even memorable, partied my ass off, got married, partied some more and then became a mom. It's been 6 years since I held a full-time job and I feel like it's been that long since I've used my brain. My brain is mush and other than the couple of times a week I bamboozle myself into thinking I can beat my husband at Jeopardy there is no brain building/expanding/training going on in the Gilgallon household. And I heard somewhere that people that do not actively keep their brains engaged are at a much greater risk of developing Alzheimer's Disease. Downer!
I felt for a long time that I had let people down by never achieving any of my "supposed to's". I felt I had let myself down and my Dad and even my sister a little bit even though her only motivation is to see me be my best. But this is what I realized today: All of those "supposed to's" weren't MY "supposed to's". I love being a Bulldawg. I hated corporate life, I'm a big ideas person, not a "run-my-own-company" person and after living in New York, San Francisco and San Diego at different intervals I ALWAYS come back to Atlanta, because I love it. So instead of feeling guilty and feeling like I've wasted my potential, I am now going to write my own "supposed to's".
I am supposed to be happy. I am supposed to do something I love. I am supposed to be a good wife, mother, sister, daughter, granddaughter, friend and I am supposed to fill up my own potential. The end.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
How to Write the Great American Novel
No. Seriously. How DO you Write the Great American Novel? Do you start with "Once upon a time..." and end with "...happily ever after"? Not unless you want Disney to sue your ass. Kidding. But I actually want to have something published someday so that strategy probably isn't my best.
Do you start at the beginning and end at the end? What if you get stuck in the middle? What if you never get to the end? What if you get to the end and realize that you're writing about something entirely off topic than what you intended in the beginning and now nothing makes sense? Breathe.
Is there a "How to Write the Great American Novel for Dummies?" I Googled it. There is. It's actually called "Writing a Novel and Getting Published for Dummies". Don't judge me. I think I'm going to read it.
If you asked my mom, who is a 6th grade language arts teacher, she would tell you that it's as simple as having a beginning, a middle and an end. "You have to do a plot outline. I make all my 6th graders do that." Hmmmmmmm. It's my Mom. I'm predispositioned to tune that advice out however sound it may be.
If you asked Dan Brown he would tell you it's as easy as having a winning formula. If you've read more than one of his books you'd know what I meant. They're all the same. Generic protagonist, maniacal stereotype of an antagonist and horrific foreshadowing including phrases like "Little did he know...". Come ON Dan Brown! "LITTLE DID HE KNOW..."???
If I EVER write anything as heinous as "Little did he know..." you all have my permission to publicly ridicule me until I beg for mercy. Except now I'm paranoid. Is "beg for mercy" a cliche? I did use a cliche yesterday. Bad bad and I knew it and my little sister, who is a real writer, pointed it out to me and she was right. I could have taken a few minutes to come up with something more original than "heart in my hand"... but I digress.
I've heard that the best writers write about their own personal experiences. That sounds like good advice except that my favorite authors definitely were not writing their memoirs. I mean even though Tolkien may have had hairy feet, I'm pretty sure he never lived in the Shire and I know for sure that T.H. White never turned a young boy into a fish in order to teach him that knowledge is power. So, where does that leave me?
No idea. If anyone has some good advice I'm all ears. Ugh. Cliche. "Hello. Amazon? Please send me one copy of "Writing a Novel... For Dummies" STAT.
Do you start at the beginning and end at the end? What if you get stuck in the middle? What if you never get to the end? What if you get to the end and realize that you're writing about something entirely off topic than what you intended in the beginning and now nothing makes sense? Breathe.
Is there a "How to Write the Great American Novel for Dummies?" I Googled it. There is. It's actually called "Writing a Novel and Getting Published for Dummies". Don't judge me. I think I'm going to read it.
If you asked my mom, who is a 6th grade language arts teacher, she would tell you that it's as simple as having a beginning, a middle and an end. "You have to do a plot outline. I make all my 6th graders do that." Hmmmmmmm. It's my Mom. I'm predispositioned to tune that advice out however sound it may be.
If you asked Dan Brown he would tell you it's as easy as having a winning formula. If you've read more than one of his books you'd know what I meant. They're all the same. Generic protagonist, maniacal stereotype of an antagonist and horrific foreshadowing including phrases like "Little did he know...". Come ON Dan Brown! "LITTLE DID HE KNOW..."???
If I EVER write anything as heinous as "Little did he know..." you all have my permission to publicly ridicule me until I beg for mercy. Except now I'm paranoid. Is "beg for mercy" a cliche? I did use a cliche yesterday. Bad bad and I knew it and my little sister, who is a real writer, pointed it out to me and she was right. I could have taken a few minutes to come up with something more original than "heart in my hand"... but I digress.
I've heard that the best writers write about their own personal experiences. That sounds like good advice except that my favorite authors definitely were not writing their memoirs. I mean even though Tolkien may have had hairy feet, I'm pretty sure he never lived in the Shire and I know for sure that T.H. White never turned a young boy into a fish in order to teach him that knowledge is power. So, where does that leave me?
No idea. If anyone has some good advice I'm all ears. Ugh. Cliche. "Hello. Amazon? Please send me one copy of "Writing a Novel... For Dummies" STAT.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Day 2 - Me becoming a person with goals
Goals. Bleh. Pressure. That's all I think of when I think of the word goals. Pressure and wine. Or if the pressure gets too intense... Jack Daniels. But yesterday I made a new commitment to myself. I said that I was going to write every day. I already went to bed once. I watched American Idol, got a fabulous "massage" from my husband, rolled over to go to sleep and realized that not only had I made a commitment to myself but I had (fingers trembling and heart in my hand) published that commitment to a blog that I then sent to people who care about me and a few hundred who don't via Facebook. Ten years ago you wouldn't have gotten me to commit to brushing my hair in the morning. Needless to say, relationships, jobs, housing situations, friends, etc. came and went at short intervals. The relationship thing sorted itself out 8 years ago when I met my husband. I'll rephrase. When I interviewed for my husband. He wanted nothing to do with me which made him the most irresistible guy I had ever met. It took me 2 years to win him over and when we finally started dating, working for him, became politically incorrect. I held that job longer than any job I've ever had. And for those of you who would say that being a Mom IS a full-time job, I concur. However, no one can fire me, and maybe the lack of pressure makes me better suited for this position. So. Long story short, the relationship thing sorted itself out and in turn the housing situation worked itself out because my "boss-slash-boyfriend-slash-future husband" let me bully him into moving in with him and let's be honest, who needs friends when you've got a hot, english, well-to-do "bsbsf". But the job thing... that's the one that never sorted itself out and I think I know why now. I'm afraid to set goals. Usually I set a goal, I do great for a day, I drink way too much one night, feel way too hungover to do anything productive the next day, feel guilty and then let the thing drop altogether. Examples... The $200 worth of scrapbooking crap filling up a box in my garage, the dead dead lawn and garden surrounding my really nice house, and the 20 pounds of "baby fat" that I still haven't lost even though baby number 2 turned 1 in December. A month ago, I couldn't have admitted that I'd dropped the ball on those things and a hundred others. But tonight, I went to bed once already... and then got back up to write.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
It's Time to Fill the Void
So is it cliche to turn to writing when you can't think of anything else to do? Not, that I don't have anything else to do. I do. I have 2 little girls, 2 1/2 and 1. I have a husband who just started a new job and I have a father and a "not-brother-in-law" (read: sister's fiance) trying to start up a family business of which I am 1/3 owner. Still, I found myself turning to Zynga games for 2 hours a day when the girls took a nap or when my husband was watching Law and Order or Ultimate Fighter at night. Apparently, I am not the only one affected by these mindless, albeit, addictive games. I was listening to the Bert Show this morning on Q100 in Atlanta and apparently 80 million people play Farmville. 80 million people growing cyber-crops. If I was judgemental I'd say "Damn, we're a lazy generation. Can you imagine the difference in the world if 80 million of us were growing REAL crops?" But I'm not judgemental. It's not like my house is immaculate, or the laundry's ever finished or my kids are doing something amazing like playing Beethoven at 2 or reciting the Gettysburg Address at 1 like all of those YouTube kids out there.
My friend Lisa called me out the other day. "You need to get a hobby. If I get one more Mafia Wars post on my FB wall from you, I'm hiding you. I mean it." Not gonna' lie. It hurt my feelings. And do I even need to say that it obviously hurt my feelings because I was embarrassed and feeling guilty about all of those mindless hours spent? So instead of being judgemental I decided that I was throwing in the towel on Mafia Wars and YoVille. I now have no more mindless activity filling up my down time and that time has turned into a void that I have to fill. And I need to fill it productivley. I just put my kids down for a nap and I sat here staring at my empty email box and my fully updated Facebook page and realized that I DO need a hobby. Except, the word "hobby" fills me with dread. It conjures visions of quilters and gardeners and bridge players that have at least 40 years on me. So I'm going to write instead. I didn't study creative writing at school. I was an International Business Major so forgive the punctuation mistakes. God only knows how a semicolon is supposed to be used properly, but I figure that's what editors are for, right? Don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm not taking writing seriously, but like so many, I've been told that I "shouldn't" or "can't" or "will never" succeed. But, if everyone that had ever been told that believed it... So here goes... I'm going to try and write here every day as practice and I'm also going to start working on my children's book and my novel that may be no good but at the end of the day I'd rather have a crappy novel to show as my life's work than a cyber farm full of regrets.
My friend Lisa called me out the other day. "You need to get a hobby. If I get one more Mafia Wars post on my FB wall from you, I'm hiding you. I mean it." Not gonna' lie. It hurt my feelings. And do I even need to say that it obviously hurt my feelings because I was embarrassed and feeling guilty about all of those mindless hours spent? So instead of being judgemental I decided that I was throwing in the towel on Mafia Wars and YoVille. I now have no more mindless activity filling up my down time and that time has turned into a void that I have to fill. And I need to fill it productivley. I just put my kids down for a nap and I sat here staring at my empty email box and my fully updated Facebook page and realized that I DO need a hobby. Except, the word "hobby" fills me with dread. It conjures visions of quilters and gardeners and bridge players that have at least 40 years on me. So I'm going to write instead. I didn't study creative writing at school. I was an International Business Major so forgive the punctuation mistakes. God only knows how a semicolon is supposed to be used properly, but I figure that's what editors are for, right? Don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm not taking writing seriously, but like so many, I've been told that I "shouldn't" or "can't" or "will never" succeed. But, if everyone that had ever been told that believed it... So here goes... I'm going to try and write here every day as practice and I'm also going to start working on my children's book and my novel that may be no good but at the end of the day I'd rather have a crappy novel to show as my life's work than a cyber farm full of regrets.
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