This is Thirty-Four

This morning, when my alarm went off at 6, I felt like I had just gone to sleep. I got out of bed into a quiet house, and went downstairs to finish packing bags for work and daycare, then I got into the shower and by the time I got out, my 18 month old was wide awake and yelling "mommy" from his crib, and my house was quiet no more. He drank some milk while I got dressed, then I got him dressed, got him his beloved morning Kix, and we were out the door. He insisted on listening to ABCs on repeat in the car all the way to daycare, and threw a serious tantrum when it was time for me to leave. I got some coffee, and made it just in time to catch my train. In the quiet car I started a new book, and read my way into Manhattan.

This, I think, is thirty-four. Being a mom. Having a full-time job. In the thick of family life with an opinionated and fiercely independent toddler, always just a little bit tired, addicted to schedules, and grabbing moments of quiet whenever and wherever I can find them.

Thirty-four is eighteen months into this parenting gig. It is being more confident, and less afraid. It is not being freaked out by fevers anymore, and not running to the phone to call the pediatrician for every little rash or runny nose. It is looking at my toddler with something like disbelief that he could possibly have grown so much and learned so many things in such a short time. It is getting a little thrill every time he says "mommy" because it took him so damn long to learn how to say it. It is toddler babbles turning into actual words and dancing to ring around the rosy in the kitchen and reading Llama, Llama Red Pajama six times in a row.

Thirty-four is trying hard to remember that sometimes the best thing I can do for my little guy is to step back and trust him to be who he is. To stop worrying about whether he is eating or drinking or playing enough, or if he is watching too much TV. To stop comparing him to other kids and counting the hours he sleeps in a day and obsessing over whether he's hitting his milestones on time. It's understanding that for the most part, my job is to give him confidence and love and fun and room to grow, and meals and snacks when he's supposed to have them, and the rest will just take care of itself. It is knowing that this stepping back and letting go happens more often and more dramatically as the years pass, and trying to be here now as much as I can in this brief moment in time when he is small and needs me more than he ever will.

Thirty-four is no longer being shocked at how much a baby changes everything. My friendships, my family, my career, my house, my entire life - all of these things look different when they are covered in a layer of toys, sippy cups, diapers, schedules, and a toddler who suddenly has opinions about everything. It is realizing that trying to act like nothing has changed is exhausting, and that it is absurdly freeing to let go and accept the fact that I'm different than I used to be, that I'll never be exactly the person I was, and that's ok.

Thirty-four is leaning more heavily on my friends - both in person and online - who are also moms for their experience, and for the solidarity, and for feeling less alone on this parenting road. Because what I know that I didn't know before is that even though every kid is different, some parts of being a mom are universal, and no matter how much you think you can do it all, it really does take a village.

But thirty-four is also clinging to my old friends - the ones who knew me when my house was clean for longer than eleven seconds at a time and when I didn't have to schedule nights out around bedtimes and early morning wake-ups. Because for as much as I have changed over the past year and a half, I'm still the same french fry eating, pop-culture junkie, obsessive TV watcher, lover and collector of romance novels that I used to be, and sometimes I need a reminder of that part of me too.

Thirty-four is making a major career change I didn't even know I needed. It is realizing that at this time in my life, I don't need or even really want a high powered job in a fancy office that requires suits and heels and an utterly inflexible schedule. What I need is to do good and fulfilling work with good people, and then go home hug my baby. And I feel so lucky that the right opportunity found me at just the right time, and I am happier in my career than I have ever been. I've been in this long enough to know that the elusive "having it all" doesn't actually exist in real life, but I feel like, at thirty-four, I am as close to it as anyone ever gets to be.

Thirty-four is a lot of wondering. Wondering if I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing. Wondering if I'll ever start feeling like an adult or if maybe this is what an adult feels like. Wondering if I'm being a good enough parent, a good enough partner, a good enough employee, a good enough friend, sister, daughter, woman. Wondering if I'll ever be able to fit properly into my pre-pregnancy jeans or whether I even really care about that. Wondering if there will ever be a time when I have all the laundry simultaneously clean, folded, and put away. Wondering if maybe it's time to start figuring out things like eye cream and anti-aging whatevers and the proper way to apply under-eye concealer. And it's a lot, all of this wondering,

But thirty-four is realizing every night when I put my thriving, happy baby to sleep and sit on the couch with my man in the quiet of my house after a day filled with noise, that I am doing as good a job as I know how to do with all of it, and really, that's the most that any of us can ask of ourselves. And after a difficult year in this country and for the world, and with an uncertain future looming, I understand now more than ever that I have a life that's good. I think that for all of the messiness and the exhaustion and the worry and the details that come with motherhood and with life, thirty-four is kind of a miracle. Because I get to be here with the people I love and who love me and because thirty-four is old enough to know that none of this is a given. None of us know how much time we'll have or how much time the ones we love will have, so I take what I've been given and use it the best way I can. By spending it doing the things I love most, surrounded by my people, with little boy giggles in the background. 

This is Thirty-Two

My birthday was eleven days ago. I turned thirty-two.

It was a Saturday. I woke up to flowers at the bottom of the stairs and walked through a surprise snowfall to a friend's house for lunch. I celebrated at night with my oldest and closest friends with dessert at one of my favorite Upper West Side locales and then with french fries and nachos at a Manhattan Steelers bar, cheering for a Steelers playoff win that, sadly, never happened.

I talked to my parents and to my sisters and my niece and nephew sang to me over Facetime. I got text messages from my cousins, a singing card from my grandma, and a glove/mitten hybrid situation from my best friend that made me wonder why I haven't been wearing mittens instead of gloves this whole time.

It was an ordinary kind of day - and a quiet one - full of friends, family and fun. Just the way I like it. It was also the beginning of a brand new year - a year that will be anything but ordinary. A year that promises change of the most enormous kind. The kind of change that will divide my life forever into before and after. The kind of change that we've been keeping a secret for more than three months. The kind of change it's finally time to share.

This is going to be a really big year.

This is thirty-two.

Thirty-two is going through fourteen months of fertility treatments - of hope and heartbreak and grief that brought me to my knees and almost broke me into pieces - and then finding out I'm pregnant on a random and rainy Thursday night this past October after absolutely zero fertility treatments at all. 

It is knowing without any doubt that things happen when they are meant to happen. That I can try my hardest to control every little thing, but in the end, there's some higher power out there that may have a different idea about the way it's all supposed to go. Thirty-two is a brand new appreciation for the ways that life can surprise. It is witnessing a miracle in my very own life, and knowing in the deepest part of me that this really was the way it was meant to be.

Thirty-two is laying in a darkened room holding David's hand and staring at a monitor while my doctor shows us a real live person that we created all by ourselves and understanding that this is a moment that will be etched in my memory for as long as I live. It is standing just on the brink of enormous and humbling change and feeling a gratitude so huge that it seems almost tangible in its presence. It is trying hard to soak up these days in the "before" when it is still just us, just two people who met and fell in love and got married and somehow made something brand new that is a little bit of each of us, and knowing that there is something extraordinary waiting for us in the "after".

Thirty-two is realizing that the rocky road that got us to this place is a part of my story now. It is an experience I can't forget or wish away and I'm not so sure that I would even if I could. It seems so cliche to say that - like it's what people always say when they go through something terrible and come out the other side - but for better or worse these months have changed me and have taught me what it means to hold on and to let go and to stop planning so hard for what may or may not be. When I told my friend Alisa the news she said to me, "some things can't be planned when they are already written in the stars," and I know now that she is just exactly right.

Thirty-two understands now more than ever the importance of telling our stories. Even - maybe especially - the hard ones. Because the truth is we all have rough paths to walk and by telling our stories, we allow people who have been there before to walk that path with us, and show us the way through. And if thirty-one was about putting my head down and plowing through the tough stuff, thirty-two feels a deep and abiding responsibility to tell the story of the last year; to turn around and hold out my hand and my heart to the women who might be walking this path behind me. To tell them that I've been there now, and that I can show them the way to the other side.

Thirty-two is tough because the past year has toughened me, but I also know that that's not such a bad thing. Because being tough means making sure I get exactly what's important to me, even if what's important is just to skip the laundry for an extra hour outside in the summer, or to have a really good dessert. Because thirty-two understands that life is short and this is the only one we get and you really don't want to be the one looking back on all the times you should have sat in the sun or just eaten the damn cupcake.

Thirty-two is different than all the years that came before it, and not just because of the big changes ahead.

Thirty-two is taking my health seriously. It is having regular check-ups, actually getting myself to the dentist twice a year, never going to bed at night without washing my face, and finally deciding to make strength training a part of my regular routine because everyone says I'll thank myself later, even if I'm a little skeptical. It is also understanding myself enough to know that no matter how healthy my eating habits are, I will never give up french fries, and I will never learn to like kale because it's disgusting, no matter how many people tell me it's the most super of all the superfoods. Whatever that means.

Thirty-two is making my friends and my family a priority. It is tending to those relationships and feeling lucky in the people who populate my life - people who hold my stories and know me all the way through. It is being old enough to understand that the friends I have now are the kind that last lifetimes and knowing how important it is to have people who knew me then and know me now and will know me when. Thirty-two is remembering the friends my parents had when I was growing up and still have today, the ones who raised me just as much as my own parents did, and being a little stunned to realize that we are that age now and we are the ones watching each other's children grow.

Thirty-two is celebrating a lot of babies, but very few weddings. It is having a house and a mortgage and a community with a synagogue where we pay dues and where I might even chair a committee, mostly because they asked and I couldn't say no. Thirty-two is real grown-up stuff. But it is also having a neighborhood full of people who take care of each other and knowing that we were lucky to end up in this place.

Thirty-two is looking back and knowing that there is a lot of life behind me and that some choices really are irrevocable. But it is also realizing that the choices I have made were more right than wrong, understanding that, hopefully, most of my life lies ahead, and believing, as I stand at the beginning of a brand new chapter, that the best is still yet to come.

So, really, thirty-two is a giant privilege. Because just to be here, to live, to be making a family, to have purpose and people to love who love me back? This is what it's all about. These are the things that matter.

This is thirty-two.

Open Boxes: A Book Review

When Christine Organ asked me to review her brand new book, Open Boxes: the gifts of living a full and connected life, I jumped at the chance. I "met" Christine a couple of years ago in the strange and beautiful blogging world to which we both belong, and we connected right away. Her writing about faith, love, family and presence is beautiful and when she reached across the vast ether of this digital world and took my proverbial hand, telling me that it was ok to share, and that my stories were safe with her, we became more than just blogger friends. We became actual friends.

Knowing her, and knowing her writing, I knew that her book was going to be special.

I wasn't disappointed.

Open Boxes is a book of Christine's essays focused on the idea that by opening our eyes to the sacred in our everyday lives, our lives become richer, more connected, and just a little holier than they were before. She writes that by focusing on the small things - words from a stranger, a first snow, laughing until you cry - we can connect with all the different parts of the life we are living and we can paint our world with a more brightly colored brush.

Christine is honest and brave in her writing. She tells stories of love, of parenting, and of the everyday. She tells stories of joy and stories that cast a spotlight on the hardest parts of life - the parts that a lot of us only whisper about under the covers in those quiet and secret moments before sleep. The result of this is the sense that she understands deeply what it means to live - really live - in her days, and how to connect deeply with all the parts of herself and of her world, the good, the bad and all the parts in between. Her optimism is contagious and her words are inspiring.

It is evident on every page that Christine has found the grace in her moments. That she has her eyes wide open to the absolute miracle it is to wake up in the morning every day and to be alive.

And because her eyes are wide open, she makes it easier for us to open our eyes as well.

In her essay An Uphill Battle, Christie writes, "It can be easy to get consumed with the uphill battle, putting our heads down and soldiering on, but sometimes we need to stop and just enjoy the view. Sometimes we need to pause, if only for a moment to catch our breath and marvel at where we've come from, and consider where we are called to go."

The essay comes early in the book, but as I read on, I kept coming back to this passage, to these words which, more than any others, sum up the message of the book. We are all going to have times in our lives that are easy and times that are tough and times where we feel like we are just trying to make it through the day. But the beauty is in noticing all of these moments - the good and bad, small and large - because paying attention to all of this allows us to hold on to the good ones and learn from the tricky ones because for better or worse, these moments make up our lives and shape the people who we become. And it is in this paying attention where we find those wells of hope, faith and resilience that help us to make it through.

Christine's essays are gripping and her voice is gorgeous, making it tempting to gobble up this book in one big bite. But if I could make one suggestion, it would be to read slowly. To settle in and to soak up every word. Because there are great lessons to be learned in these pages, and Christine is a willing and wonderful teacher.

Thank you so much, Christine, for the privilege of reading and reviewing this book. It was an absolute pleasure and I loved every word.

Birthday Weekend

This past Saturday, I turned thirty-two. 

Every year on my birthday, it has become a bit of a tradition to post some thoughts about the day. Some random, some less so. You can see the posts from the last two years here and here. I can promise you that a post about thirty-two is on its way. Not today, but soon.

Thirty-two arrived on a quiet and snowy day. It brought with it a lunch with friends in my neighborhood, calls from my family during which various sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews sang happy birthday, an Upper West Side dessert with my oldest and dearest friends that included ice cream and Nutella crepes, followed closely by incredible french fries at a sports bar with scores of Pittsburghers for the Steelers-Ravens playoff game.

It was, in short, the perfect kind of birthday.

Since my birthday was on a Saturday I couldn't take pictures of the flower-petal trail that led me down the stairs of my house in the morning towards more flowers and a person-sized balloon, or the cake that my friends got for me that followed lunch in the afternoon, but here is a little snippet of Saturday night.

If each year begins as it means to go on, thirty-two is looking great.

15

The two best text message exchanges of all time.

This is why best friends are best friends.

A Wedding, A Toast, and Thirty-One Years of Friendship

On Saturday night, my oldest friend got married.

We have been friends for every minute of our thirty-one years, and this was a big day.

All day on Saturday we sat in a massive suite in a beautiful hotel and we did the things that girls do on the day of a wedding. We donned robes with our initials on them and there was hair and makeup and cocktails and special cake that you can only find in one particular bakery in one particular Pittsburgh neighborhood. And there was laughing and fun and heels and a big white dress and four navy dresses and an aisle to walk down and a big party to go to and a room filled with people who have known me and who have known her for all of our lives.

And somewhere in the middle of that party the DJ called me up to make my speech. 

And this is what I said:

Rachel:

I am sitting cross-legged on the floor looking through old pictures. Turning pages of photo albums, some yellowed with age, the pictures curled at the sides from years and years of handling, and some brand new, the pictures printed and delivered to my house only days ago.

And as it sometimes happens, the past and present seem to collapse together and in that moment I see us both as we were and as we are. As baby girls and as grown women.

And these are the pictures that tell our story.

We’re newborn babies, sitting in strollers in my back-yard, pushed side-by-side by my mom and yours.

We’re two. We are eating popcorn and holding hands and running through Storybook Forest wearing raincoats with the hoods pulled up, mine blue and green, yours pink and purple.

We’re five, and we dragged those itchy yellow lounge chairs into the pool at Parkway like we always did even though the lifeguards got mad. And then the whistle blew for adult swim and we sat on dry chairs, wrapped in towels, eating French fries from the snack bar and I know that yours were probably the only parents there that day because mine never let me eat French fries from the snack bar at Parkway.

We’re nine and sitting on the floor of your room surrounded by magazines while Michael Jackson’s Bad blares from the record player. Your mom yells up the stairs asking us what we want for lunch and Ben tries to get in but you slam the door shut and yell that we’re having girl time and we fall into fits of hysterical laughter and leap up to jump on the bed as Smooth Criminal starts playing.

We’re twelve and we buy dresses together for my bat mitzvah. Mine is a sailor suit and yours is white with red flowers and they come with hats and for some inexplicable reason we think hats are a smashing idea. And the weekend of the big event we sprawl on the floor of my bathroom and we shave our legs together for the first time with pink razors and men’s shaving cream and we make a huge mess because that’s just what you do when you’re twelve and it’s bat mitzvah season.

We’re almost thirteen and we’re sitting cross-legged on your bed and in between us is the brochure for my fancy new school in Florida because that’s where my family is moving at the end of the year. And your mom talks and talks about all the amazing things the school has, like two swimming pools and ceramics classes, because I’m sure that’s what my mom told her to do. But we look at each other and we know it’s really not that amazing at all.

We’re sixteen and I’m back in Pittsburgh for a visit. We get hot chocolate and we meet up with more friends and we go upstreet and walk around like we own the place because we kind of do.

We’re twenty-four and on the very same early morning study schedule for the New York bar exam so we start our days with a 6am g-chat about criminal law, New York practice, our respective early morning trips to Dunkin Donuts, the size of our coffees (large), the kind of donuts we picked (usually with sprinkles), and what we’ll do when it’s all finally over.

We’re twenty-six and we’re New York City girls and our weeks consist of work, e-mails about work, Steeler bars on Sundays, and dinner and Dancing With the Stars on Monday nights at your 50^th Street apartment while we talk about whether people at your office know that you and Brian are dating and when we think David will propose.

We’re twenty-seven and when David does propose late one Thursday night I call and wake you up out of a sound sleep with the news. And seven months later you’re standing next to me when I get married in the very same room where we danced at your bat mitzvah fourteen years before.

We’re twenty-eight and I force you to train for a half-marathon with me and you show how good of a friend you are by not actually killing me when I end up with a stress fracture and you end up having to run the whole thing by yourself.

We’re thirty and we go to Tiffany so you can try on engagement rings and we follow that up with celebratory pizza. And a few weeks later when my phone rings and I see that it’s you I know exactly what you are calling to tell me.

And today.

Today we are thirty-one. Today is thirty-one years, six months, and ten days of friendship. Today starts a new chapter in our story that started way back at a BBYO convention when our moms were twelve. And today, it’s an exquisite privilege to watch my best friend, my forever friend, start a brand new beginning and step into a future of possibility with the one who has filled her life with love.

So here’s to you, and here’s to us. To all the years that are behind us, and to the ones – maybe the very best ones - that still lie ahead.

Back when our moms pushed us in strollers

The Friends We Have Loved and Lost

I remember writing the story of my own friendship break-up. 

It was the end of last summer, and I had just come home from a Jersey Shore vacation with my family. It was on that vacation, and in the two days following, that I realized that my friendship, one I had loved and cherished and depended on since the first week of my freshman year of college, was no more. Even though the evidence of its demise had been piling up for some time, the final realization that what we had was no longer reached up and slapped me on the face so hard that for the first time, I understood what whiplash must feel like.

So I did the thing I do when I'm not sure what else to do. I went to my computer, opened a new post on my blog, and I wrote. As I wrote I discovered wells of grief hidden inside of me that I hadn't been entirely aware of, and I typed words on a keyboard wet with tears I barely realized were falling. And when I was finished, I pressed publish, too drained even to proof-read what I had written. 

Lots of people read that piece. So many, in fact, that it became the second most popular piece I have ever published on my blog. Despite all of that, it would be months before I could go back to read my own words.

So I understand. I understand how much energy it takes, and how painful it is to re-visit the stories of the friends that we loved and lost. To rip open our hearts and to write words about the relationships that once occupied a central place in our lives, but that are no longer.

And that is what makes the anthology My Other Ex: Women's True Stories of Leaving and Losing Friends so remarkable. Edited by Jessica Smock and Stephanie Sprenger, founders of The HerStories Project and editors of The HerStories Project: Women Explore the Joy, Pain and Power of Female Friendship, the book explores the loss of female friendship. 

Thirty-five women have bared their souls to tell their stories of breaking up with a friend that they had once assumed would be in their lives forever, and although each story is different, similar strains run through them all.

The book makes us understand that female friendship is complex and mysterious, and that the wounds left over from the loss of a female friend are long-lasting, painful and deep. Many of the women told stories from long ago, but it is still fresh pain that seeps through their words, as if the friendship had just ended days before. We learn from these stories that female friendship has the power to give us joy, closeness and connection, but also to cause a pain and loss that is unparalleled in the human experience. 

In her incredible essay Going Without Sugar, Cheryl Suchors writes, "I wasn't divorcing, but we have no language for the collapse of a friendship. No civil or legal understanding exists to encircle, protect or declare its existence. No public ceremonies seal the relationship or shore it up when rocks pierce the hull and we have to swim for shore, the sound of wreckage and cold seawater filling our ears."

I kept going back to these words over and over again, unable to get them out of my head. These sentences sum up more than anything the message of the book; that a friendship between women is so much like a romantic relationship - soul deep, involving powerful love, a shared history and a connection that seems unbreakable. But there exists no framework around which we end a friendship; no formal vocabulary to use to declare that someone once so central to our lives no longer occupies the space that only they could fill. So the friendship ends and we feel lonely and adrift and filled with a pain that may dull over time but that never truly goes away.

Maybe the friendships that we lose weren't ever meant to last forever. Some of the essays in the book explore the idea that certain people were meant only for certain seasons of our lives, and some friendships we lose may even come back to us one day, but that doesn't make their loss any easier to navigate. It doesn't make us question ourselves any less, or keep us from wondering if there was anything that we could have done to hold the friendship together, even if we know there was nothing.

But what we can do, and what these brave and talented women have done, is to share our stories. To tell our tales of friendship, love and loss, so that no one has to walk the path of lost friendship alone. 

When you read this book you will see yourself in these pages. I did. Knowing that others have weathered the loss of a cherished friend as I have hasn't taken away all the pain and confusion of my loss, but it has reminded me that I am not the only one who felt the particular brand of sorrow that swims in the wake of a friendship lost, whether you are being left or you are the one doing the leaving.

The wisdom of these thirty-five women and the power of their stories will stick with you long after you have closed the book, and will remind you that even though circumstances may differ, in the crucible that is friendship loss, you are never, ever alone.

Thank you so much, Jessica and Stephanie, for the privilege of reading this book and reviewing it here. I loved every single word.

For Them, I'm Grateful

When I started writing and blogging almost three years ago I thought it going to be a mostly solitary affair. As a lifelong introvert with a passion for writing, I thought that writing was something that one most often does alone, and that was the way I liked it. The idea of toiling away in a semi-lit room with just myself, my thoughts and my computer was appealing to me, and even seemed a little romantic.

Yes, I was writing to be read, but mostly, I was writing for myself. I was writing because writing has always been my favorite form of expression. It has always been the way that I order my thoughts, make sense of the world, and make other people understand me. I have never been very good at talking through what was in my head, but give me a pen or put me in front of a computer, and as if by magic, it all appears on the page or the screen.

So I started blogging. I started writing down all of those thoughts in a place that has become a kind of time capsule. A place where I document my life, the good and the bad. A place I will be able to return to over the years and remember exactly how it was when I moved to the suburbs. When I finished a half marathon and then another one. When really bad things happened in the world. When history was made. When my family grew. And blogging fit me like the proverbial glove.

But blogging is not at all the solitary activity that I once thought it would be.

Because once I started taking it seriously, I found an entire community of people who do what I do. Who write down their thoughts and put them out into the world for anyone and everyone to read. And I become a part of this community. And it became a part of me.

The women I have met since I started blogging are smart, thoughtful and hugely talented, and they opened their arms to me and drew me into their mysterious and wonderful world. They read my writing, and I read theirs. I learned about them and they learned about me.  And they become my friends; friends just as real and true as any I have ever made in my life.

Their friendship has made me think, and has made me happy. And more than anything, it has made me brave. Brave enough to keep sharing pieces of myself. To keep telling my story. Because their friendship has also made me understand that there is a power in telling our stories and in sharing that connection with another person. Because, more often than not, there is someone else out there who has already walked the road we are walking; who can take our hand and show us the way.

These women have shown me the way.

Some of these friendships have stayed online with conversations on blogs, and e-mails, and promises to meet if we ever find ourselves in the same city at the same time. And some of them have jumped from the digital world to the real world, with phone calls and text messages and dinners with long, winding conversations. But all of them are special, and all are important.

And for them, I'm grateful.

On The Passing Of Time

I took this picture on Monday afternoon. 

I had just gotten off the train and instead of turning left to go to my parking lot, I turned right to go pick up my car from the dealership conveniently located right next to the train station where my car was waiting for me after an oil change.

This is a picture I quite like, so I have looked at it a lot since Monday. I guess it must have been cloudy for most of the day in White Plains, but just as the sun started to set the clouds started to burn away and for a few minutes the sky looked like this. It was breathtaking, and the picture doesn't nearly do it justice.

But this post isn't about a beautiful sunset dotted with storm clouds. Not really, anyway. 

It's about time.

Because the first thing I thought after taking the picture was that for the first time since we turned the clocks forward in March, the sun was starting to set before my regular train pulled into the station. For the first time in six months, I needed my headlights to drive home. For the first time since spring, the air is chilly when I leave my house in the morning and on my way home, and a few enterprising leaves have already started their turn towards the wild colors that mark the changing of the season.

School buses are driving the streets of my neighborhood again and pumpkin donuts are back. I just got a coupon in the mail for 99 cent apple cider and the candy aisle of my grocery store has taken on a distinctive orange and yellow hue. And probably most glaringly, two weeks from tonight I will be sitting around the dinner table with my family in Pittsburgh to celebrate Rosh Hashanah.

And despite all that, it kind of still feels like summer just started. Like two minutes ago we were driving with the top down, headed to Washington for our Memorial Day celebrations.

Time is a funny thing.

Because way back in April, time seemed to stop. The days felt like years - every moment an eternity -  and I thought that maybe I was destined to live in April for the rest of my life. But I wasn't, of course. Because time moves on, and time heals, and April became May and as the world came back alive after a frigid winter and a spring too cold for all of winter's ice to melt, so did I.

And summer started with its sweaty days and balmy nights and I felt better than I had in months, and I had summer to thank for that. And even though summer seemed to fly, I tried to be present in my moments and in my days. To make memories of the season that brought me back to life; that made me laugh and smile and appreciate the place where I was, where I live my life and the people I have chosen to live it with. And I was. And I did. 

But time marches on.

So here we are. Moving into the season where the world turns golden brown, the air is spicy, football is back, and jackets are necessary, even though it feels like summer just started yesterday. But today, I feel ok about that. Because for the first time in a long time, I am happy and healthy and focused on what is happening right now; not what I want to happen or wish would happen or what might happen at some point in the future, but right now.

Like a picture of storm-clouds on sunset.

So the sun can set as early as it wants and I'll even open my coat closet for the first time in months. I'll wear a sweatshirt when I sit outside, and switch my Saturday morning coffee from iced to hot. I'll pull out my long-sleeved running shirts and watch as my gardener switches from lawn mower to rake.

And these things are ok. These things are good.

Because this is where I am right now. And these are the moments that matter.

My Writing Process: A Blog Hop

Last week I was asked by the lovely and hugely talented Christine Organ to do a blog hop with her. The rules were pretty simple. Answer some questions and write a little bit about my writing process, and what I'm working on right now.

I have gotten to know Christine over the past couple of years in this strange and beautiful blogging world, and I knew right from the start that she was a kindred spirit. Her writing about faith and family, and about keeping our eyes open to the world around us, is gorgeous and is some of my very favorite on the internet. We have shared stories of life, love and tradition, and when I was going through some tough stuff this past spring, she recognized it and over a few days we exchanged a series of e-mails that went a long way towards healing my soul.

There is an incredible magic in meeting someone you connect with so quickly. Someone who understands you and your experiences and who can say "me too" when you tell your secrets; those things that you may not be able to write about yet but that you desperately need to share. Someone who reaches across the vast ether of this digital world and who takes your proverbial hand and tells you that it is ok to share. That your secrets are safe with her.

So thank you, Christine, for your friendship, and for inviting me to be a part of this blog hope.

Here we go...

1. What Am I Working On/Writing?

It has been an interesting few months in my writing world, mostly because it has been an interesting few months in my life. I have a drafts folder littered with sentences, half-formed thoughts, and pieces of blog posts that I am not quite ready to share yet, but hopefully will be one day. Going back and looking over it all a few months removed from some pretty big events has been eye-opening for me, and I hope to put it all into some coherent pieces. I really believe that there is a hugely important lesson for me to learn from this little slice of my life, and I know that the past few months are ones I definitely will not want to forget, even if I am not quite ready to remember them in living color just yet.

The other pretty exciting thing going on is that I recently started writing some pieces for a blog called The Times of Israel. I was a little hesitant at first about sharing my thoughts and feelings on Israel, and my fervent belief in its existence as the Jewish state, but once I started writing, the result was two pieces of which I am incredibly proud. I am in the middle of working on a third that I hope to have finished by the end of the week.

Lastly, I just started working on a complete re-design of my blog. It might take awhile, but I started the process and am really excited to see where it ends up.

2. How Does My Work/Writing Differ From Others of Its Genre?

This is a funny question for me, because I am not so sure that my writing falls into any particular genre. I have written about everything from my love of TV and romance novels, home and family, and friendship and tradition to politics, gun control and current events.

In a way, I see this blog as a collection of memories. A place where I put things that I don't want to forget, and a place where I process things while they are happening to help me sort out and understand the things that sometimes seem so complex and inexplicable.

It's a mixed writing bag, this blog, but that kind of describes me too. I have a lot of pockets and interests, and I think my blog reflects that. I have been at it for almost three years now, and I can say absolutely that I have created something here that I am immensely proud of, and something that I hope to stick with for a long, long time. It will evolve and change as I do, and I am thrilled with that.

3. Why Do I Do What I Do?

I started this blog on a whim one gloomy Friday afternoon when I didn't have anything else to do. What it has become is something I couldn't even have dreamed of. Writing has allowed me to see myself and the world in a very different and satisfying light, and processing my life in words has made that life richer and more meaningful than I ever could have imagined.

I think that is the core reason I do what I do. Because writing - and sharing what I write - satisfies a part of me I didn't know existed. Putting my words and myself out there for others to see and to read is akin to inviting people into my life, to stay awhile. There is a potent magic in sharing stories; in saying "this is me," unapologetically and in connecting with people through writing words.

And through those words, I have met people who I am lucky to call my friends. Some of them I have met in person and some I haven't, but that doesn't make the friendships any less real and true. I have found myself a writing community - a blogging tribe if you will - and it keeps me coming back, each and every day.

4. How Does My Writing Process Work?

I'm not sure I have a real "writing process." Ideas for stories and things to write come to me all the time, usually when I'm in the shower or on a run. I usually open up an e-mail and send myself some half-formed thoughts and sentences, and then when I'm in front of my computer I pull those thoughts and sentences together into a cohesive piece.

I generally need a whole morning and part of the afternoon to write a blog post. I start early in the morning, and come back to it multiple times through the day until it's ready to be published. Small bursts of writing with breaks for other things, like my actual job, work best for me.

There are times, of course, when entire pieces just tumble out of me in no time at all. This piece was one of those. So was this one, this one, this one and this one. But more often than not I need a little time to get my thoughts in the right order and to get the words to cooperate.

A Friendship Forged In Big Law

2011. September. Monday.

I had been working in Big Law for a month, in an office on the 26th floor of a midtown Manhattan high-rise. Since my first day that office was mine alone, but that was about the change. Because this was the day I would be getting an office-mate. 

The "office-mate" is an interesting Big Law phenomenon. The firm takes an office that really is meant for one person and shoves in a second desk and chair and some extra shelves, and asks two virtual strangers to share the space for an indeterminate amount of time while working ridiculous hours under unbelievably stressful deadlines. The office-mate stories rival freshman year of college roommate stories in that the pairings are rarely just ok, but are generally either a complete match made in heaven or an absolute horror show.

I didn't know who she was, but I knew her name because a couple of days before someone from maintenance had come around and added it to the little sign outside the door. And I knew when she was arriving because I was told to move all of the files that I had been storing for the past few months on the empty desk that would be hers.

And then she was there.

Sometimes you meet someone, and just click. You know what I mean. It's like you have been friends forever even though you have only known each other for approximately 45 seconds. It was like that for us. Within a couple weeks we knew all about each other's families and about each other's lives. She became one of my most loyal blog readers. We had endless things in common. We told secrets we hadn't told anyone else, save for our significant others. We shared. A lot.

I was there when she got engaged and she was there when I got the call that my sister had a baby, making me an aunt for the first time. I danced at her wedding and she came to my house for Jewish holiday meals. We helped each other with some tough stuff and I'm not sure I would have made it to the other side without her there to see me through.

We don't share an office anymore, both of us having moved up and into our own, but we're the same as we always were. Not work friends. Real friends. Our friendship may have been forged in the crucible of Big Law, but it will no doubt last long after we have taken our leave of these high powered halls.

And today. Today a bunch of us got together to celebrate this amazing girl and incredible friend and send her off in style as she heads out on maternity leave.

Thanks for everything, A, we'll miss you on the home front. Wishing you months of happiness, love and excitement, and a beautiful and miraculous baby.

Israel Day Parade 2014

Forever Friends

I spent the day yesterday in a room filled with women. Some I knew, some I had never met before, and a very special few I have known for years. 31 years, to be exact.

It was my best friend's bridal shower for her wedding this coming fall. 

And after brunch was finished, presents opened, and amazing cupcakes devoured I went home. And when I got there I posted something on Facebook. I uploaded a picture from the day and I wrote:

"I'm realizing, over and over again, what a special thing it is to have people who have known you, and loved you, your entire life."

I am lucky to have incredible friends. Friends I met in college and in law school and on the various rest stops in my journey over the past years. Dear friends who have melded seamlessly into my life and who have become my family. And I know, without a doubt, that they are my forever friends.

And as I looked around the room yesterday I realized for what feels like the millionth time lately how lucky I am to have lifelong friends as well. Friends who have known me for all of my days. Who grew up with me and with my family. Who know my history and who share it with me. Who are part of my present and who will be there for my future.

And yesterday. Yesterday we got together to celebrate one of those friends. The sun was out, the air was warm, and the sky was a cloudless blue. And inside, in a room decorated with the colors of spring, we celebrated another milestone in our life's journey. Made another memory. And added to the history that we share together. And will share forever.

Now we look like this

But once upon a time we looked like this.

And this.

And this.

And unfortunately, this.

Pittsburgh Girls

Happy Birthday Rach!

How is it possible that these girls:

Became these girls:

31 years later?

Happy 31st birthday Rach!

Throwback Thursday

Best friends.

First year in NYC.

Drinks at the W.

Because we thought we were just that cool.

College Friends. Forever Friends.

I remember it clearly.

First night of college. Common room. 40 girls sitting around, making small talk, and trying to pretend like everything about the night wasn't weird, awkward, and different. I sat towards the back of the room, observing the mayhem, and trying to figure out where my place would be among these strangers.

It happened practically without me even realizing it. Some of the girls sitting in that room, and some who had been sitting in other common rooms on other floors on that very same night, became my friends. And, over time, they became my family. The women who know my stories and who know me all the way through in a way that few people do.

Last Saturday night I drove into Manhattan to celebrate my thirty-first birthday with those women, the twelfth birthday of mine that we have all celebrated together. And as I sat around the table in a darkened restaurant all I could think about was how lucky I am to have them, and how grateful I am for the miraculous twist of fate that brought us together.

Today I am guest posting on The HerStories Blog, talking about college friends, forever friends, and the path that we all walk together. Head on over there and read my story, and check out some of the other great pieces on their website about female friendship in all its forms.

One Weekend: A Blizzard, A Birthday And A Snow Day

Sometimes the universe conspires to bring you exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.

This past weekend was proof of that.

All day on New Years Day I watched news of a big snowstorm that was headed for the Northeast and supposed to hit sometime between Thursday and Friday morning. No one was quite sure yet how much snow we would get; forecasters were predicting anywhere from nothing to over a foot. But by the time I went to sleep on Wednesday night, it was clear that we would be on the high end of that prediction. 

Since moving to the suburbs where I rely on a car to get around and park that car in a driveway, getting around in the snow is a little trickier than it was when I was living in the city. And I knew that if we got a foot of snow I wouldn't be able to move the car, the trains would be running on a weird schedule, if at all, and I would probably have to stay home on Friday instead of making the trek to Manhattan for work.

And I was kind of hoping that would happen. Because I love snow days as much as I did when I was ten years old and school closed down, and also because Friday was my birthday. And a birthday snow day would be the best present of all.

It was 7:00 Thursday night when the snow started to fall. And it fell, without stopping, for thirteen hours straight. And I was the person running around outside in boots and a sweatshirt capturing the scene as the snow piled up in my neighborhood.

8:00 pm: The Snow Begins

8:00 pm

8:00 pm

8:00 pm

Good thing we turned totally suburban and got ourselves a snow blower
before the storm hit

11:45 pm: Wind Kicks Up, Snow Still Falls

11:45 pm

11:45 pm

I set my alarm for 6:00 Friday morning, because if it turned out that the snow hadn't been as bad as they forecasted, and it turned out that I had to go into work, I figured I would need some time to clear off my car and get myself to the train station.

But that wasn't at all necessary. Because when I opened my front and back doors, this is what I found:

6:15am: A Foot Of Snow, It's Still Falling, And I'm Outside
Documenting It In My Pajamas

6:15am: A Sea Of White. Not a Plow In Sight. I'm As Excited As
I Was When I was 10 And School Was Cancelled

We were snowed in. And all of a sudden, I was a little kid again.

While I waited for David to wake up I did a little work, made snow day chicken soup, and answered my phone as birthday calls came in from all over the place.

Chicken Soup On The Stove For A Snowy Birthday

And when David finally woke up, we went outside to play.

The Best Homeowner In The World: Super Excited To Use
His New Toy

And To Toss Me Into The Snow As A Birthday Present

Snowy Selfie

 It was the best birthday ever.

Birthday Flowers From Great Friends

A little more snow clearing on Saturday night, and then we were off to the city for a birthday dinner and dessert at some of my favorite places.

Saturday Night: Handling The Rest Of The Driveway
Note The Glowing Red Light Of His Heated Jacket

Manhattan Birthday Dinner

And Dessert

My Nearest And Dearest

Cutest Dessert Restaurant Ever

College Girls

The snow stuck around all weekend, and I spent Sunday morning running through it as freezing rain fell from the sky.

Sunday Morning: A Snow Covered Running Path

Post Sunday Run: Rain and Sleet Edition

A blizzard, a birthday and a snow day.

A great, great weekend.