Month: May 2019

Tonight I went to my children’s school’s State of the School address. I love going to this event every year because it is a pep rally of goodness that sends us all skipping into summer.

The speech was all that with a sobering reminder at the end that all of this goodness doesn’t come without work and dedication. Over the years, many parents have started to take our school for granted, so a wake-up call was needed.

A parent whose youngest child graduated from the school last Friday evening came out in his cap and gown pushing a wheelbarrow carrying a screwdriver and telling a story about being asked to bake brownies. She’s one of the parents that built the foundation of the school we love so much. Hearing her tales of those first years, days even, was inspiring. And though my life was in a completely different stage back then — newly married, barely thinking about having children —I’m so grateful that these people had vision. I’m even more grateful that they took those first steps into the unknown, clinging to fate for the best outcome.

It isn’t easy doing that. One of my favorite quotes is “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase,” by Martin Luther King, Jr. There are so many times when we turn away from the staircase, perfectly comfortable with the barren floor we’re accustomed to standing on. But think of those times when you took a chance and it worked out. Maybe you took a chance and it didn’t, but you learned something priceless from the experience.

I’m taking a chance right now in my career, and yes, it’s scary, but it’s also invigorating because I feel like I’m living out those cool “choose your own adventure” books I read as a child. If I do this, I could end up here. If I do that, I could end up there. The point is that I’m moving forward, and for so long, I’ve been stuck on the floor, terrified of even thinking about the staircase.

Tonight when the mother of the graduate finished her plea for us all to become more involved, she gave the two women who founded our school a rose bush. She said that it can get prickly, but that the flowers always win in the end. My face lit up when I heard that because I believe it.

Sure there are thorns every day in life, but the blooms eventually come and shift our focus to goodness. As soon as we see the colorful petals, we forget that the stems are laced with pain.

Our world needs flowers more than ever, and I’m starting to see them now that I’m on this new journey. They’re lining the staircase to my new life.

After a brief hiatus from Winks, I’m back, and I plan to be back a lot more. During the past few weeks, I have wrestled with anxiety and depression in some of its ugliest forms, and I’m happy to say that I think I’m winning.

As I’ve mentioned before, I believe that the universe sends us messages. You can call it God, nature, whatever, but those messages are there, and it’s up to us to hear them and then act on them. In my case, the universe has been calling me with the persistence of a telemarketer for months, maybe even years. The message — you are worthy of change.

Writing is my passion. It’s what I strived to do my whole career, and I’ve been pretty successful at it. The funny thing is that what success looks like changes over time. In my case, I’ve been in the magazine business for more than 20 years. For the past 10 years, I’ve edited a lifestyle magazine about where I live, and it’s been a wonderful experience for the most part.

In that 10 years, I’ve had twins, and they continue to grow, and so do I. Two years ago, I realized that I was burned out, but I kept going. I wanted to make it to 10 years, and I really didn’t think I could quit for a host of reasons. Well, I made it to 10 years in March running on fumes, and by the time I hit the June issue, I was broken. All the signs were there that it was time to move on to something else, even though I’m still trying to decipher what that something else is.

A few months ago, I read an article about the editor of New York magazine, a beyond excellent weekly city magazine. After 15 years, the editor decided to step down. When I read about this, I resonated with everything he described. Near the end of the article, he said leaving the position would be difficult, and he wasn’t sure where he’d end up, but he was excited to find out. Of course, I very much paraphrased his thoughts there, but that’s exactly how I feel.

For so long, I’ve thought that I can’t do anything else but edit a magazine. And in today’s economy, that seems like such a small thing when I’m surrounded by bankers and lawyers and doctors and such. (Thanks, Waylon!).

But here’s the thing, I get to decide what success is. Yes, I want my family to have a comfortable life, but I’m smart enough to know that all the money in the world can’t buy happiness or health. (Yes, it can buy some sweet Tory Burch bags, but even I realize there’s more to life than that.)

I’ll be 47 in two months, and my children are rapidly approaching 10, then 18, then college. I want this time with them to be good. Sure, there will be rough spots, but not like the past six months. They don’t need an irritable mother who cries all the time. They don’t need a mother who is always on deadline. They don’t need a mother who has a computer permanently connected to her lap. They need a mother who is present, and that’s one of the reasons I’m embarking on this journey.

The other reason I’m going on this exciting, yet scary, ride is because I owe it to myself. I am my own worst enemy. I’m the first one to point out my flaws. I search for them with a magnifying glass. But what I’m figuring out is that I’m not so bad. I have a lot of goodness to give myself and this world, and I finally feel like I’m arriving at a place where I can do that better than I ever imagined.

A few weeks before I resigned, I received a thank you gift. It was a beautiful candle with a box of matches. On the matchbox was the following statement, “You will set the world on fire.”

I smiled when I read it because I knew it was the universe’s final nudge for me to take the plunge into change. So here I go, jumping into a new phase of my life, ready to see where it takes me and my family. I’m so ready to strike a match and get things started.