The old adage is that when life deals you lemons, you’re supposed to make lemonade. Truthfully, I can’t complain deeply. I have an amazing daughter, a job I really love, a warm and cozy house, and some wonderful friends that surround me.

I posted professionally about the “drop” that happens after gallavanting around the country at events, showcasing that “shining personality” and doing my best to be on, and happy, and connected. On the one hand, I’m so very lucky to be *able* to do what I do. But it’s a strange feeling to have a huge community surrounding you and have moments when you feel like you’re alone in the world.

But rather than throw a pity party, a good friend encouraged me to instead write about what makes me feel better in moments like this. So I’m taking him up on that challenge.

Incidental Contact

I’m the kind of person that really feels good when someone reaches out, even in a tiny little way just to let me know that they’re out there. I relish those text messages or Twitter DMs or email notes that are just letting me know someone’s thinking of me. I send lots of them, too. Because I know sometimes how that little reassurance can go a long way to making someone feel calm and more secure.

Reading

I’m a big book nerd. I read mostly historical fiction, suspense and mystery-type stuff as well as business books on my field of work. I read fast, too, and usually several books at a time. Books are my immersion into somewhere else, and often are the ticket to getting my brain out of whatever funk it’s in.

The best reading setup for me is curled in bed, with the window cracked to let in the breeze, my duvet (a splurge purchase) and a cup of hibiscus tea. I rarely make it past three pages before drifting if I’ve done things well.

My Mom.

What else is there to say about that? Sometimes you just freaking need your mom.

Music Indulgence

I am a confessed music junkie. I’ve spent obscene amounts of money on iTunes, Amazon mp3s and even good old fashioned CDs. I have dozens of gigabytes of music and I haven’t even ripped my classical collection. It’s that bad.

So while some people’s idea of retail therapy is a new pair of shoes, mine is a trip into the iTunes store and mining the music that matches or indulges my mood. When I’m sad or lonely, I tend toward harsh music to snap me out of my funk (I’m a bit of a metal head. Some of you that will shock. Some of you not so much.). I was a music major in college, so immersing - drowning - myself in music is second nature to me when words and other trappings of humanity fail me. It’s the expression I don’t have to express. I just find what taps a nerve and go.

My Daughter

(Hallmark moment warning). There’s few things more powerful than having your two-year-old daughter patter up to you and ask “Are you okay Mommy?” Talk about a signal that you need to get your shit together and snap out of it.

As a result, I’ve discovered that Play-Doh, getting soaking wet with the garden hose, sidewalk chalk and digging for worms in the garden can be remarkably cathartic, and really put a whole bunch of things in sharp perspective.

Go-To Movies

I was never the person that went to the movies terribly much, and as much as I love it, I still don’t get to go as often as I’d like. But I have an arsenal of killer go-to movies that I keep on DVD for these kinds of occasions.

Some favorites: Top Gun, the original Star Wars trilogy, The Muppet Movie, The Usual Suspects, Goodfellas or Casino, Fight Club, The Matrix, anything Monty Python (follow the shoe), crazy PBS Agatha Christie series’ like Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot (I know, WTF right?), Batman Begins or Dark Knight, Iron Man (comic nerd colors coming out), Blade Runner, Dumb and Dumber, Pulp Fiction, the original Day The Earth Stood Still. The list goes on…

Helping Someone Else

This might seem a strange one to some, but those of you who get it will totally understand.

Sometimes, the very best thing to do when you’re feeling rotten is to make someone else feel good. Help them, send a note that you’re thinking of them, say or do something kind and unexpected. For instance, I’m a spontaneous gift-giver. I love finding presents for people that reflect jokes we share or experiences they’ve had. Making someone else delighted is one of the best ways to remind myself that there’s a whole lot going on outside my little world.

So then. After writing this post, I already feel a little lighter, and I have a few ideas about people I can reach out to and help.

What about you?

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It comes as a surprise for many people when I tell them that I am only now coming into my own. My own me. My own something, that doesn’t have a qualifier - someone’s partner, employee, friend. I’m just…me.

It’s an interesting and scary experience sometimes, because when you’re often defined by how you enhance someone or something else, you tend to get lost in the shuffle.

But I’m learning that my soul, my person, is mine to sow. It’s mine to color with the things that make me, well, ME. The things that aren’t part of someone else but that rather are definitively Amber, for better or for worse.

I’ve had my moments like everyone else, wondering if I was a brilliant enough light to shine on my own. Wondering and hoping that I had something of value enough that a person knowing me only for me would find me and know that I enriched them somehow, at some place in their journey.

But I find spots every day. And they’re not always huge, not always transformational. But I’m learning things about the very fabric of me that are turning even my deepest-seated ideas on their heads. I’m not even who *I* thought I was. Perhaps that’s the way it’s supposed to evolve, after all.

I still, however, catch myself staring a bit wide-eyed at myself, asking me if I know exactly what I’m doing or where I’m headed or just what I’m in for.

I don’t. I have no idea. But that’s the fun. Or the adventure, anyway.

I’m seeding my own garden, now, and it’s different and more diverse than it’s ever been. I don’t know who I’ll be tomorrow. I know that there’s something churning just beneath the surface, a part of me that’s borne of some heartache coupled with reality checks, and a good dose of acceptance and peace. It’s not about how I help define others anymore, but rather how I can lift up the world around me while finding my own definitive spot upon which to settle.

Instead of following footprints, I’m determined to sink my own, gently into the wet and giving sand and let the tide tell whose follow next, and when.

Photo credit: randysonofrobert

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The bridges are different than they’ve ever been.

Tonight, when I needed an ear - just a friendly contact with another human I liked - I reached out to someone I’ve yet to meet. Because his face was friendly and familiar, and he’s become comfortable to me.

I think that’s an increasingly common phenonmenon, and for those of us that spend a good deal of time online, more prevalent than ever. The definition of “stranger” has totally changed.

It used to be that a stranger was someone you’d never met. But that just doesn’t suffice anymore, does it? Perhaps the better questions is asking what “meet” means today. I’ve had thousands of conversations across the web, phone, video, email, instant message…and yet, many of these people feel more in tune with me - with my person - than people I’ve “known” my whole life.

We were once confined by our geography and the range of our travels to find the people that made up the fabric of our relationships. We met people through sweeping commonalities - school, work, neighborhood, mutual friends - and it was chance to connect with someone who shared (I mean really shared) anything about who we were.

If you were anything like me, you often wondered if there was anyone who shared anything like who you were.

But I’m not a slave to my physical space anymore. I still very much cherish live human contact. There is no replacement for that to me, not ever. But there is instead a new presence of people, somewhere between “I know you” and “I’ve met you” that really, truly matters. That makes it okay to reach out to someone when you’ve not yet shared a room with them, if only because you know that through all that aether, they might just not be a stranger after all.

Photo by antkriz on Flickr

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The world must sound different to me than it does to most. I don’t notice it, mostly because I’ve never much known it any different. But every once in a while, I’m reminded that I hear things just a little bit differently.

I’ve had ear afflictions ever since I was a little kid, all the way through early college. All those issues combined with the operations to correct them have left me very hard of hearing in my right ear. It’s not really something I talk about, mostly because I’m self conscious about it and don’t like to think anything is “wrong” with me. And in most cases, no one notices a thing.

But there are moments when I’m reminded that my world sounds a little different.

Sometimes it’s quite embarrassing. I was in a taxi cab with a good friend last week, who gently pointed out that I was nearly shouting at him in a very confined space. I’m sure I must do that often, and more often than friends point out. Each time, it’s humiliating.

If I speak at what’s probably a normal volume for everyone else, I have a hard time hearing myself. Which means I talk louder to compensate, and I don’t realize that I’m speaking far beyond the level that *others* need to hear me. I’m sure there’s been a time or two where I’ve been chalked up to being overly enthusiastic or annoying, all because I was inadvertently hollering so that the silence in my head wasn’t quite so deafening. (Ugh, the thought of being “that girl” just kills me.)

Dinner parties are sometimes my worst nightmare. Being seated on the end of a table is often complicated, especially if my right side is pointed toward the bulk of the crowd. I find myself smiling and nodding at collective conversation, hoping that I can pick up enough snippets along the way to be a knowledgable participant. Around me, always, is a kind of white noise.

The hardest part is that I’m often far more interested in the conversation than I’m capable of demonstrating, and I never quite feel like I’ve been as engaged as I’d like to be.

Conversations on my cell phone are hard, too, if I’m anywhere there’s background noise. In a car, in a store. I’m mortified every time I have to ask the person on the other end of the phone to repeat themselves. I want to shout sometimes “I SWEAR I’M PAYING ATTENTION!!”. But that would just require even more explanation.

Cocktail parties, hanging out in a music-filled bar, even work meetings with several people talking at once…all moments where I’m convinced someone is going to look at me and see the panic on my face. They’ll see that I’m trying desperately to distill one piece of coherent conversation from the whole, hoping that no one will notice that participating for me is a little bit harder than for everyone else.

[Let me digress for just a moment and say aloud that I am absolutely aware that my minor hearing difficulties are nothing compared to those with complete hearing loss or any number of other challenges. Knowing how I feel, I can only imagine what they must overcome.]

I’m social and outgoing most of the time, and I really enjoy meeting people. So it’s frustrating as all hell to me that these issues sometimes make that more difficult than I’d like. They certainly make me more self conscious.

So if we meet someday soon, please forgive me if I’m talking a bit too loudly, or leaning in a little close, or asking you to repeat yourself. I promise - I really promise - that I’m just glad to be there, talking to you. And even from within the white noise, I’m truly paying attention.

Photo credit: benleto

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Sometimes, the impossibly hard thing to do is to let go.

I’m terrible at it, actually. I am relentless about most things I do. Tenacious on good days, stubborn and bullheaded on others.

The hardest lesson I’m learning today is that some problems just don’t have a solution. Not everything works as you planned, and it’s impossible to plan for that. And when you’ve tried to fit every piece of the puzzle into the space but it just won’t go, it’s time to set it aside and let it go.

Letting go for me has often been a sign to myself that I failed. That I just wasn’t smart enough or patient enough or clever enough to figure it out. And if I let go, it was the same as giving up. The same as throwing my hands up in the air and claiming that I was too tired or lazy or inconvienenced to really *look* for the solution.

But I know now that there is a vast difference between not trying at all, and giving yourself the permission and peace to know when you gave it the best try you had. When you’ve done the latter, you can look at yourself in the mirror - tearfully, maybe - and accept that letting go *is* the answer.

I’m letting go today. It hurts. It makes me sad. It’s difficult to admit that I’ve tried all the answers I had and still come up short.

But I’m hopeful. Hopeful that I can now find some balance, some peace of mind, and a new path that’s meant for me.

Photo Credit: Mayr

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So this morning I asked everyone on Twitter - especially the social media herd - to tell me their goals that had nothing to do with social media. (I feel like a lot of us are doing too much social media weed smoking lately, so I wanted to hear something different).  I couldn’t possibly keep replying in Twitter without annoying the crap out of people, so instead, I’m sharing everyone’s goals here, in their words.

@mchamberlin: Get my handicap back down into single digits. Too much work and not enough golf makes Matt a dull boy.

@ColleenLane: How about sitting down and having a face to face cup o joe with someone?

@hdbbstephen: One of my goals is to get down to 205 pounds - maybe a little less.

@michsineath: I’d like to go camping for the first time and have *that* experience.

@SuzeMuse: Sing and play guitar (one of my own songs) at an open stage this year.

@ulumarketing: I ran my first 5K last year and want to do a half marathon this year.

@timjahn: To bike ride every day once the weather permits.

@houstonmacbro: I will be biking more for fun, pleasure, and health and plan to enter into a couple of rides.

@sbradley3: My 2009 goal is to work just a little less and spend more time with my 4 awesome daughters.

@YaelBeeri: Learn to play the piano.

@stuartcfoster: Run a lot. Like a digusting amount.

@bravegirl: Mine is to remodel my SF studio and win the small spaces competition!

@MarcWhitchurch: I have 2. Take my wife down south, and renovate the kitchen.

@christammiller: Lose the 10 lbs (at least) that have been sitting on me since my 2 yo’s birth. Be easier now with hubster home so I can exercise!

@chrisgarrett: I just did; one of my non-social media dream goals is to have a sea view property  in North Vancouver.

@fayza: I plan on running a half-marathon in April and a full marathon in September.

@PR_Persson: My goal is to spend time with friends who matter.

@tammyRhoman: I have to be more organized (my desk is horrid) and to learn how to wakeboard this summer.

@MackCollier: Want to be in a position by fall to do some non-work traveling & have time to do some pro-bono work probably for charity.

@williamu: Alpine backpack another 14er in California (as in “summit”)

@socialgumbo: To cook a sitdown dinner for my wife at least once a week.

@MattJMcD: Looking to travel a little bit and take some time to do more cooking (really like it)

@misskatiemo: run a 5K, move to NYC and leave the country again, probably Mexico. Oh, and re-take the GMAT

@DaveBenjamin: Follow thru w/ taking stand up comedy lessons. Always been fascinated, tested out on friends- have 2 take 2 next level 4 fun

@StevenMatsumoto: My goal is to be able to provide 250 full ride scholarships a year to my old business school.

@bbuset: spend at least 1/2hr per day listening to Italian podcasts/radio/dialogue (trying to pick up a new language)

@PatMcGrew: Grow professionally, enhance family relationships, see a friend achieve her PhD

@dbcotton: Already done the 10k and 1/2 marathon thing so running a full marathon is on my new year’s resolutions list for ‘09.

@TheMogulMom: I plan 2 repaint every room in my house & buy a new camera so I can take photos of woodland critters, my 3 kiddos & The Dude.

@alissaru: One of my goals is to try out trapeze or another form of aerial dance. I’m looking forward to trying to fly!

@drewmaniac: Like the rest of the sheep-like, out of shape world - work out more/eat less. And, develop my photo-biz considerably more.

@timnekritz: Better work-life balance. I can only keep 40 vaca days, yet ended year with 46. The world won’t end if I take time off.

@brandmarken: non-social media goal: to be someone’s favorite person. Hopefully my kids’ or wife’s for that matter.

@yvonh: Nice idea ! Mine is to study MagentoCommerce and the Zend Framework. Let us know about your goals too.

@longbow1221: Cook out using dutch ovens more often is a goal I have for 2009.

Find someone above with similar aspirations? Why not connect with them on Twitter? And if you missed the goal-sharing fun, add yours in the comments along with your Twitter handle. Can’t wait to check back in with you guys in a few months and see how you’re progressing with your hopes and dreams.

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I’m not a big fan of looking backwards, usually. There’s nothing you can do to change the past, so dwelling on it serves little purpose in my mind. Learning from it? Well, that’s something.

This year has taught me so very much. About me. About my friends. About my family. And about life in general. The lessons have sometimes come in powerful face slaps that sent me reeling for days or weeks on end. Sometimes they’ve snuck up on me, quietly, like Batman does on his villains. And I imagine still others have yet to register yet.

I took possibly one of the biggest risks I could have this year by walking away from a job that wasn’t making me happy to explore and find what would. My daughter was just a year old, and I had three months’ worth of income in the bank and a relatively solid idea of what I was good at. That was it. I started Altitude because I believed in what I was capable of doing. I still do. And the people around me have supported me, encouraged me, and unwaveringly cheered me on all the way.

So what I have I learned?

• Nothing is impossible.
• Believing in yourself is paramount, because absolutely no one else can adequately do it for you.
• True friends are worth everything, and they show themselves in the moments when you need them most. Treasure them.
• Hard work really does pay off. Not always right away, but it does.
• There are few absolutes in the world, save the love you have for your child.
• I am far stronger than I ever gave myself credit for.

Those of you reading here have likely landed because we’ve met somewhere along the way - either online or off. And I have to tell you that *you* are what keeps me coming back to this every day. Working insanely long days and waking up in the middle of the night to scribble down a fleeting idea. Because walking away from the corporate world was, in large part, a commitment to something bigger than me, part of which manifests in sharing this personal blog. I don’t want to do it on my own. I want you along with me. What fun is an adventure if you can’t share it?

Thank you for being here. Thanks for your friendship, your humor, your encouragement and your conversation. 2008 has been a pivotal year for me, and I can’t wait to charge into 2009 with all of you by my side.

Cheers, and Happy New Year to all of you.

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Ruthie is my grandmother. She turned 86 last week. And she’s amazing.

My family is a small one. Both parents are only children, so there have never been dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles roaming around. Our holiday gatherings are intimate and cozy, with copious food and drink and lots of stories to tell. Gramma has always been the matriarch, but not in the way you might imagine. She’s not prone to doling out unsolicited advice or brandishing her years of experience like a blunt weapon. Rather, she’s been the voice of humor and levity and has a quiet wisdom that always has captivated me.

When I was young, we lived down the street from Gramma and Grampa, which I thought made me the luckiest kid on earth. My younger brother and I spent summer days picking mulberries from the back tree and tramping our purple feet through Grampa’s woodshop and eventually onto Gramma’s carpet. (She never complained.) For some reason, boiled hot dogs and carrot sticks always tasted better sitting at Gramma’s table, where Eric and I fought over who got to sit in the red stool that Grampa made.

Gramma was always ready to play a game of Memory (my personal favorite) or dig out pads of paper and crayons. She never minded when I stole into her TV table drawers and borrowed the pencils that came free with proofs of purchase from Jay’s potato chips. They wrote better than all the others.

As a child, she was always the epitome of happiness to me. I never remember her upset, or angry, or even much sad. She never seemed to grow tired of my brother and me (and certainly not as tired as we often grew of each other). Life at Gramma’s house was the way it was supposed to be - full of warmth and too many sweet things, and loads of love.

It was only as a young adult that I started learning more about Ruthie herself.

Those summers in middle school, it never occurred to me to notice that Grampa had a cocktail by his side, even when I’d visit in the morning. Looking back, I’m still hard pressed to find the signs of his drunkenness, though I suppose if I thought really hard I could dig up a moment or two when Gramma steered me clear of him later in the day. He always had time for me and was ever gentle and kind, but Gramma must have artfully distracted me when it was necessary. It’s probably to her credit that I never noticed much of the ugly side of his drinking. And I certainly never knew of the nights she spent worrying, willing the car pulling into the driveway to be that of a taxi service and not the police. (This after she spent the early years of her marriage wondering if he’d come home from the war at all).

Grampa died when I was 13. The drinking didn’t kill him, but cancer eventually did. She survived that, too.

When I was young, I never thought anything much of the fact that Gramma didn’t drive, either. I didn’t know or understand the depth of her battles with agorophobia, or how much it took for her to overcome her petrifying fear of being out in public. She stopped driving in her 20s after a violent panic attack nearly caused her to crash horribly. But she managed to deal with her illness, even through the decades where doctors didn’t know enough about the disease to diagnose it (instead blaming it on outrageous things like PMS or hormone imbalances). I never knew what a journey it was for her to arrive at today, dealing with lifetime medication that helps her do simple things like shop, or socialize, without terrible effort.

Her sunny disposition belies so much of what she’s been through. Her transportation of choice today is a hot pink mountain bike that she bought at WalMart, complete with tacky plastic basket lashed to the handlebars. Yes, she rides it, and she loves it. Or, if the mood strikes, she just might set off on foot with Sammy - her fat, obstinate beagle - and look for the neighborhood garage sale. (The woman has more $2 t-shirts than any human should rightfully own).

The family delights in Gramma-isms, the malapropisms and mixed up idiomatic expressions that are so much a part of her dialogue. And she’s the most plugged in 86 year old that I know, sending me emails full of more emoticons than you can imagine. Our favorite Gramma-ism to date: Mom mentioned that she was going to clean up some stuff on her computer which would make it run at a better rate of speed. Gramma simply replied that apparently she’d have to learn to read faster.

Ruthie was her usual livewire self this year at Christmas Eve dinner, sipping her Manhattan and delighting in the toddlerishness that is my daughter. Gramma’s unapologetic laughter, as always, set the lot of us off with fits of giggles that wound their way through the entire evening. What a blessing it is to have four generations of women in one place.

But for the first time, I can see signs of Ruthie’s age. Her blue eyes sparkle still, but little things slip her memory as they’re apt to do, I suppose. But having watched her mom (my great-gramma Etta) slowly succumb to Alzheimer’s in her elder years, I see signs of some of the same holes in Gramma’s memory. The same patterns of confusion and frustration that she can’t remember. And I see the pain in my mom’s eyes as she sees it, too.

I know she can’t be here forever. But I’m so desperate for her to impart some of her strength, compassion, and widsom to my daughter. To me. To teach me what she knows about perseverance that I haven’t yet learned. To explain to me, somehow, all the things I need to know. I’ve never seen her look old before. I’ve never seen anyone but the outrageous, perpetually optimistic, amazing woman that I grew up with. And I’m scared.

But she is still here with me, today. For that I’m grateful. I will treat all the next months and years as holidays with Gramma, stuffing myself to the gills with her quirky sense of humor, and her moments of accidentally profound insights that leave me speechless. I’ll drink up her stories and get drunk on her laughter. I’ll absorb every ounce of fun and history and perspective that she’ll give me, and I’ll yet ask for more. I’ll let my daughter know her as much as Gramma can stand, hoping for osmosis and some kind of language between them that transcends 2-year-old-speak.

Once upon a time, I lamented my tiny family and our lack of bustle and chaos during the holidays. But not now, not today. I’ve spent the quiet of these years knowing Ruthie.

Merry Christmas, Gramma. I love you more than words.

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There are mice in my garage. And I don’t care.

I was actually alerted to this fact when, bleary eyed, I stumbled into my kitchen yesterday morning to find a small, ash colored field mouse curled up dead on the floor. It didn’t alarm me much (if it had been a cockroach, that’d have been a whole different scenario), but I was a bit sad. I think one of the cats probably had a bit too much fun with the poor thing and smooshed it to death.

So I did what any non-rodent petrified person would do and, rather than shrieking to wake up the rest of the house, I took an old tea towel and gingerly picked him up, wrapped him neatly, and carried him to the garage to lay him gently to rest in the Big Trash Can in the Sky (almost).

When I opened the door, I saw three little furry puffs, huddled behind the dog food, staring nervously at me. They scattered almost as quickly as I noticed them, disappearing somewhere behind the luggage and the clothes I’ve been meaning to donate to Goodwill for about three years.

I said a quick little something to the sky on behalf of my silent little stowaway, and put him in the trash. I was even careful to nestle him among the plastic so he didn’t tumble into a dark corner somewhere.

For a moment, I exercised my anthropomorphism and reflected on whether the mouse’s family and friends would be missing him, wondering what happened after he so bravely found a way to venture into the Warm House in search of dinner or something. I wondered if they realized what had happened, that their garagemate had met his doom in my kitchen only to be shipped off to the trash. I wondered if they were worried they’d be next.

So I did what any completely sane woman would do, and I gathered an old pillow, pulled off the cover, and used a box cutter to tear up a bit of the fluff and make a pile of warm fuzziness that just might make a human’s rendition of a mouse house. I took a handful of dog kibble and stuck it down inside. Then I tucked the pillow back in the corner where my pocket-sized tenants would be sure to find it.

I know they’re rodents, ok? I know this. But my garage is nothing more to me than a disorganized storage mess. It’s brimming with forgotten gadgets and books I can’t bear to part with but will never again read. It’s crammed with boxes I don’t even remember. They’re just more like accidental appendages, trailing behind me from move to move like toilet paper on a tennis shoe.

To them, it’s a warm(ish) shelter from the cold, somewhere to be relatively safe from harm, a place to be with their family and huddle together. I’m ok with sharing that with them. They’re not hurting anyone, most especially me, and I’ve got the room to let. After all, isn’t a little comfort and shelter something we all seek?

Photo credit: aturkus

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