My Road To Happiness

Ok, so I’m up in the middle of the night…again. It happens a lot lately. It’s rare that I sleep through the night anymore. Some nights I wake up just long enough to check the clock and other nights (like tonight) I’m just UP. It’s a side effect hormonal imbalance brought on by impending changes. Don’t worry Dear Reader. I’m not getting into that subject tonight.

I recently made a list of the things I’d like to tackle on this blog. One quick, down and dirty one I can finish tonight is my “Three Month Rule”. This rule was created during the first year I lived in New York City.

I moved in October of 1994 and only knew my b/f at the time so making new friends was high on my list of To Do’s. It was easy. As a young woman in her 20’s there were many like me in the city and I found lot’s in common with my co-workers at the publishing company. It gave me the opportunity to learn a couple of truths about human nature the hard way.

The Three Month Rule states that no one is allowed too deep into your life and certainly not into your house until you’ve known them at least 3 months. Why? Three months is about as long as anyone I’ve known can keep a lid on The Crazy.

Example: Ms. Bright Lights Big City. She was a friend of mine for less than a year but it was an intense relationship with lots of overtones. She cozied up to me right away and I was flattered by the attention. She was a native NY’er and her father, AA (Asshole Artist), traveled in pretty heady circles. He’d been a member of Andy Warhol’s Factory crowd and even had a coffee table book published of his work. MBLBC showed me around town and taught me the essential “buy back rule” as practiced by the better bars. She was stylish in a simple, sophisticated way. She was savvy about everything. This country mouse was enthralled.

In her company I first went to SPY (when it was hot) where her English b/f had a job and she occasionally ran the coat check. I also had my first taste of really good wine and the kind of socializing that comes with it.

Anyway, as the days went by MBLBC’s life began to unravel. She left her position in my department and moved over to the part of the company that handled book/publicity tours for our authors. She was there about 3 weeks when she came completely apart emotionally and quit. She managed to do this just before she was going to be fired.

Now that we weren’t working together, she said it was more important than ever we make an effort see each other. I cared about her and although I’d already seen some heavy drinking and promiscuous behavior (at this point she had married her Brit in a quickie ceremony necessitated by a”pregnancy” she quickly claimed to have miscarred) I still enjoyed her company. We agreed to meet every Friday for lunch.

Each week she would pick a new restaurant to try and she had excellent taste. It was lots of fun and felt like a crash course at Foodie U. This was good for about 4 weeks but I started to be in some real financial trouble and one week I had to call and cancel. That’s when all hell broke loose. She threw a fit and came down pretty hard on me. I was shocked but it was a great wake up call. It allowed me to be mad enough at her to examine some thoughts I had tabled.

1) Each week MBLBC insisted we split the bill 50/50. Initially I thought this nice b/c obviously sometimes mine was higher and other times it was her bill that was more expensive. As funds got tight I started trying to control the costs by making frugal choices. Yet, somehow, my total always hovered around $20 each week. She’d always suggest an appetizer I just HAD to try or a new wine that would work beautifully with my main course and I was too embarrassed to say no.

2) MBLBC always paid the bill with the CC she shared with her husband. She’d say, “Oh, I’ll just put it on my CC and you can give me cash.” It occurred to me that since she quit her job and had no discernible income her husband must be paying the bill. This made me one of her only sources of actual wampum for her weekly supply of coffee/bagels/cigarettes. No wonder she was pissed off I canceled. Damn it! Her ATM was out of order.

The last hurrah for us was a night she invited me to stop by her apartment after work. Her husband ran out the door as I was coming in. His parting words, “She’s all yours now.” MBLBC was already loaded and by the looks of the open bottles she was just getting started. I tried to beg off and tell her that I only had a few minutes to say “Hi” because it was a school night. She suggested I stay over because her apartment was so close to my office. As I tried to explain the impracticality of showing up wearing today’s outfit tomorrow, she pulled out the book of her father’s art and began to take me through it.

By “take me through it” I mean show me where her vagina was represented in each painting. I listened for a while and learned that AA had been less than appropriate with and protective of his daughter. We were locked in this tragically absurd tableau for the longest hour of my life. Eventually, I got up to leave and she asked to be dropped off a bar a couple of blocks away. I realized there was nothing I could do to help her.

That was the last time we saw each other. I began avoiding her, which she noticed. I’m not a jerk so it was really hard for me to tell her I didn’t want to be her friend anymore. It took months to do the deed. She called occasionally during that time and each message was a painful reminder of my lack of caution and failure to heed her obvious red flags. When we finally talked, I explained as kindly as I could, how I felt. It wasn’t easy for me to say. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her to hear.

All the action in this story took place in a little over 3 months. It took another 6 for me to get completely off her radar.

I still think about her. I hope she got well. I guess I’m glad I learned this lesson and it didn’t cost me too much. She wasn’t a roommate, lover or business partner so I got off easy with only a little social discomfort for my trouble. Still, I could have saved us both the heartache if I had shown greater reserve. After all, if that new person in your life really IS the terrific person you think they are now, waiting a while until you’ve fully vetted that person can’t hurt.

So take heed, Dear Reader. Anything really worth having is worth waiting for.

Sunday a the after effects of Hurricane Ike hit NE Ohio.  It was pretty thrilling watching the trees bow and bend in the 50+ mile per hour winds.  As a kid I learned to love violent weather by my Father’s side, storm spotting all over the undeveloped parts of La Vista, NE aka “Tornado Alley”.

So, I happily sat in my living room with the windows open watching Lost Boys II on DVD and enjoying the storms soundtrack working with the movie.  It’s my middle aged version of toking up for Dark Side of the Rainbow. Sans toking.  I’m forty.

This was all well and good until about midnight when the lights dimmed for a second and my beloved electric babysitter, Time Warner Cable, died.  I wasn’t too worried at first. This happens a couple of times a year.  But, it’s been 3 days now.  I’m starting to jones. It’s why there’s been some time between the last post and this one.  I’m writing from work right now, which I’d rather not do.  It’s two different head spaces and I want this blog to reflect my inner journey.  It’s tough to find that place after a day of sales calls.

Anyway, that’s why there hasn’t been an update recently.  I have about 22 topics spec’d out for our mutual enlightenment like; Risk Taking & Risk Takers, Moving to Facilitate Change, Trust Your Gut and so on.  I guess the smart thing to do is to just start writing in Word and get the text down.  It’s just I like the instant gratification of posting it right away and I like the Word Press editor.  Lousy excuse, I know.  I should be writing every day for practice and therapy and I can stack them up in my cue to be published to you guys one at a time.  So, that’s what I’ll do.  Stay tuned.

When I decided I might want to have a “big girl blog” I started running possible names through my head. I tried to think of a title that would embody what I was going through and draw like-minded people to it who were searching the web.

In my life I was ready to start all over again and devote myself to finding what it was that made me happy.

I imagined driving all over the country and trying to find that place/time/activity that would spark that happiness so I could fan it’s flames into a full conflagration of personal bliss. The driving imagery brought to mind being “On the Road” and also the “Road Less Traveled”. So, I came to the perfect title for my blog, The Road to Happiness. Yeah. Almost perfect.

Those of you new to the Blogosphere may not know that almost every decent combination of words for a web address has been spoken for and squatted upon. This makes any good idea you have for a URL nearly impossible to acquire without paying some yahoo (sorry, Jerry) a bunch of money you probably don’t have for the privilege of using the address they own merely as a for-profit business. The Oracle says they have constructed web spiders who’s sole function is to hunt down popular phrases and lay claim to the URL automatically for their owner.

The URL for The Road to Happiness costs $888.00. The URL for My Road to Happiness is on backorder! Once I determined I was ready to dive into the pool I was anxious to get started. I used Go Daddy to purchase my internet real estate. They have a helpful tool that will suggest alternate URL’s for those unlucky enough to want one that is already spoken for. I spent a mind numbing 30 minutes going back and forth looking for the right combination of letters/words to express myself. Finally, at the end I had a EUREKA moment as Go Daddy suggested a URL that was one of my original picks was available. I snatched it up and all the corresponding .org, .edu, .whatever’s since The Oracle told me it was a good idea to lock up the phrase in as many ways as possible.

That was a month ago.

Last night Oracle kindly agreed to provide his services setting up my blog in exchange for pizza and wings. I was quite chuffed with myself at this point, having taken the plunge financially and emotionally to move forward with the very first steps in my new future.

He logged onto my account and began that telltale chuckling thing he does when he thinks something is funny but he’s not sure he should be laughing.

“Did you see this?” he asks me.

“Yeah. It’s my URL. Why?” I replied.

“Uh…did you see how you spelled it?” chortling, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth.

“Why? I spelled it fine, I…OH.” I sigh.

This brought on a laughing fit that took the normally stoic Oracle a few minutes to control.

“I guess Happ-I-E-ness is a pretty f’ed up way to spell that. No wonder the URL was available.”

“Well, you can always tell people you were really moved by that Will Smith movie!” (more laughing)

So, if you were wondering why my site address looks like it was spelled by a 3rd grader, that’s the story. The Oracle assures me this will set my blog apart in a really creative way. That was nice of him, wasn’t it?

Welcome to the first post on my first blog. I decided to start writing as a way to document a really extraordinary year in my life, my fortieth. This year is not at all what I expected it to be. It is the saddest, most enlightening, frightening and empowering time of my life. It feels like I’ve been saving an awful lot of living up to spend it all on this year.

I don’t know why this year should be so important or why so many emotional milestones must be passed through all at once. I hope that writing it down will allow me some perspective and the chance to answer those questions.

It’s occurred to me that I can’t be the only one putting my past and present under a microscope in the hopes I can make something greater out of my future.

This blog is to be a real time, running documentation of a journey from where I’ve been to where I am going.

I hope it helps anyone else walking the same road, or at least entertains the rest of you.