Failing Motherhood: College prep

Subject: College Prep 

Grade: F 

Comments: A complete lack of understanding about the college admittance process has been demonstrated. Additionally, there is also no evidence of comprehending the cost of financing a college education, subsequent loans and related fees throughout the four undergraduate years. Worse than these shortcomings are the promises that were broken throughout the application and enrollment period. 

The above is the imagined grade I have been given by the Universe in the real-life college preparation phase for my oldest daughter. Not only should I have insisted she apply to more than ten schools, I should have insisted she remain completely open-minded to all of them until the financial aid awards have been given. I did the opposite, naively believing that she would be awarded financial aid. I know, I know. Rookie mistakes.

Not only did I not foresee the above events not happening, I assured her that one way or another I would make her dream school happen. I paid the enrollment fee, housing deposit and even took out a half page ad in her senior yearbook naming that school as “just the beginning.” It was with a very heavy heart that, after receiving the letter that we were granted zero financial aid, I had to break the news to her that this school is not affordable to us on any level. Then, in a last-ditch attempt to make her dream come true of going to Dream University, I began co-signing a huge student loan on her behalf. Private student loans, for those of you not in the know, have astronomical fees and payments. For example, I was in the process of borrowing twenty-four thousand dollars in an effort to send her to Dream U. When we came to the disclosure page, three boxes were at the top in bold print. Box 1: Loan amount, $24,000. Box 2: Finance fee, $39,400, Box 3: Total payments (on a 15 year repayment period), $63,400. Multiply that times four, as we would have to take out a similar loan each of her undergraduate years, add the $22,000 in federal student loans ($5500/year) that were already added to her account, and we have a grand total of $275,600 she will owe beginning six months after graduating. That is a dream we cannot afford. As a single income, minority family I never dreamed we would be receive no aid, especially when other schools were offering her so much. I did not sign that loan – I cancelled the application. Thankfully she was offered a huge scholarship to another great school which, although her safety, is where she will attend, albeit with complete lack of enthusiasm.

I am relieved that she will still attend an excellent university that will cost less than a state school, but I am having a difficult time getting over my role in this huge disappointment. As much as I try to let go of mistakes I make, this one is proving hard for me. No, I never should have assured her that one way or another I would make her dream come true. Yes, I should have told her that while Dream University seems wonderful and I will do my best to make it happen, we cannot fully commit until we hear from the financial aid department. When she was awarded the huge scholarship from the other school I did insist she consider accepting (before we had learned of the zero aid from Dream U) but she had her heart set elsewhere. She happened to be sitting next to me when the loan disclosure boxes popped up and she saw the astronomical payments she would be making until age thirty-seven and realized that there was no way we could do it.

Despite my complete incompetence over this entire process, she has now accepted the scholarship and we will visit the newly chosen school over the break. I remain incredibly grateful that she had this other option and that she will graduate debt-free. I hope that she will forgive my massive rookie mistakes in this process and that she has a wonderful experience at the other school. Maybe one day I will forgive myself.

Thank you, Cancer: Lessons learned

Thank you, Cancer! Without you I wouldn't have decided to leave an unhappy marriage and travel the world. 

Much like a wedding, a cancer diagnosis is less about you than how everyone in your life is dealing with your illness. Here are some things that may help you as you navigate the early stages (whoops – didn’t mean to throw a C word around), days of your diagnosis. 

 1) Conversation stopper: Once your immediate family is told, you may experience many hushed conversations ending abruptly when you enter the room. Everyone’s faces will be instantly transformed into false cheer and jovial conversation will erupt to reassure you that everyone is perfectly confident you’ll be fine and nobody is worried. Still, your mom’s eyes will well up with tears every time she looks at you, belying her attempt to look casual and unafraid. Your illness will take her a while to process and her tearfulness will actually get worse, especially when you lose your hair, before it gets better. But she will come around – give her time. If your kids are really little, you will have to explain that even though it doesn't look like it, you’re sick, but not the kind with germs that are catching. Your mom will buy them picture books like Our Mom has Cancer and you’ll feel simultaneously grateful and sad such books exist. 

2) Your colleagues: If your colleagues are like mine, they will offer unwavering support and immediately start delivering meals to your house. You will be incredibly grateful because not having to cook really is a huge help. You can plan to not cook for a good six months. If you’re really lucky they will even throw you a “boob voyage” party and you’ll get all sorts of cools gifts like fancy PJ's to wear during your hospital stay, spa-type stuff you love, and gifts for your kids. They’ll even make cupcakes that look like boobs. Even after you leave that job, those awesome people will be your lifelong friends.

3) Preparing for chemo: You’ll need to explain to your kids that you need really strong medicine that will make your hair fall out but that it will grow back. They will process this news with mild curiosity because they don’t really get it, but that’s ok. Your very generous sister will pay for a really expensive wig that will even fool your oncologist who has experience with this look. The salon where you bought your wig will offer you a private room and, if you're lucky, a stylist who will make you laugh by giving you all sorts of decade-specific silly hairstyles until he’s finally forced to take out the razor. His good humor and playfulness will help you cope as what’s left of your hair gets buzzed off and you run your hand over your stubbly scalp. It’ll feel really weird for a long while, but your getting-ready time will rival that of a guy. You’ll promise yourself that when your hair comes back – and you’ll panic that maybe it won’t, but it will – that you’ll never complain about a bad hair day again. And you won’t. 

4) Preparing for reconstruction: The anxiety of your diagnosis may cause you to lose eighteen pounds without trying. When you go to your plastic surgery consultation and he is explaining reconstruction options besides implants, such as using your own belly fat to create new boobs, he will tell you that you’re too thin and lack enough tissue to create boobs even close to the size you have now. He’ll elaborate but you won’t process any of it, so elated are you that you're “too thin” for anything besides gastric bypass surgery that nothing else registers, and you’ll temporarily forget you have cancer. You’ll happily pick new boobs from an implant catalog, seeing as how you’re too thin and all. 

5) Preparing for your mastectomy: It’s best not to think too hard on this one. You know you’ll be in the hospital for a week so focus on leaving endless lists all over your house as random things occur to you that nobody else will think of or know how to do. You’ll fill your house with your kids’ favorite foods and attack all laundry with ruthless efficiency. You’ll have another big party with your family the night before your surgery and arrive at the hospital hung-over (though you drank nothing after 11:59 pm) at the crack of dawn, reminiscent of when you went there to have your babies. Your sister, who is a doctor at that hospital, will have arranged for you to have the hottest anesthesiologist you’ve ever seen, even on TV, and as you're on the gurney about to enter the OR, he will hold your hand, his head inches from yours, and tell you that you’re beautiful and always will be. Even if this is his standard pre-op pep talk, you'll get cartoon heart eyes and imagine he's your boyfriend. Despite, or perhaps because of, your dire circumstances, you’ll have an overwhelming urge to lean in and kiss him right there, but you won’t., you’ll just have wild fantasies about him. This will be the last you see of your libido for some time so enjoy this moment. Don't worry- it'll be back. Trust me on that one!

You’ll soon learn that there are so many people that love you and want to help that having cancer can make you feel like George Bailey at the end of It's a Wonderful Life. Your attitude will set the tone for how people react to you and your natural inclination to reassure everyone in your life that you are totally cool with the whole cancer thing will actually help you cope. You can and will get through this and life on the other side will be sweeter than you ever imagined. You may even be grateful for this entire experience and find yourself saying, "Thank you, Cancer."

My first fake boob

     Self-acceptance is the key to happiness. 

Thirteen years ago this week I found myself flipping through the pages of a breast implant catalog, ironically about the size of a Victoria’s Secret Catalog, marveling at the array of shapes available. Who knew there were so many? Round, oval, teardrop and, of course, every size imaginable. I glanced down at my soon-to-be-removed double D’s and it was hard for me to envision a new look. Much like when my breast surgeon had flipped through her day planner and asked, “How’s next Thursday for your mastectomy?” as though I were making a hair appointment, though she was not insensitive at all, this entire experience felt surreal. I wanted to say, "Sorry, but next Thursday's not going to work. I'd planned on waking up, going to school, and continuing life as I know it."

My phone buzzed. 

Text from my sister: How’d it go w plastic surgeon? 

Me: Still here – picking out new boobs from catalog. 

She: haha 

Me: Not kidding – have to order them. Thinking about getting boob tattoo Made in Taiwan. 

She: Hahaha 

No matter your circumstances, a sense of humor is essential. In all seriousness, I was definitely downsizing to a C like my teen idol, Madonna, and that’s when I remembered feeling my first fake boob. 

At seventeen I started working in a lingerie and swimsuit shop near Vassar College. This was in the days long before Victoria’s Secret was a mall staple. No garish colors or prints, this shop featured muted shades with names like ecru, buff, and opal and the fabrics were creamy silks and softly woven lace. From the moment I walked in amid the finely stitched pieces and faint scent of lavender, I felt like I was in a museum of femininity, though the swimsuits were too matronly for my taste. As I followed the owner, Barbara, who was the epitome of elegance, through the store my first day, I fingered a tiny, handwritten price tag attached with a tiny gold pin, and when I saw the price my eyes widened. Who in late 1980's Poughkeepsie pays $68 for a camisole? (Vassar girls, my mother later told me.) I quickly realized I had much to learn. I didn’t know what tap pants were, envisioning tap dancers and wondering why they sell them there, and while I recognized a teddy, until then I’d had no idea it had a name. 

She showed me a room in the back where she said she met with “private clients.” She didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask, too busy mentally shopping for fancy lingerie that a)Even with my discount I couldn’t afford, and b) I had nobody for whom to wear. 

Occasionally somber-faced women came in and headed straight to the back, barely glancing my way. I wasn’t overly curious though. I liked waiting on customers, eager to showcase my new knowledge that you wear a nude-colored bra, not white, under white shirts. When the men came in I imagined a future husband or lover picking out expensive lingerie for me someday, though it would have depressed me to know then that when I did marry, my husband would only ever bring me a cheap thong with the logo of his brother’s flooring business on it and some pun about “laying it right.” Good riddance there.

One day I noticed a bathing suit had been left in the private fitting room. Then I did a double take. The left side was fully popped out like a ghost boob was filling it while the right side hung limply. I squeezed it and sure enough there was something in the cup. I felt around inside and there was a flap under which I could feel something cool and rubbery which I removed and studied. It looked like a chicken cutlet. I stared down at my own chest trying to envision one real boob and the other side flat, with one of these stuffed into a pocket inside my bra. None of my bikini tops would successfully pull off this look. Did having fake boobs mean you have to wear matronly one-piece swimsuits with two inch wide straps? 

As I brought my attention back to the implant catalog I realized they looked just like the prosthetics, the only difference being that these would be surgically implanted rather than stuffed into the pockets of bathing suits and bras. Thank God for modern medicine and plastic surgeons! 

I can honestly say I love my new boobs. I can wear all sorts of tiny little tops and I haven’t worn a bra in thirteen years. I do resent people that ask me or anyone well-built if their boobs are real. A former boyfriend had this to say about the topic, “Babe, if you can see them and touch them, they’re real.” With that in mind, they’re real, and they’re spectacular!

Layover mayhem: Why getting there is half the fun

Who better to kick things off with than a bunch of crazy Scotsmen pregaming 😊

I came across this photo recently of a particularly memorable layover and was reminded that wherever I’m headed, getting there is always half the fun.  I was at London’s Heathrow Airport at 11 am as I traveled from NY to Greece and my flight to Mykonos wasn’t leaving until 2:30 pm.  Groggy after flying all night, I was in search of coffee when I saw these two guys drinking beers.  Well played, I thought. 

What the hell, I'm on vacation, and into the pub I go. So I'm next to the old guy at the bar and he turned and said something to me that sounded like complete gibberish, yet somehow I knew was English spoken in some thick, heavy brogue.  The inflection in his voice indicated that it was a question, so I smiled politely and sort of nodded in what I hoped was a non-committal way, and he promptly handed me the beer he’d just been poured and got himself another.  Aha! So that was the question. 

It really is true that the universe brings me exactly what I need the minute the thought enters my mind. I thanked him and we clinked glasses. Then he asked me something else (still couldn’t make out a word) and this time I gave a sort of shrug/nod combo (which I’ve found to be effective communication in foreign conversation) and he smiled enthusiastically while I returned to my table.  Suddenly he and the other guy were gathering their stuff and heading over.  Evidently I'd invited them to join me.  Ok, now it's a party! 

As I moved over to make room for them I learned that Connal (older, unintelligible guy) and Graham were in town for the Glasgow/Arsenal game. Evidently this is the only pub in London open and serving beers by 9am so this is something like their tailgate party.  This is their routine, Graham explained, and more friends are en route, nine (!) in all. This day just keeps getting better.  

I could understand Graham fairly easily but was still not catching ANYthing of what Connal was saying, so Graham was interpreting and mocking his friend's heavy accent.  As more of their friends began arriving, we began rocking out that tiny pub.  They were some good fun!  They asked all about New York and my travel plans, repeatedly suggesting I abandon Greece and hang out with them. They told funny stories that involved a lot of shouting, insulting one another and slaps on the back.  Who doesn’t love shouty stories over beers? Before I knew it, though, I realized I needed to get to my gate. Where had two and a half hours gone? Regretfully I announced, “Aw, fellas it's time for me to go.”  

Collective sounds of disappointment ensued, along with cries of, “We'll get an extra ticket and bring you to the game,” and, “You don't really want to go to Greece -stay with us!” and similar. Lots of hugs all around and they seemed genuinely sorry to see me go (especially Graham...).   

But Mykonos beckoned, as did my final boarding call, and though the sounds of their merriment grew fainter as I made my way toward my gate, the warmth of camaraderie stayed with me.  Next time you can't get a direct flight, don't lay over plugged into a wall checking your messages- make some friends!

Grown-up stuff and fun sh*t

I'm in the midst of refinancing my home for the third time and just writing those words and saying them out loud makes me feel like I'm masquerading as an adult.  Are you like me in that you catch yourself wondering when you grew up? Most of the time I feel like I did when I was in my twenties only with far greater self-confidence now than I ever possessed then.  

I first experienced that "Who AM I?" feeling when I was newly married and saying the words "my husband" felt alien. Then as a young mother having conversations with other young mothers at the park I would go home and lament discussing baby food brands and preschools because I felt like a suburban cliche. Was this all my life would ever be? For a long time I lived on auto-pilot, working and being a wife and mother and carving out time for myself meant squeezing in a trip to the gym or the nail salon.  It wasn't until after my cancer treatment that I actively pursued fun.

It started with a girl getaway weekend to Atlanta on my birthday two years after my treatment ended that immediately became annual and often semi-annual. The getaways without my husband increased and eventually led to the downfall of my marriage, which in my mind had ended years before.  Once I got my official green light from the judge and my divorce was final, life really began anew for me.  

I began traveling the world and writing for local magazines, dating and cultivating a regular social life with friends old and new, and continuing to pursue new interests.  I am a firm believer that we all reap what we sow, and living well and keeping life balanced makes me happy. 

Recently I won a 51" HDTV at my local bar during Monday Night Football.  As I never win anything in my life I was ridiculously excited at such a prize. I have my theories about luck. Another thing happening is this past year I have been struggling with a major home renovation that needs to be done.  Having lost my dad last year I felt really overwhelmed during the process of finding a contractor as he was always a huge source of comfort to me in helping with such big decisions.  After much searching I now have a contractor with a plan that suits my needs and budget and work begins next week. A prize TV, saving money with a refi and home renovation... I believe these things are falling into place because of the energy I send out.

This Thursday I am going to Derek Jeter's last game at Yankee Stadium and about that my friend said to me recently, "Wow, you just travel around the world doing fun shit!"  It may seem that way, and I certainly do squeeze a lot of fun into my life, but that's only because I make enjoying life a priority.  Come to my house any night of the week when I'm cooking dinner, making lunches, doing laundry and supervising homework.  You'll be stunned by the glamour of it all. Follow my car back and forth from school to playing fields to chauffering my girls to parties.  It's a thrill a minute.  But those routines are integral to raising well-adjusted kids and ensuring that they get to do their fun stuff, too.  When they're happy, I'm happy and we're all adding to the good energy vibe of the planet.

So take a lesson from me and make sure you're doing enough fun sh*t amid your grown-up stuff.  Thank me later.  😘


There I am enjoying champagne in Monte Carlo - life really is good...because I make it that way. 

Secret of inner peace revealed!

<insert teacher voice> So I hope you’ve all been paying attention these last two posts and realize that I’m still in the midst of my silent retreat.  We’ll wait while you get yourself up to speed...

Okay, you’re all good? Now read on…

Food
Saturday the bell wakes me at 6:00, not five as feared, and breakfast is 6:30.  Oatmeal, yogurt, homemade granola and fruit are served and it's delicious. After breakfast people with real jobs have to do them but I'm free to take a three mile walk-yay me! (oops that’s so un-Buddhist…) until the first sitting at 8:15.  Lunch, the main meal, is a savory vegan chili served with maple corn bread and a full salad bar.  Oh, I could get used to it here.  

I take most of my meals outside which is kind of wonderful.  Once meals are done, there's nothing to snack on except hard-boiled eggs unless you brought your own stash.  I did not but I'm fine on three meals. At least I think I’m fine.  My stomach in the sittings has got to be distracting the entire room. It’s not just growling. I seem to have swallowed a tiny wolf whose tiny profile I envision in my stomach, snout pointing skyward and sounding out long, low hungry howls while a tumbleweed blows past him.  My apologies, fellow yogis. I had days during my last trip that I only ate one meal if things got busy and yeah, I’d get hungry late night and go to bed starving. Then I’d remind myself that millions of children worldwide go to bed hungrier than I will ever be on my hungriest day and won’t awake to the breakfast feast I will inhale in mere hours.  But back to the retreat. Dinner is always soup (and of course it’s yummy) and homemade bread, proving yet again that if I allowed it I have the potential to gain weight on anything, even healthy vegetarian food. Dry rice cakes that taste like cardboard? Bring it!
My (so-called) practice
I'm not going to lie - I doze here and there during some of the sittings and my head jerking keeps me from falling over, but for the most part I really stuck with it. The day is broken up with sitting meditations and talks and walking meditations that are each about forty-five minutes long.  There are three of each in the morning with a short break, lunch and then four of each in the afternoon. About 4:15 people with jobs have to do them and I get to take another three mile walk.  

It’s the same walk I did in the morning but it’s working for me.  I’m passing farms with grazing cows and bleating goats, I see lots of little red salamanders and frogs.  It’s a nature wonderland and the mountains around me are magnificent. I’m digging my walks. When I get back I see someone has posted on the job board that the kitchen (!) needs someone to chop vegetables Sunday morning at 7:15.  That’s my walk time but if I can be guaranteed to chop next to Hot Kitchen Guy I will totally volunteer.  Alas, the lack of guarantee prevents me from skipping the nature walk I’ve already come to love. {Sidebar: No HKG sighting Sunday so I know I’ve made the Right Decision, albeit for the Wrong Reasons.} After dinner is my two mile hike with the spider web incident and needless to say I do not venture back on the trails. The schedule for Sunday does involve getting up at 5:15 but I opt to sleep in until six (hey, it’s my weekend after all) and go to breakfast at 6:30. That I even feel compelled to rationalize “sleeping in” until 6:00 shows you how far I’ve already come. Anyway, there's only so much meditating I can do and there are more sittings before it’s time to leave.
The secret of inner peace revealed
Some people will leave more frustrated than when they arrived because they think meditation is a magic bullet.  I learn during a Q&A on Saturday (noble silence momentarily broken) that people are super twisted about whether they’re “doing it right.” One guy asks, “When is something supposed to happen?” Some come to these retreats heavily emotionally burdened or burning with questions they want answered.  I just came for some formal training so I can more easily channel serenity when bombarded with everyday stimuli.  I’m not bothered that my mind wanders (and it does!), I just bring myself back and keep at it. This level of presence is enough to bring me more inner peace than I’ve ever had, and by nature I’m a pretty happy person. 

Be present in your everyday life, even, or perhaps, especially, during activities people consider mundane and merely a means to an end: walking to your car, loading the dishwasher, taking out the trash, etc. Those things are your life in those moments so acknowledge them instead of having mental conversations that haven't happened.  Complete acceptance of this moment, whatever is happening, is the closest thing we have to a magic bullet. And that, amigos, is the secret to inner peace. Cheers!

Photo courtesy of Oprah.com

The moment is now

Upon finishing nine months of chemotherapy, I ask my oncologist about my survival odds.  "It's not a horse race," he reminds me. "Even if I give you statistics that 90% of women with your same diagnosis, age, and family history survived X number of years, you still don't know if you're the 90 or the 10.  The longer you live, the better." "Well the same can be said for the whole world," I argue. He says, "Exactly!  None of us knows how long we have. All any of us has is this very moment." 

Despite that conversation it takes me another eleven years and my father's passing before I download some apps, read some books and find meditating, and learning to stay in the moment, actually works.  My life feels calmer and I'm a lot less bothered by things that used to bother me.  A guiding principle of my life is if some is good, more is better, so I enroll in a weekend-long silent retreat.  Please read the last post for more detail: http://bit.ly/1qaHamE

First impressions
Upon arrival Friday night the dining room is completely chatty and I am immediately disappointed, having braced myself for noble silence.  I don't want to hear everyone yapping about other retreats they've done or how they found this one. I sip my tea alone, trying to tune out conversations, ready to meditate away my annoyance, but at the first "sitting" in the meditation hall we are given our instructions and the noble silence begins - finally!

The place
I am expecting some austere, Dickens-esque orphanage but it's a sprawling brick mansion filled with light some rich guy built in the 1970’s.  It's had additions in the same style and the floors are all polished light wood throughout, including the dorm rooms.  Bright and sunny, light paint colors and plants everywhere - it's beautiful and immaculately cleaned by retreatants, but not me because the retreat job gods are smiling on me.  It would make a lovely place to recover from a breakdown. 

There are yoga rooms and even a bowling lane for bowling meditation - who knew? No arts and crafts but there are 240 acres in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains which makes for great hiking. The trails are well-marked but that doesn't stop me from walking face-first into a spider web and then smashing my hand against a tree frantically trying to get it off me – all while maintaining noble silence although muffled cries of horror can be heard. I mean, if I scream it will seriously alarm people.  Oh, and we all took a vow not to harm any being, including mosquitoes and flies, so the spider lives to tell his version of this. (“So all of a sudden this giant face…”).  But I do make it out of the woods safely albeit slightly traumatized.

Jobs and people
All retreatants are given jobs and I luck out with bell-ringer.  There’s only one clock in the main hall so different people are assigned times to walk the campus with a giant, brass, triangle-shaped thing that weighs around ten pounds and signal when it's time for a meal or meditation sitting.  At first it looks like the only time slot is the 6am wake-up bell and I’m reminded of a story I used to read my first-graders called Who Wakes Rooster?  But then I see there is an opening for the late lunch slot so I grab it.  

It takes about ten minutes to make all eleven stops and I only have to do it the one time. It’s way better than vacuuming, cleaning a bathroom or even working in the kitchen despite the hot guy working there. Other than he there are (thankfully) no really hot guys that would've become the focus of my meditation and kitchen guy is not part our retreat. My phone is locked away but the only way to deactivate my man-radar is to give myself a stern talking-to. Still, if you’re a seven (out of ten) or greater, you will set it off.  Kitchen guy is a strong nine.  As bell-ringer I have to await his signal when the meal bell is ready to ring and he’s playful even without speaking.  Playful and cute are a powerful combo.  Personality activates my radar so given the opportunity to get to know people, there are definitely others with potential, but I digress.  Where were we again?

Oh, right,  we're out of time! But stay tuned for part two where I will talk about the food, my so-called practice, and (spoiler alert!) reveal the secret of life…
Namaste, amigos!