Yesterday I was at my doctor’s office for a small procedure, and instead of seeing the person I normally see, I saw the head doctor, who also happens to be one of my mother’s old and dear friends.  (Which would also explain why I have been driving to Wyomissing to see her and her staff since I was sixteen, no matter where I was living ~ clearly still the case, as I drive from Philadelphia now and have not once considered changing doctors).

Whenever I end up seeing my mother’s friends I am almost instantly transported back to our first kitchen in Reading, with white blue and pink flowered wallpaper and all the women from her club ~ the Berks Women’s Network ~ gathered around the table coallating the pink pages of their newsletters.  At the time, I am one hundred percent certain that I had no idea the significance of this to me, and how it would help shape my ideals, my morals, my world view.

I have to take a step back, and say that my mother is the strongest, smartest, most resilient, incredible, charming, capable woman I have ever met. Or, I truly believe, ever will meet.  She has faced down lions and demons in her life, and she always manages to emerge on the other side completely unphased, totally together, classy and composed.  I’m sure she has had dark times ~ she’s human, and no one could have emerged from the hells she’s walked through unchanged.  But she does it with such style, such self-possession.  I am absolutely certain that if I am ever half the woman my mother is, that will be quite an accomplishment.

We moved a lot as I grew up and I am sure that took a toll on my mum ~ always having to uproot, change jobs, meet new friends.  When I was about five, we moved to Reading for th first time, Jennie J moved in with us, and my mother went back to work.  She’d done stay-at-home-motherhood and it just wasn’t her thing.  Luckily (in some ways) my grandmother was able to move in with us.  In a lot of ways, she was our (Dave & my) second mother.

I was young when all this happened, so my memories are hazy, but I remember going shopping with my mum for new work clothes ~ I remember some of the women from the Berks Women’s Network ~ I remember when my mother was given the opportunity to head up the at-the-time revolutionary Women’s Center at the Reading Hospital and Medical Center.  I remember her office, too, and the waiting room with its dark plexiglass playhouse and the educational rooms with fake breasts to help women feel what breast cancer tumors would be like.  I remember my mother’s boss, Jeannette, who was in so many ways a hero to me, and, I believe, a hero to my mother.  Jeannette gave my mother that opportunity at the Women’s Center, and since then, my mum has never looked back.  She has had a very successful career in spite of the relocations and all the obstacles associated with them.

The women from those days stayed in my mother’s life even as we moved to New Jersey, and then to Pittsburgh.  And then, just after I turned sixteen, we headed back to Reading.  Things had changed ~ obviously. Everything does with time.  It was the nineties then, not the eighties, and women’s place in the workforce was evolving.  Back in the early days (as I remember it) I was surrounded by strong professional women, but I really had no idea how hard they had worked to get there.  Jeannette had been the President of the Reading Hospital — the first female president ever.  And she’d made huge personal sacrifices to achieve her success.  I didn’t understand that when I was five, and I could only partially grasp it when I was sixteen.  But I fully appreciate it now.

I mention her because she died a few years ago, and when I found out, it felt as though my heart had been ripped from my body.  I hadn’t realized it until she was no longer around to tell, but she had been my role model, a woman who believed in helping other women, in promoting the careers of women in a positive way and being a strong example of a professional woman.  When she’d had her first and only child – a daughter- at the age of forty (I believe), she’d said with confidence that her baby girl would be the first female President of the United States.  I still remember things about her with crystal clarity, and I wish I could have told her what she meant to me.

Jeannette was just one of the women I was exposed to at a young age ~a tender, impressionable age ~ and they all left their mark.  A doctor, a business entrepreneur, a hospital President ….  I never knew any other world than the world my mother showed me, with strong, smart, independent, savvy women.  I know now that not all women are built like that ~ not all small girls are given the gift of those magnificent role models.  As I chatted with my doctor yesterday, all my memories came rushing back, and I suddenly understood the significance of the kind of mother my mother chose to be, and how she chose to raise me.  I believe it must be a huge and terrifying burden as the mother of a daughter to teach her the joys and drawbacks of life without cynicism, and give her the tools to succeed without utter pessimism.  I applaud all the mothers out there doing their best to teach and shape and mold and support and then release their daughters.  I can’t even imagine what a job it must be.

What I do know is that my mother will freely admit she probably wasn’t cut out to be a mother.  She has no qualms admitting it was tough.  She loves us ~ there is no doubting that.  But she’s not afraid to be honest and admit her short-comings (even if I think she’s bananas because she did a great job).  That, to me, makes her even more remarkable, because she does it without the undercurrent of self-pity or self-loathing.  She is, was and continues to be incredible, amazing, inspiring. To me (and in the words of Mary Poppins) she is practically perfect in every way.  She is my friend, my confidant, my sounding board, my gauge of reason … my mother. I can’t imagine being the person I am today without her and without the gifts she gave me as I grew up.

So thank you, Mama.  If there were better, stronger words, I wish I knew them.

Today, after many false starts, my offices moved to our final resting place.  I have to say, I have been with my company for a little over two and a half years, and the idea of permanent offices has been like an oasis in the sand.  There is still a lot of organizing to do, but the thought that my work life is no longer a series of cardboard boxes is … well, I don’t think I have a suitable word.  Euphoric?

I mention this because the idea of ‘settling in’ has always been a little alien to me.  Growing up, we moved every few years, so unpacking all my worldly belongings from boxes, each item wrapped haphazardly in tissue paper, has never been a foreign concept.

As I sit on our couch (this evening, indulgently opened up to the size of a queen-sized bed for optimal lounging potential) and relish the moment of my man, my dog and myself relaxing in our home, I can’t help but ruminate on this point in my life timeline.  Here I am, re-signing a lease for a fourth year (!!! I haven’t lived anywhere for four years since … actually, I can’t remember), raising the most beautiful little lady puppy I’ve ever met (huge commitment for any person), celebrating four plus years of getting to enjoy my life with my best friend in the whole world, and working for the same company coming up on tres anos.  Could I have drifted more into ‘stasis’ than this?

Perhaps not.

And I’m okay with that.

If you’ve read this blog, you will know that I spend a lot of time dithering on ideas of fear, the unknown, growing up ….  I use ‘dither’ with a smile and a wink, because I don’t want to take myself too seriously, but I also don’t want to brush it aside and eliminate any significance.  Life is an amazing journey ~ some of us over think it (please cue flashing lights, signs and arrows pointing in my direction), and some of us rush through it like a bull in a china shop, just absorbing everything, living every moment to its fullest.

I am the first kind of person.  My little brother, he’s the second kind.

He inspires, infuriates and provokes me.  I am sure there is not another person in this world whom I love in quite the same way.  It would be impossible ~ he is my only sibling.  I deeply adore him; I admire how he walks through life to the beat of his own drum, how he listens to his inner monologue; how he articulates his opinions with thought, purpose and eloquence.  He’s very passionate, very intelligent, and very, very infuriating.

A big sister is allowed to say that.

But no one else.

We grew up in a togetherness unlike the majority of siblings I knew.  As youngsters, I remember spending a summer in the UK (the entirety of my maternal side lives there; my mother was born and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland) and needing to be a team, as we were … dum dum dum … American.  Ah, the horror!  And we moved so often, we spent many a summer each other’s only friend.

I think about those times with such fondness ~ even though I know deep down, they weren’t always easy.  Our last move (pre-us going to college and moving out on our own), we lived in an apartment for a few months waiting as our house was built.  We shared a room in the basement, and I subjected him to repeatedly listening to The Fugees and Celine Dion. Weird combo, but I kid you not.  (He also never lets me live it down).  We spent that summer driving our grandmother’s Pontiac Sunfire (Sunbird? I’m not a car person…) around random streets for hours, listening to the radio.  (I’d just gotten my driver’s license ~ there was no boredom in driving!).  I don’t know if he remembers it the same way that I do.  It doesn’t really matter.  I love the memories I have.

Right now, what I think is most significant, is that out of the lumps of clay from which we were molded (and those lumps of clay had much in common) it amazes me that as adults, we are such different people.  We have seen each other frequently in the past few weeks (a true anomaly, but a welcome one, in which I remembered who he was, and why it is that people love him so much) and it gave me a lot to think about**.  (** See paragraph in which I specifically state “some people over think it”).

Change is inevitable (I am not breaking new ground by stating this).

Creating your own permanence ~ that’s what I’ve been learning these past five years.  I say five years because it’s been about that long since my life ‘timeline’ took a little switchback and changed route a little ~ y’know, shook things up. Five years ago I was 27, and trying to get my head around my twenties, when I made a lot of wrong turns, and felt utterly confused and lost.  At twenty-seven I made a spontaneous decision, it didn’t work out, I crashed and burned, and was left figuring out how to move forward.

Completely different circumstances, but that’s a little how I feel as a re-surface after this most disastrous July.  Permanence, inconsistency, love, truth, family.  What’s important.

Today, I pulled files out of the boxes they have been languishing in for nearly a year.  I carefully placed them in drawers, and dutifully labeled folders.  I spent far too much time adjusting my computer, keyboard and pen caddy on my desk (OCD much?).  I set up pictures of my mother, my father and my brother on my desk; the first time I’ve ever done that.  I ordered a bulletin board from Staples, and a frame for the poster I have been longing to hang on my office wall for years (battered ballet shoes).  I told the man I needed a good picture of he and Lucy Lou to add to my collection.

I chose to make the office mine.  I chose to believe that this office will be mine for quite some time.  Taking that initiate and diving in hasn’t always been easy for me.  I’m not the bull in the china shop.  I hope that a year from now, I’m complaining about the very office I just moved into.  I hope I still work for the company I work for today, I hope that the man and I and Lucy Lou are still lounging on our ridiculously comfy couch.  I hope my little brother is still living the rockstar life in NYC, and my parents are still riding horses and golfing in Chester County.  After a life of constant change, I am okay with asking for a little ‘same-ness’.

I pray that a year from today, the people who matter to me are still a phone call away.  And that in the general scheme of life, not much has changed.  In this day and age, that’s asking for a lot.  I’m asking anyway.

I am pretty sure I have one of the best dads in the whole wide world.

He has always believed in me ~ and helped make my dreams come true.  Even if he didn’t fully understand them, or think they were particularly good ideas.

He always made sure I was taken care of ~ in the best ways he knew how.  He still does ~ even though I’m all grown up.

My daddy was my hero as a child, and he is even more of a hero now, when I understand all the sacrifices he made to give my brother and I the lives we had growing up.

When I look around, and see all the people out there who didn’t have a dad like me, I know how incredibly lucky I am and continue to be because of who my father is as a man, and as a parent.

I will never ever be able to say thank you enough ~ for the small things, like letting me sleep on all the long drives to and from PSU for football games ~ or the big things, like rescuing me my freshman year of college … and from Chicago a few years ago.

This is just a very small thank you on a very small stage to my daddy, for being the best dad out there, and one of the best men I have ever known.  xoxo.

Thank you, from the very bottom of my heart.

Love, Mouse.

There’s a saying ~ it takes a village to raise a child.  I said it last night during WeHangsDay because our friends’ are lucky enough to have a huge family network they can lean on for pet and child care when life gives a little squeeze on time.

The man and I have great families, but we’re not lucky enough to have both sets of “in-laws” only a phone call and 10-30 minutes away.

Which is why our little community ~ affectionately called “The Compound” is such a blessing.  We moved in nearly three years ago ~ as the only renters.  And as time has progressed, we have been welcomed into the family that is “The Compound.”  Recently I realized that I was nearly as protective of my compound family as I am of my actual family.  Yes, there are strong personalities and quirkiness, but no one is allowed to be dismissive of my compound family.

It’s a concept that has been marinating in my brain recently.  These people ~ whom the man and I didn’t know prior to August 209 ~ have become a family of sorts.  Doesn’t that speak to the nature of humanity?  Yes, our major common bond is vicinity, but if we scrape the surface of history, that’s a fairly strong reason to have a relationship.  Think of how often you are somewhere unfamiliar, and you meet someone from near where you live ~ an immediate kinship.  A very powerful thing, geography.

I’ve also become very aware of the tie between age and life perspective.  Maybe these ideas wouldn’t have been as important to me at 22.  But at 32, nurturing positive relationships of any kind is fairly crucial.  It helps sustain life; it helps create a life of fulfillment outside of work.  To me, there is very little more important than cultivating and nurturing strong and positive relationships with people of all backgrounds, generations and ideologies.  The Compound gives John and I a little piece of that.  And we are full of love and gratitude.

And now, in the infamous words of Gossip Girl, xoxo.