It’s been an interesting week or so for me.  In addition to the ongoing fun/drama/challenges/rewards of living with two late teen-age young men, there’s been the following:

·       My dear hubby was away from Thursday morning until Sunday night near bedtime. He re-packed, slept, and left again early Monday morning to return late this Thursday night.  We believe this makes our longest period apart in the entire 26 years we have known each other!

·       One of my co-workers absolutely cannot get along with our new boss, and the situation is near the breaking point.  It has been a simmering drama since June, and it is pretty much boiling over now.  There will certainly be resolution of some kind soon, but for now every day is filled with the conflict. I can’t even find words to describe how much I prefer my work environment to be drama-free.

·       In my role as Committee Chair of my son’s Boy Scout troop, there’s been a big issue involving a set of angry parents that has dragged on for the past two weeks.  It finally reached its denouement last night, with a formal meeting with them.  There will still be some additional chapters before the story completely wraps up, but I think we are on the downhill side now. It’s one of those situations where mistakes were made by many parties, and I have been in the position of trying to apologize for my part and mediate among the others.  That is to say, pretty much in a no-win position.

Then of course there is the drama surrounding the young guys. Not to put too fine a point on it, out of respect for their privacy, but their lives are, shall we say, never boring.  They are on somewhat different paths at this point, but both struggle on a daily basis with making peace with where they are today, finding their right path to the future, and just figuring out how to be their best selves and function in the world.  Oh, and girls.  The perpetual struggle of girls.  I never cease to be amazed at the power of girls, as evidence by the havoc they can wreak on my young guys. 

When I was younger, the point of telling all this would have been a complaint.  Today, I have come to realize that this litany of dramas and struggles is the stuff of life.  If I get hit by a Mack truck one day, people will care that I loved my husband deeply, tried to mediate conflicts, and was there for Sam and Warren.  They probably won’t care so much about my professional resume, my never-quite-clean-enough house, my depleted savings account, or my unfulfilled ambitions.  That doesn’t stop me from obsessing over any of those things occasionally.  But I realize that it is the people in my life, and how I relate to them, that make life worth living. And a sweet life it is!

Bob and I celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary yesterday and today. (Yesterday was the actual date, but our life was so hectic with mundane routines that we waited and went out to dinner tonight.) I usually write about both the boys and my work more than I do about Bob, but this seems like the moment to change that. As I said on my Facebook post yesterday, every good thing in my life is either directly because of Bob, or is better because it is shared with him.  He is the source of most of the joy and laughter in my life, and keeps me in the headspace that makes me laugh rather than cry in the vicissitudes and quirks of daily life.  I have always described Bob as a funny combination of class clown and Eagle Scout -- he's an irreverent cutup, but when the chips are down, he's the one people call.  He is smart, funny, affectionate, stable, generous, sexy......in other words, he rocks my world!

Those who have been reading me for a while may notice that I spent a little time cleaning up the appearance of my blog.  I had been using an out-of-date template, and everything just looked a little off.  I think I have fixed that, as well as making it easy to like my blog on Facebook if one is so motivated.  I have been putting out some feelers for new freelance writing (could use both the income and the challenge!) and it seemed like a good idea to make my blog look like I know what I'm doing.  Next, I need to put some attention into my website. I figure it's like the old story of the shoemaker's children always needing shoes. 

One of the more surprising effects of living with an almost 18-year-old and an almost 19-year-old in the house is that it makes me think about Big Topics that I used to think about a lot, but put on a shelf somewhere along the way. I remember being their age and a little older and having long, meaningful discussions about philosophy and theology and politics. I remember the intellectual thrill of exploring all those various ideas and constructs, about sorting through them for myself and debating them with other intelligent, articulate thinkers who were exploring them for the first time, too. Over time, though, I kind of settled into what I chose to believe in those arenas, and got caught up in the business – and busyness – of daily life.

So now I find myself sitting across from either one of them and they launch into their opinions on one of these Big Topics, and I feel at such a disadvantage! They are both very deep thinkers and very articulate, so both are apt to launch into one of these discussions.  One day this week Sam expounded on capitalism vs. socialism vs. communism vs. fascism; with Warren it was recently existentialism and nihilism. Either one is likely to launch into comparative religions at any time. I really, really enjoy talking with them and hearing their views, but I haven't read the supporting literature in 30 years and in many cases, have only a vague, partial recall of the definitions of all the terms. So I have this sense that I am not really holding up my end of the discussion!

These discussions are also a wonderful counterpoint to the lunacy that also accompanies having two teenagers in the house. Both are so very smart and in many ways, responsible. They are gaining mastery of the big things. But the little things in life can still totally mess them up. Like keeping track of a cell phone. Or a credit card. Or getting themselves to where they are supposed to be on time, with everything they need, without parental assistance. Somehow, I think this crazy dichotomy – Big Ideas one moment, lost shoes the next – is what is unique and wonderful about this age. They are both socially conscious and totally self-absorbed; generous and selfish; hopeful and cynical; up and down, fast and slow, wise and stupid..... They are a crazy mix of the child they were and the man they will be.

And so the fun continues. This weekend has been a very full one. It has included calling hours at a funeral home, a problem with Sam's Eagle project, a financial setback for Bob and me, a flare-up of the drama between Warren and his parents...There have definitely been some not so good moments, and yet I stand by my recent statement that my life is so sweet I am awed by it. I come home every day to one wonderful mature man who loves me and fills my life with joy, and two young men finding their way to fulfilling their potential for wonderful. Life is not only never boring, it is inspiring and challenging and downright fun!

As my Facebook friends are already aware, there's been a change in my personal life recently.  My son's good friend Warren graduated from high school this spring and by last week found himself homeless, with only a bad part-time job.  So we invited him to live with us for a while, and now there are four at the dinner table in the evening instead of three.

Warren has led a very difficult life, abused by his birth parents and then knocking around the foster system, including a couple stays in orphanages.  Out of respect for his privacy I won't go into any more detail.  But I will say this: with all he has been through, it would be understandable if he were bitter, rebellious, angry -- but he isn't any of those things.  He has an indomitable spirit, a great sense of humor and a strong, healthy sense of self.  He is sage beyond his years and willing to work hard.  Sure, he's also a little scarred around the edges, but less so than I would expect.  I admire the kid, and I anticipate that eventually, he will build a happy, fulfilling life.  He and Sam were talking yesterday about how to respond to certain aggravations and Warren said, "I figure being really happy is the sweetest revenge..."

I was surprised by the reaction on Facebook when I posted that he had come to live with us. It was very positive -- too positive, almost.  If I thought people were going to react that strongly, I probably wouldn't have posted it.  I felt like someone was about to put me up for canonization.  My perspective when Bob and I made the call was simply this:  I had to either take him in, or stop saying I believe the things I've always said I believe.  It was just that clear cut.

My perspective now is, it might just end up that in the long run, I get more from this act than I give.  Oh, I realize he's been here less than a week, so we're still in the honeymoon period. Maybe it will all blow up in our faces at some  point.  But I don't think so. 

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down..... Not completely true, but such a compelling lyric from my youth that I couldn't stop myself from using it. 

It is pouring rain, and I am a little bit down.  Not full bore, hide the sleeping pills down, but a little contemplative.  I find myself ruminating on things gained and lost over the course of my life, on people with whom I regret having lost touch,  with the fascinating/painful/beneficial/confusing process of aging.

I've become quite the Facebook junkie over the past few years, and recently I indulged in spending an evening going through the screen after screen of possible friends it suggested.  I identified quite a few names that I hadn't spoken with since high school, and sent friend requests to many of them.  That probably added to my general disquiet.  I think about all that has happened to me since high school, what a different person I am today than I was then, and I wonder about the lives of those other people I've just invited to be my "friend."  It's weird to think that soon many of them might be seeing my random posts on Facebook, drawing their own conclusions about the me I have become.  There have been a few high school friends or acquaintances who have become really good Facebook friends, and in many cases they are not people I was really close to in the day.  So it is always a question mark to me as to how these things will play out.

Equally disturbing was how few college friends I found.  I married my college sweetheart and divorced him six years later, which tended to have the effect of my losing track of most of my college friends.  I was saddened that I couldn't find the same kind of wealth of lost friends from that era that I did from my high school years.  There were definitely friends from that time that I would love to catch up with.

I will be getting a new boss this Wednesday, and perhaps that is disquieting, too.  Those who know me will recall that I was unemployed, with little temporary blips, for two years, and am now in a job that pays substantially less and is much lower on the org chart than I those I had in the years before. I was very grateful to get this job, and have been treated extremely well.  In spite of the negatives I just mentioned, I actually love the organization, love my coworkers, love the actual tasks that fill my day, and love the feeling that my work is appreciated and makes a difference.  Though money is a perpetual problem, in every other way I am probably happier in this job than I had been in my work life in years.  So at some level I guess I fear the unknown with a new boss.  Will she continue to treat me with the respect and freedom my former boss did?  Will she appreciate my work? Will she acknowledge the lifetime of experience I bring to bear? Will my work life continue to feel so positive? 

I remember reading when I was younger that middle-aged and older women complained that they become invisible.  Younger people, even professionals like doctors and dentists and the like, tend to not really notice you in the room, not give you the same eye contact and attention that you used to get. Now at 52, I will attest that it is somewhat true.  In fact I have told friends that sometimes, I find it is an advantage.  If I have a morning where I can't get my hair to lay right or I'm not thrilled with how I look, I sometimes remind myself that really, nobody is looking anyway.  It's OK -- there's no pressure.  And often, I find that strangely comforting.  But at other times, I understand the complaint.  I have always had strong opinions and the ability to articulate them well, and I still do.  As such, when I feel overlooked I can usually make myself known.  But it is easy for me to see that for those who are not as bold by nature, it could be really difficult.

Another aspect of aging that I find a mixed blessing is the whole "perspective" thing.  On the one hand, it is definitely a blessing that every little thing doesn't set me off like it did when I was young.  Many little indignities or disappointments come up and I find I can shrug them off:  "Really?" I ask myself, "Is this really worth getting all worked up about?"  On the other hand, I sometimes miss the passion.  It seems that along with letting go of the little things that annoy me, I have also lost some of the ability to get really, really jazzed about new interests.  It's almost like I'm on too high a dose of antidepressants -- except I'm not on any meds at all!  But I feel the way friends have described when they have been.  I enjoy some things, but I don't feel the same burning passion about external subjects that I once did. And sometimes  I really miss it.  I hold onto the hope that I am just in a transitional stage right now, and someday soon I will find some new outside interests that fire a passion. 

But my rainy day has stopped raining, and I think it is time to move on.  This is probably as much navel gazing as I or my readers can take for one sitting!

I'm not sure if this entry will make any sense to my readers who are not in the Columbus area.  But perhaps it will, because even though I use specific names of neighborhoods and surrounding towns, the concepts are general. And I think the post is more about the concepts than the specifics.

Today I attended a training session in downtown Columbus and as I was walking back to the correct entry to the Statehouse garage, I looked around and had this huge flashback.  When I was in high school and college, my vision of success was to work in a tall office building in the downtown of a big city -- preferably Chicago-type big, but Columbus wasn't ruled out.  I worked some temp jobs downtown while in college and grad school, and  I can remember being so enchanted by the cosmopolitan flavor of it all.  I have a vivid recollection of this vision I used to have of myself coming out of a skycraper in a suit, carrying a briefcase, and getting into a convertible sports car and driving out of the city for the weekend, home to a place on the outskirts where I envisioned life sort of like the Connecticut homes some New Yorkers keep. I never lived that situation in real life, but it had seemed so real in my dreams that standing downtown like that, I could still recall it as if I had actually lived it.

Then I got my car and drove out of the garage and up High Street past the Short North before cutting over to pick up the freeway.  As I drove through the Short North, I flashed back to some really good times Bob and I have had there, of dinners and drinks in trendy restaurants, gallery hops, and soaking up the overall aura of coolness.  There was a time in my life, around the 1990's, when I thought living in an urban chic neighborhood like that would be so much fun.  Life never presented a good opportunity to make that one come true, either, and I have since grown to the opinion that it is a neighborhood I'd rather visit than live in.  But I still enjoy it immensely for visits!

That made me reflect on what other living situations I had wanted over the years, how my tastes had changed or stayed the same.  When I wanted to do the whole skyscraper/country home thing, I lived first in Bexley and then in Newark.  I never had a huge desire to live in Newark, though I had good times there.  Then my job took us to Mansfield and while we had very good times there, many sweet memories, I would have to say that Bob and I never really liked living in Mansfield.  Once Sam was born, we proactively decided that we wanted to raise him in a bigger, more diverse city, and came back to Columbus. 

When we moved back, we chose the Worthington area.  Over the years I might have liked to have been just one price-point higher in suburbia, but overall, this house we bought in 1995 has worked out well for us.  I am sort of locked into the idea that a suburb is the right place ot raise kids, so we chose this one and life has been good.  Somewhere along the way I came to the conclusion that we really have too much house, but that is a better problem to have than the opposite.  It just takes a lot of work to maintain.

I went through a phase where I used to say that as soon as Sam was off to college, I wanted to move into a condo and be done with yardwork and the other responsibilities of home owning.  But I've watched too many friends have mixed experiences with condos, so I've backed off of that theory.  And I used to think I might finally indulge my taste for urban living when we became empty nesters, but I've had another realization:  almost all our friends are in the suburbs, ranging from Hilliard and Dublin and Powell to Worthington and Lewis Center and Westerville. Most of our activities are centered around our church in Powell or Bob's Boy Scout commitments, in the Lewis Center area.  So really, it would be silly to move into the center of the city only to commute back out to the suburbs for our entire social life.  My new plan is to take our time but within a few years of Sam's departure for college, we will probably downsize to a smaller home in one of the more modest neighborhoods in the West Worthington or Powell area.  That way we can hire out the yardwork and other duties we don't want to do, have plenty of room for the two of us and Sam to visit, and be close to the people whose company we enjoy.

So there you have it, ruminations on one of the most fundamental life choices, where to live.  High powered urbanite and trendy urban chic dweller were dreams of my youth that never came to be and I've lost my taste for them.  Small town dweller was the card life dealt me and though we had a good run, it was never a comfortable fit.  Suburbanite still sounds shallow to me, and vaguely like something I should apologize for, and yet it seems to be where I found happiness.  I don't find my own life here shallow, nor those of my many friends.  Perhaps that's because we never did chase the building booms and live in whatever was "the" suburb of the era, or perhaps it's just because suburbs get an unfair rap.  But it is what it is, and I am who I am.  And who I am is someone who lives in a comfortable suburb and has a good life.  Funny how things work out, huh?

Gratitude.


I have been keenly aware of a sense of gratitude lately. I don’t know where it’s coming from, exactly, but I experience it as a grace from God.

For example, yesterday at church when I went to communion, the person who gave me the cup was a friend, the husband of someone I sing in the choir with. He has battled lung cancer for several years now and honestly, there was a time when we never thought he’d be standing there, hale and healthy, in 2011. As he handed me the cup I just felt such a rush of gratitude that Geoff is still here to be a part of my life.

There was a day last week when I was feeling kind of out of sorts and grousing about how much I was having to run – activities every night but one, work all day, when does one catch a breath? Then I stopped and thought, “What am I saying? I was unemployed for two years, with w-a-a-y too much time sitting in this house. This busy-ness is all good!”

As the mother of an only child, I know I have a bit of a tendency to do the “helicopter mother” thing – I worry about his stuff way more than I should. I agonize over his successes and defeats, I fret about where he will go to college and how he will survive when he does. But lately I have had several occasions to just stop and appreciate that whatever peripheral things might concern me, at 17 ½ I can now see that he has turned out to be a young man of good character. I no longer have to worry about him making good decisions about the big things in life, because I can see that he is, essentially, a good person. WOW! Talk about your causes for gratitude!

So as I said, I don't really know what brought on this increased sense of gratitude, but I feel it is a great gift. Life experience suggests that in time, it will pass. I'll get distracted by other concerns and gratitude will fade to the background. But while it is here, for however long it lasts, I am going to enjoy it!

I have generally stayed away from politics in my blogging. This is partly because politics in this country have become so very divisive --  we seem to have lost the ability to have friendly give and take.  I always thought of myself as a moderate, and increasingly I find myself largely alienated from both parties. 

But I have to say, I am horrified by what's going on in Ohio.  It's not only the actions that are being taken -- though they are pretty shocking -- it's the whole mindset behind them.  There seems to be this assumption that teachers and firefighters and cops and other public employees are greedy, overpaid people who are to blame for the financial woes of the state.  While I agree that there were excesses that needed to be corrected, I see them as a result of a collective bargaining process where apparently, the bargainers on the side of the state and other government bodies didn't do their job very well.  There were two sides to those negotiations, so how is it all the fault of one side?

Further, there is the assumption that those people are overcompensated.  Maybe a few civil servants are, I don't know.  But I think teachers and firefighters and cops are -- corny as it sounds -- heros. I'll grant you, not every public employee falls into that category, but those categories and probably others do.  I hear complaints that firefighters and cops get to retire too young, and it's bankrupting us.  OK, so we need to find a new way to finance it.  But seriously, do you want 60 year old firefighters answering the call when your house is on fire?  I don't think so.

In February, the Kasich administration passed a regulation prohibiting school districts from requiring that contractors pay the prevailing wage.  So moving forward, very few school building projects will go to union employers, as there is always a non-union shop that can bid a job lower using sub-standard labor, or standard labor so desperate they are willling to take any work at any price.  I figure it's the school buildings today, other state projects tomorrow.

Kasich has also told people that if their school district asks for an increase in local taxes to offset the loss of state funds, they should turn it down -- they aren't cutting anybody by more than 8% to 10%, and anybody ought to be able to trim 10% from their budget.  But there aren't very many discretionary expenditures in a school district budget, so about the only things they can do is pay teachers less, increase class sizes, and cut out the arts and elective classes. 

So the future I see is that the quality of our education goes down.  Currently, we measure right around the middle of the pack in things like percent of 8th graders taking algebra, percent of high school students scoring well on AP tests, scoring on standardized math tests, etc.  But if the norm becomes larger class sizes and fewer of the enhancements that make school bearable for kids, I predict that performance will fall. 

I also predict that over time, we will see a decrease in teacher quality.  When I was in college, lo those 30 years ago, teachers were not as well paid as most other professional positions.  So if a kid was an education major who really shone in their subject matter discipline, they were usually lured away with the promise of more money.  Over time, a lot of effort went into raising the pay and the standards to ensure that teaching was a respected profession that attracted the brightest and the best, and compensated accordingly.  If we do away with the schedules that guarantee experienced teachers get more money, worsen working conditions, and generally treat them like leeches draining American productivity, we will stop attracting top students, and the talent pool will drift down to the new, lower level of compensation and conditions.  Oh, there will always be some people who teach because they experience it as a calling, thank God.  And some who maybe go into it for wrong reasons or general mediocrity when they're young, and mature into good teachers along the way.  Some will still choose it even with its limitations because it offers summers home with their own kids.  But I don't think that will provide enough  high quality teachers. 

But that's not all.  Since public entities cannot require prevailing wage contracts, all public projects will get bid down to lower prices.  That will eventually bid down wages on non-public projects, which will lower the prevailing wage.  So all the citizens out there paying taxes to support the schools and other government entities will earn less, thus pay less taxes, so the fiscal crisis will just get worse. With less tax revenue, schools will have to cut further.  Education gets worse, and the cycle spirals downward.

And as I understand it, the rationale for all this is that it is supposed to make us more attractive to business.  But don't businesses want an educated work force?  Don't they want a good infrastructure (which we won't be able to afford as everyone's wages drop?)  Isn't it better for most businesses to be in a community with pretty low unemployment, so the public has more buying power? 

I just don't see how lowering the earning power of the citizenry, demonizing public servants, lowering the quality of public education, and eventually shrinking the tax base can be a good thing.  I look forward and I see an inevitable decline in the quality of life in Ohio. I hope like everything that I am wrong, that I'm overreacting and it really isn't as bad as it looks.  But I'm not optimistic.

It's been a whole year since I posted here!  Wow!  But I did resume blogging through Lent at my Lenten Daily Meditations blog, and it felt good to be back at it.  So I have decided to try to revive this blog.

The problem I have always had, I realize, is that in spite of the title Candidly Susan,  I have found it difficult to be open and candid here.  It's because I have always shown a somewhat different side of myself to people in different parts of my life.  With a blog post, there's no telling which part of my life the reader might be from, so it's hard to know how to spin it.  But I'm 52 years old, for Pete's sake.  I think it's high time to re-integrate all the various parts of me, acknowledge that I am who I am, and live with a little more integrity.  You'd think by now I'd understand that I can't please all the people all the time, and give my friends and colleagues credit for being able to disagree with something I write and still like me.

The other issue with this blog was always that I have eclectic interests and I never wanted it to be just a political blog or just a mommy blog or just a book discussion blog or just any one topic.  I still feel that way, but I realize that having the whole world open as a source of topics can sometimes be less liberating than overwhelming.  In the past, I have too often defaulted to kind of using it as a public diary.  And really, my life isn't that interesting, that anyone else would want to read my diary.

So my new goal is to post two or three times a week, and to make those posts interesting as self-contained pieces.  Sometimes, I might brag about my kid or lament some home situation.  Others, I might comment on politics or culture or arts and entertainment.  No doubt I will sometimes discuss books and authors, a favorite subject of mine.  Religion is a big part of my life, so no doubt those topics will turn up, too.  But I will try to always make it more than just a diary --  an actual piece of thoughtful writing on the topic.

By the way, one of the things I have been doing in place of blogging for the past year has been becoming really active on Facebook.   I know different people have different feelings about social media, but I gotta tell you, my experiences with Facebook have been overwhelmingly positive.  In particular, I have enjoyed the ability it gives me to reconnect with people from various times in my life.  I have frequent exchanges with people from high school and from various employers and cities that were my home over the years, with whom I had lost touch.

An interesting insight that has been bubbling up for me is this:  when I was a child, my family was rather nomadic.  When I entered 9th grade, it was my 10th school.  I was a good student and always able to make friends, so I never thought it really hurt me any.  But the one legacy that peripatetic childhood did leave was that it was all too easy for me to move away from people I had loved and truly leave them behind.  Not having a rootedness in my childhood translated into not maintaining ties with people as I moved from one to another of the natural steps and moves of adulthood.  I think that's why I am finding it so rewarding to go back and renew some of those connections now, as an adult, on Facebook. 

So to anyone reading this, thank you for coming back.  I would really appreciate comments, if only because they let me know someone is reading.  Please keep checking back in.  I hope to provide something worth reading and selfishly, knowing you are coming back gives me a lot stronger motivation to write.

I'm kind of reeling. We learned on Sunday night that a member of our extended family to whom we are very close is currently in jail, having had his third DUI arrest on St. Patrick's Day. I'm not mentioning a name to protect the privacy of his close family members, but it is someone I care a lot about and know well. I know that he is an alcoholic and I know that the addiction has him totally consumed. This development isn't surprising at all -- so, I keep asking myself, why do I feel like my heart is breaking?

As I understand Ohio law, this is almost certain to result in an extended stay in jail. A full year seems likely. And in many ways, I can see that this is a good thing. Certainly he isn't out there putting himself and the innocent driving public at risk for that time. Moreover, I would think that he will have no choice but to get sober and stay that way for the duration of his term. If so, I know that will be his longest period of sobriety in many years. And since his alcoholism has made it hard for him to work steadily, ruined his credit and generally made him poor, a year in jail means a year of a guaranteed roof over his head and three square meals a day. I can see that these are all positive things.

But I am full of fear for him. I am fearful that he will attempt suicide as he sobers up and realizes the enormity of his situation. (He has never tried it before, but there have been times when the family has feared he would -- he showed signs.) And I am fearful about how vulnerable he will be in jail. I think that for him, getting sober is going to leave his psyche and self-esteem really, really fragile. I am tremendously worried about him just holding it together. And assuming that he does pull himself together and gets through his incarceration, I am very frightened about how it will be when he gets out. He has always felt unworthy -- it seems to be at the root of his addiction -- and I could see him turning away from his loving family because he couldn't accept how much we love him and want the best for him, couldn't believe that we welcome him back with open arms.

I just can't get him out of my mind. I keep imagining the agony of detox that he must be going through right now, and trying to imagine what it feels like to be locked in a cell and to know that this is no joke, this isn't temporary, but that this is your new reality. I want to send him some kind of a care package, but don't yet know what he is allowed to receive. So all I can do, so far, is to pray. No small thing, I agree, but right now it feels pretty impotent. I know in my heart, though, that prayer is NOT impotent -- in fact, I know that it is powerful. I just have to believe that.

If you are reading this, and you are a person who prays, I ask you to add this loved one to your prayers, too. He is a family member who has messed up big time. He doesn't especially deserve a break -- in fact, he has brought on most of his own problems. But I believe that there but for the grace of God go all of us. Maybe if we all lift him up to God, somehow God will be able to channel our good wishes to him and provide him some kind of comfort. Not the comfort he has earned, but the comfort he deserves as a child of God. Maybe he will be able to feel the love so much that when he finally comes out, he will have the strength to follow a new path.

Hopeless optimism? Most likely. But that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

I have opted not to do a Lenten blog this year. Somehow, it felt like it had become self-serving and thus not an appropriate Lenten discipline. So I have opted for a more private discipline, and it is proving challenging. It is surprising how motivational I found it to know that there might be readers out there noticing whether I posted daily or not. I ask myself, "What, it isn't as important if only God knows when you failed?"

Today my husband is at the Catholic Men's Conference at the Ohio State Fairgrounds. This is his second year of attendance and by all accounts, it is a moving, highly inspirational event. There was a women's conference last week that I did not attend. What I am about to say feels unfair, but it is how I feel. (And the title of the blog IS Candidly Susan, after all.) To me, the descriptions of what's going to happen at the men's conference always sound inspiring and uplifting and like I'd come away feeling renewed and stronger. The descriptions of the speakers and topics at the women's conference always leave me feeling like I'd come away drained and saddened or guilt-induced. Maybe next year I will force myself to go to the women's conference and experience it for myself, to at least give it a fair chance.

I should probably acknowledge that it has been a long time since I posted. I'm simply going to claim seasonal affective disorder and leave it at that. I found the month of February extremely trying and I'm glad it is over!

I continue to be woefully underemployed and seeking more fulfilling and rewarding work. I have actually thought recently that I ought to start playing the lottery again -- financially a stupid plan, I know, but as my oldest brother once said, that dollar buys you the privilege of a dream. My dream recently has been that if money didn't matter, if we didn't need my income, I could be happy being a full-time volunteer for organizations I care about. I actually know that I have a lot of skills and abilities that could benefit my church and scouts and the food bank and other organizations. If I applied the same level of professional focus to projects for them that I am used to applying to an employer, I could do some awesome things. But I am currently afraid to bite off anything very big because we so need for me to improve my income, and I need to use my time pursuing that.

I also continue to escape from my worries in reading, and I appreciate the suggestions I received in response to my posting about new authors. I just completed Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear and it was as good as promised! The next one in the series is currently on reserve for me, waiting to be picked up at the library. I also just finished a novel by an author I had never read before, Jane Stanton Hitchcock. The title was Mortal Friends and one of the things I most enjoyed about it was that it seemed like a cross between a murder mystery and a traditional novel -- the mystery initially hooked me, but the character development carried the plot way beyond just "who done it" to the point that near the end, I was completely captivated by the characters and what whas going to happen in their lives. I am eager to read another of hers to see if all her books are as strong.

Keep those book recommendations coming -- my reading really is a lifeline through this difficult time!

I'm looking for recommendations of good books. I decided the best way to do that is to make some recommendations of my own. It will help readers understand what constitutes a good book from my perspective, and maybe it will give someone else the pleasure of finding a new author he or she really enjoys.

I was a voracious reader as a kid and even young adult, but in the middle of my life I got distracted with the everyday busy-ness of life and stopped reading for pleasure for a decade or two. Now I've rediscovered this source of joy and am always on the prowl for new authors.

My personal "comfort food" genre of books is the mystery series. I love authors who write a series of mysteries where each is a free-standing story with a mystery to be solved, but over the course of the series the characters are well developed into living, breathing people with whole lives that I care about. Here are a few of my favorites in that genre, with a few words about each:

Elizabeth George - She writes the Inspector Lynley series. If you've seen the PBS Mystery film version of any of them, you don't know Elizabeth George. While I usually like the PBS adaptations, they didn't capture the backstories of the key characters in this one. The sergeant, Barbara Havers, is a wonderfully flawed, tragic, lovable character. In the PBS version she's just mildly quirky.

Deborah Crombie -- Hers are the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma Jones mysteries. In this one they begin as a boss/subordinate team and over many novels become lovers and colleagues who do NOT work directly together.

Ann Granger -- Yet another British series. In this one he's a small-town cop and she works for the foreign service.

Margaret Maron -- Possibly my favorite of them all, her series featuring Judge Deborah Knott gradually sucked me into her whole extended Southern family. I really care about the characters Maron has created!

Ann George -- Her Southern Sisters books are great if you like a little humor mixed with your mystery. The protagonists are sisters in their 60's and their interactions are a hoot!

Andrew Greeley -- He's a practicing Roman Catholic priest and his longtime protagonist is, too. (He has other series out now, too, but his Blackie Ryan series is my favorite.) His writing is good but not great, but he weaves in a lot of theology that happens to mesh very nicely with my personal beliefs (God as a passionate lover, not a punisher, for instance) so I always enjoy his digressions and mini-sermons. If you aren't Catholic, or if you are and really think the whole church hierarchy is doing a good job, then these probably wouldn't appeal to you.

I am less excited about the "thriller" genre, though I occasionally enjoy one. Tami Hoag has written a few that I think are called thrillers that still have great characters. Shoot the Messenger and Dark Horse are really marvels of character development! There's another thriller-type author named Randy Wayne White whom I inexplicably like -- his protagonist is a marine biologist/secret ops killing machine, but he is mostly "retired" from the special ops work and his best friend is a new age hippie, which makes for some great interaction and gives the author an opportunity to argue two sides of moral questions. These books are a little testosterone-intensive, but I still enjoyed them. The two best to sample would probably be Shark River or Mangrove Coast. And yeah, like everyone else, I did enjoy all Dan Brown's stuff. Wouldn't like a steady diet of it, but it was fun.

Another author I have really enjoyed who I don't know how to categorize is Alice Hoffman. She writes these novels set in contemporary time but there's always some touch of magic in them. But somehow, she makes it seem believable and I can accept it. They also have a lovely life-affirming feel to them, over all. They are probably the most mainstream-novel-like of any books I can think of that I have liked lately. I find many mainstream novels kind of depressing, or I just don't like the characters, or I feel at the end that I didn't gain anything from reading them.

I have dabbled in science fantasy/dragons and swords type stuff and have liked some of it. I just hate to try new ones without a recommendation because I feel there's a lot of bad writing in the genre. I would strongly recommend the works of Stephen R. Donaldson if this kind of thing holds any allure to you. He has several multi-book works out -- the Thomas Covenant trilogies and the Through The Glass series are both very good.

So, does anyone out there have any inspirations of books you think I'd like? I'm always on the prowl for good reading material!

This afternoon I am gripped with the whole TGIF vibe. I am looking forward to a largely uncommitted weekend and it feel so good! And we get a bonus day on Monday -- it feels like such a treat!

My poor son, on the other hand, has a very full weekend of studying. First semester finals are next week and he is taking an extremely full load. So he has a lot to get through. Unfortunately earlier in the term he had a flare-up of his depression and since it sort of immobilized him for several weeks, during which he didn't turn in any work, damage had been done to his grades. So this term we are not looking for his usual strong grade performance -- just getting through all the classes with a passing grade will be enough. The tide has definitely turned, though,and I believe he will be back to good grades for second semester. I am concerned about what this one semester of bombing will do to his GPA and therefore to his college options, but I am trying to let go of it and just live one day at a time. We can't change what we can't change, after all, and at least he is back on track now. It's like having a different kid in the house -- one whose company is a lot more enjoyable!

We don't even sing in the choir this Sunday. For reasons unclear to me the director scheduled this as a week off. Sam is the cantor (song leader, for those of you unfamiliar with Catholic customs) at 12:30 Mass, so I'll just wait and go to that one with him.

We have been a family divided for Masses for a couple years now. When Sam hit adolescence we went through the predictable fights about going to Mass. Except once he started singing in the then-offered teen choir at 12:30, I found out we had not actually been fighting about Mass at all. We had been arguing about getting up in time for Mom and Dad to sing at 9:00 Mass. Once I realized the time was the big issue, I capitulated and now he worships at 12:30 almost every week, while Bob and I go at 9:00. In a perfect world I'd like us all to worship together, but I'd rather have a son willingly worshipping at 12:30 than grudgingly at 9:00, and it is lovely to NOT have every Sunday morning filled with conflict. In my heart, I am just grateful that at 16 he still willingly worships.

Well, I have to run. I hear my flannel pajama pants calling my name, and who can resist a call like that?

One last thing -- if I have readers out there, I'd love to hear from you!

Once again I am finding it difficult to stay with the discipline of blogging. Thus I am writing a short entry this morning before I leave for work just to keep it fresh.

One of the big realizations I had the day I decided to return to blogging was that for most of my life, I've had a certain chameleon-like quality. I mean, I think I was true to my core values, to those things that are truly most important to me. But on a more superficial level I was really good at blending into whatever group I was with.

I think this was actually learned as a coping mechanism when I was a kid. We moved a bunch of times in my childhood, so I became really good at quickly assessing each new classroom and how to fit in. In high school I used to take pride in the fact that I was welcome among several different "cliques", though not really quite a member of most of them. Even in adulthood, it has often served me well.

But at the same time, I think it holds me back sometimes. It has certainly been one of the challenges of blogging -- it's hard to know what to put out there where God only knows who might find it and read it. And sometimes it makes me feel -- not a lack of integrity, exactly, but maybe a lack of integratedness. Generally speaking, it has not been my way to say "Here I am, take me or leave me." It has been my way to always try to present the side of me that they were going to want to take.

So when I decided to revive my blog, I also decided to work on really finding my own voice -- unashamedly writing what's important to me, what I feel, without always weighing who might be reading it. That's a lot scarier than it sounds -- I'm a woman still in a career crisis, who might have prospective employers checking out my web presence. Even as I write this I am totally tempted to hedge my bets, soften my stance, choose my words cautiously.

But I am not going to. I'm trying to take my inspiration from Popeye, that noted philosopher: "I am what I am." So now I guess my challenge is to make sure I know who that is!

Today's Columbus Dispatch solicited readers to send in a letter of 200 words or less expressing what you wish you could tell your teenage self. (It's inspired by Brad Paisley's hit song Letter to Me.) This request spoke to me, so I sent in this letter:

Dear teenage self:

Here are three points that I think will make your life easier, richer, and a lot more fun:

1. Control is an illusion. Sure, it’s good to make plans for your life – but remember, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.”

2. It’s good to pay some attention to how you are going to pay the bills, but beyond that don’t get too caught up in it. Chances are if you pursue something you feel passionate about, money will follow. Even if it doesn’t, it’s better to be broke and fulfilled than broke and unfulfilled. (There’s no guarantee the “sensible” career path will work out, either, especially if your heart isn’t in it.)

3. Life is a lot less about rules than you think. There are many different paths to happiness and fulfillment in life, and no one path is right for everybody. Allow yourself the freedom to pursue paths other than the one you know, and be really accepting of other people’s life choices. Some of the best people you will ever meet march to a very different drummer.

Susan at age 51

This morning I watched the Today Show and saw an interview with Gretchen Rubin, the woman who wrote the book The Happiness Project. I had not been familiar with her work before, but I found it very interesting and motivational. (If you want to check her out, her blog can be found at http://www.happiness-project.com/.) In fact, she's the reason I've picked up my blog after a five month hiatus. (More on that in a second.) The aha-moment I had as I listened to her was that I am wasting a lot of time in my life while I try to fix my career, or whatever else I'm focusing on. Every day is precious and I need to live in the moment. Not that I'm going to stop working on my career, it's just an attitude adjustment.

Today, I'm going to briefly catch up the blogosphere on what I was doing the five months I was silent. Then I'm going to commit to writing a lot more frequently as I try to focus on what I'm actually living each day.

Here's the missing five month scoop: The new sales position I wrote about with such satisfaction in August has turned South on me. In October, the company did away with the guaranteed draw program, so it is a 100% commission job now. In that same time frame, the rates on annuities started moving downward again. So I found myself in the position that I was generating a steady trickle of absolutely new business, but virtually no rollover business. And as I got to understand the industry more, I learned that rollover business is where one actually makes a living. Usually, that's fine, because every few years there are newer, better products that clients can actually benefit by moving to. In today's strange economy, that's not always as true.

In addition to that I had a sale where the client's spouse asked for a divorce between the purchase of the annuity and the end of the "free look" period. The client cancelled the purchase in spite of all my efforts to show that taking a loan against the annuity actually served him better, so that commission was reversed. That put me in the unenviable position of owing back more commission than I was now earning. And I had been warned that business would come to a near standstill between Thanksgiving and New Year's even in the best of years. By November things got to looking so dire that I went to a temp agency and sought a temporary office gig to provide us cash flow into the holidays. I ended up being assigned to the Girl Scouts, where I worked for six weeks. Though it was low paying office work, it felt good to be actually productive every day, and to see some kind of money flowing in each week. That ended just before Christmas, and I was able to enjoy some thoroughly satisfying time with my husband and son over the holidays.

Now the new year has started and I have to figure out what to do next. I haven't given up on the sales job, but I'll admit I'm deeply discouraged. I'm not sure I can build it to the point it generates a living within a timeframe that my family can afford. On the bright side, though, the temp agency called yesterday to say that the Girl Scouts have requested me back for 20 to 25 hours a week to work on a project for the next three months. I accepted, which means we at least have some sure cash flow to look forward to.

Thus I have the luxury of a little breathing room while I figure out my future. When I was younger I was very driven and very plan-oriented, but at this point in my life I feel more like I need to see where the universe leads me. My only "plan" is to concurrently work on the sales job and keep my eyes open for something else out there that seems like a good match for me. I know that I no longer want a volatile, executive level position. I like to work hard, produce well, and feel I've made an important contribution, but I'm no longer interested in 60+ hour weeks and sacrificing everything else in my life to the job. I know I'm an excellent communicator and planner, but I also know I need some administrative support if I'm to juggle a lot of detail-oriented projects. I can build rapport with a wide range of people and am almost always well-liked and well-respected in the workplace. I dislike office politics and game playing and am usually seen as a candid person with caring and integrity. And if I leave this sales position, I will never, ever take a commission sales job again.

I have always loved to write, so I am going to resume a regular blogging discipline. I have some other ideas about how I'm going to live this year, too, and I'll save those for future entries!

So much has happened since I last blogged! The thing on the top of my mind is that I have begun my new job. While I don't think I have really experienced what the routine will be yet, I do begin to feel confident that I made a good choice and that I can be successful.

So far, I have mainly been contacting people who already have a tax sheltered annuity and offering to do an account review with them. I wasn't clear on how that would make me any money, but in fact I have found that many people either want to increase the amount they are putting in, or there are new and better products available now so that they benefit from rolling over their existing product into a new one. So I have, in fact, made sales at a relatively high percentage of my appointments.

The problem, of course, is that it's summer and that makes teachers hard to reach. Even when I reach them, a significant number just don't want to think about things like this until they are back in the school routine. So I have a growing list of follow up calls to make next month and beyond.

Since I apparently missed the entire month of July, I haven't written anything since Bob's mother and sister who live in Bryan, his brother from Texas, and his brother in Michigan and his family all came for Red, White & Boom. We had some company in the house for over a week, with the big concentration of them for 4th of July weekend. We had a wonderful time! I wish we had the chance to get together with big groups of the family like that more often. We did, really, when we were younger, but everyone is geographically scattered now and many of us have kids in school, so scheduling is tougher than it used to be. But it sure was worth it.

My sister's health problems remain undiagnosed, though she is now seeing a neruo-ophthamologist at OSU who is apparently somewhat "House"-like. Not in his temperament, fortunately, but in his ability to get to the root of problems other doctors haven't been able to diagnose. So we are pinning some hope on Dr. Katz actually diagnosing her problem and then solving it. She is nearly at the end of her sick pay from Kroger. She has filed paperwork to look into getting back on permanent disability (which it never made sense for her to be off of!) but so far all her doctors haven't responded to the requests for information, so that application is in limbo until they do. I worry about her physical and financial health, both. Anybody reading this who prays, your prayers would be appreciated.

Sam successfully completed Phys Ed and Health in summer school with an A in each. He is still finishing up his independent study in Algebra II, but he has been getting A's on all the tests in that, too. I couldn't be more proud of how hard he has worked this summer and the success he has accomplished. Now he's applying himself to trying to finish two merit badges for Scouts, which are the last requirements he needs to attain Life Scout rank. That is the last rank before Eagle, to which he still aspires. If he gets to Life by the end of the summer, then he will have about two years available to him to complete the very challenging Eagle Scout requirements. I believe he will make it.

So in general, life is good here at our house. I am once again gainfully and happily employed, Bob clips along in his usual sunny, successful manner, and Sam's life seems to be on a very positive trajectory. I will try not to let two months pass between posts next time!

Last night I had dinner with one of my oldest and dearest friends, and she scolded me gently for not posting. So here I am, contrite.

But I have been busy in very positive ways while I've been away. I have landed full-time employment, which will begin on July 15th. I will be selling retirement products to teachers and school employees. It is, essentially, self-employment, but I am affiliated with an existing agency that will provide marketing support, all the back-office servicing, etc. As I researched them I became convinced that this is a really good opportunity for me. The fact that they are behind me providing leads and other services makes me a lot less frightened about self-employment, but I still get the parts of it that are highly appealing to me. I set my own hours, I don't have to waste time every day in commuting or meaningless office "face time", and I can control my own success or failure pretty directly.

The first step in the process is getting the necessary licenses. I must have a life insurance license to start, and will eventually need a Series 6 securities license. I took an on-line insurance course and passed the live, proctored exam for it yesterday and have an appointment to take the licensing test early next week. Then I plan to start right in on the securities license. Even though I don't have to have it to start, I am convinced that I will feel a lot more comfortable talking with prospects if I know I can handle all their questions.

So for the past few weeks I've been spending my time sort of schizophrenically. I am still drawing unemployment and hope to do so until the new job actually starts, so I still have to comply with all its requirements. Every day I still search the job boards and make sure I apply for at least two jobs a week, as required. (It's not like doing so brought me a bunch of offers before -- I doubt it will do so in the remaining three weeks!) I'm also still writing for that subscription website, so several days a week I am working on those articles, too. Then finally, those two obligations fulfilled, I studied.

I should say, I studied when family obligations didn't impinge. My sister's search for a diagnosis continues and we average a trip to a different specialist every other week or so. Next week we see a neuro-opthamologist because the previous specialist suspects it is something in the major nerve of the eye at the root of the problem. Remember her in your thoughts and prayers, please.

Last week my mother went for a routine visit with her cardiologist, who sent her for a stress test. They called shortly thereafter and scheduled her for a cardiac catheterization. It occurred Wednesday, and they found two arteries blocked more than 80%. They immediately brought in another doctor who did angioplasty and placed a total of three stents in the two arteries. It was very serious, but less stressful than it might sound because it all happened so quickly. Mom is at home recovering nicely and she says she can definitely feel an improvement in her overall health. Amazing what blood circulating through the system will do!

This had the feel of more diary entry than blog post, but there has been so much going on that I felt the need to post it. Perhaps I can get here a little more often in the weeks ahead!

Boy has it been embarrassingly long since I posted here! I have no wonderful excuse to share, either. It just happens.

Since the last time I wrote, we attended the college graduation of my niece and goddaughter, Heather. It was a wonderful experience and we were so very proud of her. Her parents divorced when she was quite young and I was thrilled that her father was able to join us, too. He couldn’t have been more gracious or more proud of his little girl. I know it meant the world to her that he was there.

Of course, she graduated into difficult times. She had hoped to go to graduate school but the only programs that accepted her were out of her price range. Her short-term plan is to stay for the summer at her state-funded job at a local museum. She expects funding to completely dry up by the end of September, and I honestly don’t think she has a clue what she is doing after that. I know she’s frightened about that, but she wasn’t saying much.

I shared with her the story of my graduation from college, just because I thought it might give her some comfort. I graduated in 1980 and the economy was in pretty sorry shape then, too. Inflation was high and so was unemployment. I earned a 3.8 GPA and couldn’t land a job to save my soul. I got so depressed, and so dreaded having to tell people I couldn’t find a job, that I virtually hid in the house all summer. Eventually I took a full-time clerical job at the hospital where I’d worked part-time in college. It was two years of menial, mind-numbing clerical work before my life began to take a turn for the better. After that things picked up dramatically; I have had a very fulfilling life and career since. I hope she can draw some hope from that.

I continue to seek that elusive new full-time position myself, but I have had at least a little new progress on my freelance business. For a few weeks now I’ve been writing one article a week for a subscription-based marketing website. It’s such a small gig that the income, though fair for the job, is insignificant. But it has had the beneficial effect of giving me at least one writing task to focus on with normal pressure to please an editor and meet a deadline. That has been very good for me. Not surprisingly, I’m beginning to get more ideas to pitch as articles elsewhere now that I have my juices flowing.

There are many changes afoot in our church, too. As most of my readers probably know, our church is an important part of Bob’s and my life. Both our Pastor (of 12 years) and our Director of Music Ministry (of 11 years) are leaving next month. So I’ve been involved in planning going away parties for both, and serving on the search committee for the new Director of Music Ministry. On the one hand, I’m not freaked out about this. It is completely normal within the ebb and flow of the life of any parish, and I’m really not alarmed or unduly concerned. On the other, the two moves together constitute a lot of change. With so much career uncertainty, there is a part of me that wishes church could remain a comfort zone. I guess I just have to rely on the Holy Spirit and believe that while things may feel different when we resume the normal schedule in the fall, they will be securely in the hands of the One who knows what we need.



I had an interesting interaction yesterday. I was at the high school helping with a PTA project and saw our neighbor, Rachel. Rachel was all over the news two years ago when some ill-adjusted guy thought she and her friends had trespassed on his property and responded by shooting their car. The girls had not trespassed nor done anything more than drive past the house a couple of times. Rachel was shot in the head and it was a miracle she survived. Two years later, she is still struggling to recover her mobility and memory. I saw her stepmother outside later in the day and though we don't really know each other, I stopped to tell her how uplifting it was to see Rachel at school and doing so well.



I could tell she really, really appreciated the comment. She shared that Rachel's dad is still struggling with letting go of the hopes and dreams he and Rachel had shared for her future. She went on to say that Rachel had always had a sweet, sunny disposition, and this injury did not rob her of that. Rachel continues to be optimistic about the future and generally look for the silver lining in the whole experience.



All that Rachel has overcome already is very inspiring, but to me that was the most inspiring of all. I always want to know what's coming, to be prepared, to be in control. That's why it was so hard for me to be unable to get a job right out of college, why the job hunt/freelance business development balance is so hard for me, and it's why the changes at my church are so unsettling. Rachel, on the other hand, is in a position where she truly has no control. And instead of fighting that, she manages to seek the beauty in each day. Now THAT's inspiration!

I’m suffering the attack of the killer allergies, and boy do I have the lethargy to prove it!

Central Ohio is generally known as allergy central. I have known many people whose doctors told them the best treatment for their allergies would be to simply move away. But I have lived almost my entire life in this area, and I didn’t really suffer any allergy symptoms until I was in my forties. Then I started having mild hay fever symptoms – nothing a little Claritin couldn’t handle.

Last spring, my body upped the ante. When the spring trees bloomed, so did my eyes. They swelled, turned a lovely shade of red and began to water profusely. I would wake in the morning unable to open them because of the thick layer of goop that had accumulated overnight. I went to the doctor and stepped up to Zyrtec. It took care of the other increased allergy symptoms, but didn’t seem to touch the eyes. Eventually my doctor prescribed both antihistamine eye drops and an antihistamine nasal spray, and using both of those with the Zyrtec I managed to get through the few weeks when the tree pollen was thick. Afterward, it seemed my base level had ratcheted up a notch. Claritin didn’t touch even my low-level symptoms. But as long as I took my daily Zyrtec, I was OK.

Well it’s tree pollen time again, and my eyes are at it again. I have worn contact lenses for 36 years and these two springtime allergy events are the only things that have ever kept me out of them. (My eye doctor always comments on what surprisingly healthy eyes I have for such a long-time contact wearer.) Today I wore my glasses all day. In the morning my eyes were literally running like a faucet, but it rained today and I think the pollen count improved when it did. Now my eyes don’t feel too bad, except that I have to pay attention or I will find myself rubbing them. They have just that low-level itch that makes me want to dig in them, but experience has taught me that they fell so much worse when I do!

The thing I’ve noticed – and the real reason I thought all this might be of interest to someone else – is that when one’s eyes are swollen and itchy, it is very difficult to feel one’s normal energy level and conduct one’s normal daily functions. I mean, it is really only one little part of my anatomy that is in discomfort, but WOW does it affect my overall productivity! I have had a hard time getting even the most basic chores done today. I think it’s because that whole itchy eye thing is a lot like what it feels like when I’m sleep-deprived, and my mind misinterprets it. Like it says, “Hmm, the sandman came through. Must be time for some shut-eye.”

Or at least, that’s my story – and I’m sticking to it!