The question has been asked? What birthday is this for Miss America? Well after a little digging we can confidently report she is 234 years young! It was on July 4, 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was officially adopted. She is still but a wee young thing and perhaps we should remember that when we start to criticize her for what we think she should be doing better.

Compared to England at somewhere between 1,139 and 1300 (depending on if you start when Alfred the Great was first Anglo/Saxon King to style himself “King of England” in 871 AD) almost all of Europe and well don’t even get me started on Africa, the “motherland” for whom if age were any indicator of having it together…

America may not be a baby anymore and she is old enough to have learned some lessons. I think we all agree that Jim Crow, The Macarena, Olestra and leg warmers weren’t our proudest moments. We’ve taught a few too, just ask Hitler (oh you can’t we killed him) Mussolini (nope gone), Saddam Hussein…well you get my point, it sounds like Ronald Reagan saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

We may not be perfect as a nation or as citizens. When I see a homeless vet and then turn on the tv and hear someone quack on and on about bringing home troops, they likely don’t even know, only to ignore their basic needs and those of their family, it makes me ask if we are a nation of citizen fools? Then I remember that youth means sometimes you just don’t know any better, youth is about ideas and you’re loved anyway!

Happy Birthday America Ol Girl! We are another year older and hopefully wiser…

Oh and Lady Liberty, you’ll be happy to know that this year I’m skipping the parties in your honor. I’m in my new home, unpacking with Springsteen born in the USA for company, while I email my man you’ve sent to a foreign land to kill the Taliban! He’s on loan to YOU and I thank you in advance for returning him home!

For better for worse, for richer for poorer…I know who I am and I was BORN IN THE U.S.A!

I have been thinking a lot lately about an old friend. We were actually the best of friends, the closest of friends and over a decade ago we stopped being friends. I blamed her and have spent years justifying my reason for not speaking to her anymore. About a month ago my beloved put a cd on “by chance” and it was her and my favorite cd. He knew her too, we were all friends, and it pained me to talk about her. He encouraged me to reach out to her. He knew it was bothering me. I think he also knew that I needed her back in my life perhaps? Especially now with him away. I have been thinking about the best way to reach out to her. Hand written note, or email. I’m not suggesting we revisit the old stuff, I don’t really care, I just heard she opened a business and I wanted to wish her well.

Reconnecting with an old friend, especially after conflict is hard. It requires a humility I often struggle with. I’m long over what happened. I feel guilty I wasn’t strong enough or wise enough then to fight for our friendship and I have since discovered we had a little help in our demise from another “friend” who was jealous of us. It gets confusing sometimes when you’re not sure, who can be trusted. In those instances I usually just cut people off to self protect, but I end up doing more harm than good to myself. I know we can’t go back and perhaps we can’t go forward, but I’d like to reconnect with her. I’m just not sure how or where to begin.

An apology? Well what for? I have apologized to people for so much that I’m sick of it. I feel like wearing a tee shirt that says, I’m sorry I’m not everything you needed me to be for you right when you needed it. I’m sorry I grew. I didn’t do anything wrong? So apology is out! A light hey how are you? Seems trite. I am now stuck on delivery…what to say? It was easier when I was clear that someone had been wrong. No one was. Although I made myself the wronged person.

Like everything else…execution ( or is it timing?) is everything. I don’t want anything, I am just saying I wish you well and if ever you want to talk here’s my info. Sound to simple? How does one reach out to touch those previously deemed “untouchable”? Or is it best to let sleeping dog lie? Girl Scouts used to have song…make new friends but keep the old…one is silver and the other gold…Should I go for the gold?

Today marks a one month anniversary for me, I have traded in my worries for one big concern. The difference between a worry and a concern? Well I am sure Dr. Ray could explain it better than me in actual terms, but in my mind a worry is like a nat buzzing around your head that you just fight and complain with/to out of habit, sometimes out of fun. A concern is something you have no choice but to accept as a part of your life and it has the power to completely alter how you live in the world. Concern is where perspective and space collide. An example? You may worry about bills, traffic jams, will my kid get into college, will Christmas dinner turn out ok? Concern is Cancer, or in my case today my beloved going to war. Happy Anniversary Honey!

Now little worries me. I’ve given up watching the news completely. I had no idea until last night there was a terrorist attempt in New York last week, or that famed football star Lawrence Taylor allegedly raped a young girl? No fighting, debating or worrying for me over national security or the gross misconduct of an athlete. I thought I would be glued to the TV, watching all the time, but one week before he left I picked up the NY Times and saw where there had been a suicide attack in Afghanistan, 12 killed and it filled me with so much anger, hate, rage and fear that I became obsessive with worry and that’s not a confidence builder. It actually spreads like the flu. I was going to make him sick too…weaken his immune system. So I began shedding worries one by one and not taking on any new ones, they have now been replaced by one big concern. You’d think I’d say his safety…but no, there is nothing I can do about that except pray. It’s me…my attitude constantly. I won’t give him worry warts under any circumstance, so I have to be free of them. There are no free clinics in Islamabad.

Now I focus on no worries. It’s hard. Yesterday, I almost picked up one from my mother, I come from a long line of worry warriors. It’s my inheritance and I think it helped destroy my first marriage, but we’ll still blame him for now because who can tackle that too? My mother was worried about bringing food to a friends funeral, was there enough and could people be vegetarian, and were there enough crackers… yadda yadda…She was “worried” about food for a non family members dead relative. Ironically, two days ago I got an email from my beloved, he needs care packages of food because of where he is he only get’s these horrible meals in a packet. No nutritional value. My worry kicked in overdrive, but then concern swept in and gave me perspective. I said, “honey a box a week, you decide but I’m not going to the post everyday, worried to death about if you have enough food”. That was the hardest thing ever. However, I know enough to know our government isn’t starving their officers to death, I sat back and invented a new serenity prayer for myself and I share it with you now! The idea of his discomfort met my need to fix it and it was almost a disaster. So I prayed….

God grant me the serenity to accept that which is less than ideal, uncomfortable and a crisis and the wisdom to know the difference!

Ahhh Easter Sunday…it used to be the best, as a child it was a day where I knew two things were for sure:

1) I was getting a new outfit, likely with patent leather shoes, matching purse and white gloves

and

2) I was going to spend the evening watching Charleton Heston, Mr. NRA himself, free the Israelites from the enslavement of Egypt, as Moses in the 10 commandments. By the time the bush was on fire I’d usually be well into a pack of peeps, with a chocolate bunny melting beside me. It was tradition…

This Easter Sunday morning I woke up to a stack of tax documents to go through, which also meant combing through my previous life and sorting deductions between me and my ex, whom I’ve not spoken to in months…nothing like the IRS to bring two people who once couldn’t imagine life without the other to speak again over terse text messages.

There were no white gloves and patent leather shoes, instead there was an email saying that my special someones, fire retardant undergarments have shipped just in time as he heads off to war in 7 days…boy was I relieved because reading the front page of the NY Times this morning I realized that neither Moses nor Charleton Heston, is in Afghanistan and the way things are reporting…well I should stop watching the news and the reading the paper immediately or I won’t sleep for the next half year. He and I said our third, ok maybe fourth goodbye last week. He made a “surprise” visit, it wasn’t a chocolate bunny but…

However, I did have my peeps this year and that made it the best…I put down the paper long enough to take a pilates class with my mom and cousin, then sit in the kitchen while my mom made my favorite desserts (I got to lick the batter off the spoon), my cousin who used to love McDonald’s as a kid, has grown seemingly overnight into this amazingly beautiful non-meat eating young woman who has taken up my place at the kitchen sink doing dinner dishes and her boyfriend is fantastic…he also happens to be a shrink (my burning bush perhaps?) and well …the uber-wonderful man that sat on my left is the one that has always been there, before the ex’s and text’s and before the very sight of the newspaper could reduce me to tears.

I may have missed the shoes, outfit, basket of candy and the old hollywood special effects of deadly green mist taking the first born male child of Ramses, but I had a civil exchange with my former, an incredible memory of time spent with who I pray everyday is my future and I had my family…keeping me in the gift of the present!

Happy Easter…

Last night I watched a movie called Amish Grace, the true story of a small town torn apart when a gunman goes into a tiny school, lets the boys go and shoots ten girls, killing five before turning the gun on himself. If you recall the story, you may also recall the entire community immediately set about forgiving the gunman, reaching out to his family, except for one mother. This grieving mother who couldn’t reconcile her daughters brutal murder, refused to forgive and I couldn’t blame her. Somethings are in fact unforgivable…Trust me I know. I have searched for the answers and grappled with the questions of how to forgive, can you forgive, why would you forgive for so long I decided the answer is simply…there is no answer.

Then I watched this story and realized perhaps there is an answer. Before last night the only thing I knew about the Amish is that they make great quilts, serve wonderful pizza at their market on 9th Ave and are likely the only people on the planet who have never heard of the Octo-mom. However, I think they may have mastered the art of forgiveness…and just in time to save a wretch like me.

I’ve been soooo angry at someone for so long, the hatred has just been part of me. It has been like a hungry animal with fangs that eats everything in site. But after I watched the film I started doing some of what they did, like naming all of the good things you can think of and remembering that you can forgive without condoning and you know what, by the end of my own list of good I was laughing and it’s hard to hate someone who makes you laugh. Something I think he (the person I needed to forgive) knew, as he was always playing jokes on me and making me laugh. My anger seemed to lift a bit and something lighter came over me, something that made me miss talking to them, something not brought on by copious amounts of vodka, or a slam session with my friends.

Is it possible that this feeling is forgiveness? I’m Amish sure of it!

It was one of those meltdowns you only expect from a child after a long day and no nap, I felt it coming on and there was nothing to be done. Sitting in the salon getting a pedicure, I remembered the all important thing(s) I forgot to do, the thing(s) that can’t be fixed because it’s 9:00 at night and with a 7:30 flight in the morning…it’s to late.

Immediately someone is to blame and that someone isn’t me, it was the jerk at the…oh yeah…it’s the jerk in the mirror. The tears start to well in my eyes at my own failure and my girlfriend looks over at me and says…have you eaten today…uh No…when did you sleep last…Saturday I think…ok ok but I’M SUPPOSED to be able to do it all and now… it’s to late.

I spend time telling people that they can’t do it, that they shouldn’t try but then I attempt to and get upset when things fall through the cracks. When I don’t return phone calls, or get it all done. My boyfriend told me the other day that if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority…I rolled my eyes. He was right. We make everything a must do…and we send our bodies and minds mixed signals when we say we know what’s important. I got a valuable lesson and a perfect pedicure. Thanks Honey!

I feel lucky to have a boyfriend so full of wisdom and I am now curious to see if he will be happy I received it, when I get off the plane in 17 hours with a few of his things that didn’t make the priority list.

Why Did I Get Married Too? Really? Was it that good the first go around? I saw it and it wasn’t terrible but these Tyler Perry movies are starting to feeling the Halloween’s and Friday the 613th…we know, we know…there is an angry black woman or two, a difficult relationship between black man and black woman, somebody cheats, likely get’s cursed out, because we know how many laughs a black woman cursing out a black man can get, someone the least likely to end up with a partner in the real world finds hope as the hot everyday man chooses her and love is renewed…The End!

Just saved $30 dollars minus the popcorn and soda. Times are tough. AMC is only getting my money if something truly original and noteworthy comes out. I’m guessing Janet Jackson soft talking through her nasal cavity isn’t making the list this time. Maybe a netflicks.

Then again maybe not!

Rarely do I speak on politics, it’s not a topic I care to discuss or debate most of the time. I don’t listen to the “experts” on the news nor do I care what’s one person’s opinion is on if we should or shouldn’t be in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else for that matter. Most of the time I find people blather on and on and on just to hear themselves talk, more attached to their vision of themselves as pseudo-intellegent than anything else. At the end of the day, they go home and continue on with their lives, feeling self-satisfied and righteous. I used to watch silently and dismiss those people now I envy them.

This weekend I was engaged in just such a debate with a father of four at my best friends dinner party. We got into an impassioned debate over the war and our views were about as opposing as leg warmers in a Georgia summer. We sat around the kitchen after a beautiful meal, while the kids ran around and over the most amazing Sangria we discussed—shouted—our views at each other. We enjoyed the greatest of all American luxuries. We were well armed with a mix of facts and viewpoints, historical and contemporary. In the end he shook my hand and said I was “fiery” and he liked that…you know how men patronize women when surprised they have a thought that didn’t originate with them. They call them “fiery” or “opinionated”. As if his respect somehow validated my intellect, I won’t tell you what I called him (under my breath of course, after all I’m a lady).

In the end he went home with his wife and children, kissed them goodnight and felt the night had been “intellectually stimulating”. I tucked into the best guest room on earth, watched my god-child’s father take her to bed and nestled between my best friend and some good friends on the couch to watch a DVR episode of Oprah. I looked at the clock on my iphone.

It was 2:24 am in Kabul, Afghanistan.

I keep the time there so I can get a picture in my mind of what the sky will look like in his day. He got new gear this week, we joked about it. It was one of the few laughs between the tension and fear. I didn’t tell him about the dinner party debate. We didn’t talk political party…we talked birthday party. Dr. Suess themed to be exact. I realized the ultimate luxury is to have an opinion on something you will never really experience daily. The true blessing is to experience and be present to whatever you have an opinion on.

I stopped envying that father.

While visiting my precious god-child for her fourth birthday this weekend, we ran into another mom, her four children and another little girl who was a friend of her daughters, well call her Megan.

All the children were playing by the water and having a great time on the first sunny day in a very long time. After a few hours I found myself talking with the mother who was a lovely woman. As the conversation progressed she shared Megan’s “story” with me.

Megan who is about 8 lost her mother a little over a year ago, her mother and her had been living with her grandparents in another state, following her parents divorce when she was only 2, she had not seen her father since then, nor had she had any contact with him. Right after her mother dies, her father comes and takes her to live with him. The grandparents aren’t allowed to see her and the father often leaves her for long stretches at this woman’s house as their daughters are best friends. The mom said the whole thing is kind of odd, and today on the way to the lake she asked Megan what kinds of things do her and her father do together and she paused for a while, prompting the mom to look in her rear view where she saw her daughter whispering the “right” answers to her. Bowling…Park…all the things her husband does with their kids. The mom asked me if I think that sounds right and I said emphatically no…that she had to look into it, that the father could be abusing Megan…why else would he take her like that? Then I wondered if I could be projecting my own history into this story?

I encouraged her to talk to the Dad, a school counselor someone else and get advice. She is worried that if something is up, the father won’t let the little Megan come over anymore, then she has just lost another safe space. I understood that more than she knew…We exchanged emails and now I can’t stop thinking about Megan. What could be happening to her right now, as I write all of you.

I want to write to tell the mother to DO something but what? Is just accepting our limits and the reality that sometimes we can’t do anything enough? I may never see these people again as I fly home soon, and that mother may not be able to do anything either. I just can’t stop thinking about that little girl…and her name wasn’t Precious.

She was wealthy, white and living in one of the toniest suburbs in the entire town. You know the kind of girl whose pains often get discounted because of the color of her skin money.

There is nothing more poisonous than feeling sorry for self but it is hard to resist sometimes. When things happen in your life that hurt you or cause pain, to not feel bad is unnatural…inhuman right? You get a divorce, a loved one dies, you say goodbye to a friend or a lover…in my case today one in the same who is heading off to Afghanistan in a few weeks.

I want to feel sorry for myself right now…time is to short, the goodbye will be to difficult but I won’t…I will fight the urge. I will fight the urge and I will go and make him an amazing meal! The best I have ever made in my life and I will hope that are time together and my love for him will never be anything either of us feel sorry for!

Quote Of The Day!

SELF-PITY IS AN OPIATE.

The most insidious problem with drugs is that the human body develops a tolerance for them and requires larger and larger doses to achieve the same effect. The same is true with self-pity. The more you allow yourself to indulge in it, the more you will require.Soon, self-pity will become a habit, one so debilitating that you will rob yourself of all the potential you possess. Happily, there is a cure. If you truly analyze the situation, most often you will find that the problems that have driven you to pity yourself are mostly of your own creation. It follows, then, that the best person to remedy the problem is the person who created it: you yourself.

This positive message is brought to you by the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Visit them at http://www.naphill.org.