Life doesn’t go in reverse

Back in Maine and my head is spinning, so much going on, so many feelings, so much to say, so much to do and oh so aware that despite the thinking of the day, time is finite. When you are a kid, time seems to move slowly but at some point, it seems the years speed by and one day you are looking up at your son who turns 21 in mere days as he struggles to help you. That is my life, my reality.

During my brief but whirlwind time in Chicago, in the still moments when I needed to occupy myself to keep from crying a primal scream, I amused myself by looking around and taking pictures. I was reminded that cities are these marvelous living organisms where no matter what any one specific member is going through, that for most life moves on at the same frenetic pace it has always moved at. It’s the nature of life.

My son and I walked the streets of Chicago after taking my Dad home to get some rest and we revisited our past life. We went to places he barely remembered but when he saw them, he knew them. Including trying to visit our old doorman who we suspect has gone onto his great reward. I suppose there was a certain level of symmetry in visiting the neighborhood I grew up in, at night in the pouring rain, walking to reclaim and to ground myself. Of course, the reality is we can never go back, life doesn’t go in reverse, but sometimes of only for a second, the comfort of going back feels oh so good.

Papa, College Boy, BGIM and the Brother at Beef & Brandy on State Street. I grew up eating at this place, food is marginal but the memories are great.

The old neighborhood

One of the few constants

Shaken but not stirred

There are certain times in life when you hear the phone ring and even before you pick it up, you just know, “this” call is one of “those” calls. The type of call that when you finish the conversation and hang up the phone, while the physical world around you may look just as it did before you took the call, the fact is your personal world has been altered and life has in fact been turned on a dime.

I got “that” call yesterday morning, and I suppose since I last got “that” call almost nine years ago, I have known all too well that one day I would be getting another call. Life is messy like that, the good and the bad are all part of this ride we call life. I learned nine years ago that getting too upset about these things doesn’t do anything other than lead to puffy red eyes and hangovers.

So my world has been shaken but not stirred, my Papa aka the last man standing is facing some health issues. The details are not for public consumption but I will just say that I am planning to get my ass home to lay eyes on him as soon as humanly possible. If you are the praying type, keep our family in your prayers, we take good thoughts and vibes too!

In this moment…hitting a wall, a plaster wall

It could be hormones, it could that the cold long days of winter are finally settling in or it could simply be reality. I strive to stay in a positive state of mind but for some reason today after getting the mail and receiving my W2 form, my mood has plummeted to ground zero. It’s not as if I didn’t know that I am grossly underpaid for what I do, that’s really no surprise, after all I am the one who does the budget for my agency. We have grown, our budget has grown but we simply aren’t at the place yet where my salary can be increased to be more in line with industry standards. Unless I want to give up all semblance of having a life and do my job and someone else’s which logistically isn’t possible. Trust me, I thought about this during the most recent budget season.

Standing on the cusp of what feels like a milestone birthday, I find myself wondering is there an age where following one’s bliss is simply foolish? Sure, stories abound about people who have made epic life changes at 40 and beyond but is there a point where those stories are just stories with odds slightly better than a winning Powerball ticket?

I attended a gathering recently where I ended up in a serious conversation with a man I know who is a little bit older than me. He told me that the greatest thing for him about being in his 40’s, was learning to accept what he was really capable of and making peace with life as it is. That conversation has stayed with me because on the surface while I was agreeing with him, part of me was wondering could I truly get to that place myself. A place where I accept that the trade-off for working as I do; is that I do truly meaningful work that makes a difference in the lives of many yet the financial rewards are little. At the same time, I have the work/life balance that suits me well, something that I don’t take for granted at all.

The past few years I have done a great deal of work around acceptance but I admit when it comes to money, I get tripped up. Money matters, too much of it can corrupt, but too little of it can make life hard. I see that daily in my work. Then I start to feel guilty when I throw what in essence is a private pity party. After all, I have a house that is brimming with love and all our needs are met. When so many suffer and struggle with getting their bare needs met, it feels shitty to even be discussing this. I mean is seeing my dad a necessity? Is seeing my family and friends a true need? Is it selfish to even worry about retirement when my genetic pool doesn’t favor my living much past 60?

Recently I received the most encouraging message from a new reader who also happens to be someone whose encouragement early in my academic career made me realize what was possible if I dared. Yet in this moment, despite all that I have been working towards with regards to growing my dream of writing into something more than a hobby, I have hit a wall. However as dire as this may all seem, I am going to trust that this wall is made of plaster and not drywall and will simply take a little extra strength to knock down. In the meantime while I am battling with this plaster, I will strive to keep passing the open windows since the alternative is probably not so pleasant.

I realize that posts such as this may seem almost too personal for posting in such an open manner but one thing I strive for here is honesty. I suspect that I am not the only one who grapples with such issues yet too often we rarely feel comfortable having these discussions with others and in some cases even with ourselves. So have no fear, I have no shame in getting raggedy and sharing the journey with you.

Kicking and screaming to change

Now that we are officially in the middle of fall, I am reminded that in the coming days I will be hitting some major milestones as an adult. I didn’t think they would be that big of a deal to me but as they grow closer, oh, let me tell you…they are huge.

First up, in a few short days, the Man Unit and I will celebrate 15 years of wedded bliss/unbliss and back to bliss. Where the hell did the time go? 15 years ago, this week, I stood in front of my Dad who married us and promised all these awesome things while looking fabulous in a small single digit sized dress. I have more or less kept those promises, and after a reworking of the life contract, I don’t really have too many complaints except, who stole the Man Unit’s hair? And where the hell did that girl’s body go?

Which brings me to the next milestone, I turn 40 at the beginning of the year and while we are still wrapping up this year, the fact that I turn 40 at the beginning of next year is looming large in my mind. 40 is not the new 20 or 30 people!!! 40 is 40 and while I know I have many absolutely fabulous attributes, the fact is I have changed and while I have never been a beauty queen, there are moments when I am just not one with this new and improved body. I was reminded of this a few days ago, when I dressed up in my artsy best and even wore the good bra for some boost and immediately felt like I had become someone else. Hell, even attractive young men were saying hello and opening doors for me. Thanks people! Guess when I am not intentional, I am looking like an old sea hag these days, tis life.

Seriously though, aside from the outer changes which are too numerous to change, though I sometimes wonder do I need to start the plastic surgery fund…I jest. There are the internal changes, which I actually feel. This past week, I was unable to make it to yoga more than once, I barely got in any walking and by the end of the week, my body was revolting with stiffness. Yep, if I don’t stay on my daily movement plan, the stiffness sets in. Gee, thanks. Let’s not even talk about the fact that at my next visit to the eye doctor, I may need to upgrade to some reading glasses. Why the hell are the fonts so damn small? I am pretty sure reading articles on my phone does not help…helloooo, enlarge the fonts people! Then there is the memory, the man unit has 5 years on me and for years I have teased him about his memory…now? I am the one who struggles to remember names. Payback is a bitch, thank goodness though for sticky notes, my saving grace and memory assistant.

Lastly, not along after I turn the big 4-0, the eldest kiddo turns 21. Dude, 21 is like a real adult and when the hell did he get that old? I know, I know, he’s young and I am young but when that is your kid, the human you created becoming old enough to head to the bar and down a pint, it’s a strange feeling.

Change is part of life, change is often good, hell it’s necessary, it is part of the journey we call life but it doesn’t mean it will always be easy. So it’s my season to embrace all the changes I have headed my way, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The road to 40 and what no one really says about growing older

I am laid up sick on a gorgeous Sunday, for the first time in months it’s not a million degrees outside, talk about unfair! But hey, my misfortune is your good fortune since at least today I am well enough to sit up and do some writing. I probably should be writing a grant or something, but a blog post is far more fun.

Anyway it’s been about a month since I wrote about my journey to be fit for 40. January will be here before I know it and I really want to start my 4^th decade off with some good habits which means unlearning 3 decades worth of shit. Really what that means is I have to learn to like exercise and physical activity, now I am not a complete slacker, I do love me some sex and that burns off calories. However unless I want to have sex for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it seems I might need something a little more than sex to keep this body healthy. I have also learned this month that while yoga has worked wonders for my mental state, it might not be nearly as wonderful for my waistline. Unless one has a crazy high metabolism, there is a school of thought that yoga can slow down one’s metabolism. At first glance I laughed but as I just finished reading William Broad’s The Science of Yoga, I can say that my own experience is that yoga has indeed slowed down my metabolism. For the past several months as I have increased my weekly sessions to keep myself calm, I have had a rather strange weight gain, nothing big but enough to wonder what the hell is happening? Turns out that since I wasn’t doing anything other than yoga, my body slowed down so much that it decided “Hey, we can’t be bothered to lose any weight and oh those sweets and wine you were having a few nights a week, we decided to sit on your midsection because we are chill!”

I am ramping up my walking game and contemplating joining a gym, while I will admit to a certain level of desire to look good, in the end it’s really about feeling good and being healthy. No matter how much I tell myself a mini spare tire isn’t bad, I know it’s not true for me.

So I am working my plan for fit at 40 but what I really want to talk about is the shit no one tells you about aging. Can we get real for a moment? For years now there has been all this talk that 40 is the new 20 or the new 30 but the truth is 40 is 40. Now I know I am still 39 but using the logic that 40 is the new 20 or 30, that would mean 39 is like the new 19 or 29 and I am sorry but my body no longer resembles the one I had at either 19 or 29.

For starters I never had the hair issues I currently have when I was 19 or 29. Now before I share, let me just say I have talked with offline friends, online gals and women in between and there is consensus that ladies as we age, we get more hair. When you are a pretty young thing, sure there is the hair on your head, eyebrows, legs and underarms that you worry about if you are one to worry about such things. I must confess when it comes to leg hair; I only worry about that shit in warm weather months. Now of course we have pubic hair removal if that’s your thing, but ladies the hair that happens as we age is scary shit.

It seems for many of us that somewhere between our mid and late 30’s, we start seeing that stray chin hair. No worries, you pluck it and go on about your business. Oh no, that’s not good enough, that one singular stray hair somehow starts procreating and one day you are looking in the mirror on your way out the door and what do you see? A fucking family of chin hairs, and if that is not bad enough, they have started visiting your neck. Then to really fuck with you, that area above your lip now has enough hair present that if you do nothing, you will look like your brother. If you are really special, you get the side face hair. Let me tell you all of a sudden, you find yourself with enough hair that you cannot ignore that shit and suddenly you are BFF’s with the waxing lady. Now if you haven’t reached this stage in your aging process, pat yourself on the back, something is headed your way. If none of it happens to you, please tell us your secrets. The cost of keeping yourself from looking like Sasquatch’s lady love if annualized is the price of a vacation. Granted you can be one of the bold and brave and let the hair live but I am going to be honest, I am not there yet.

Which brings me to hair on your head, when the first gray strands pops up it’s cool but when a family of gray pushes out your original in my case dark brown hair, you decide to color. Well when you color it’s a commitment. Sure I could do nothing, but gray at 39 is not where I am and oh those later gray hairs are evil bitches, hard to color and even with a fabulous colorist, the color jobs don’t last as they did in your 20’s. Grays are evil!

Lastly, why is it that no one tells you that in your late 30’s and early 40’s that all the hormones sloshing around in your body will at times make you feel as if you have reprised the role of yourself at 15. Complete with pimples and a tire around the middle because unless you’re are a fitness nut, or have a kick ass metabolism, weight generally likes the middle. To add insult to injury, you have are extra hairy, you have pimples and you are graying. Never mind you might have grown up shit like kids, a partner, bills and all that jazz.

So if this shit is so common, why are we all running around saying and believing that 40 is the new 20 or 30? No it isn’t! Better yet why don’t we share this shit with each other? Why aren’t the ladies in their 50’s and 60’s telling us younger women what the real deal is? I figure the real reason sex is better for most of us as we age and that we find our true selves is that it takes some amazing inner strength to navigate our teen selves in grown up bodies, so we get confidence and great sex as a prize.

Strut your stuff!

Ladies, how many times have you felt like I am just blah? You know those days, you are so in your own head and it feels like you have accomplished not a damn thing. Or you feel like you are an imposter? Let me raise my hand. To be honest until recently, I still saw myself as that 22 year old single Mom and high school drop-out. A really strange thing to do considering the places I have been professionally in recent years, yet I was stuck holding onto a story that was no longer accurate about myself. A story that frankly was only one chapter in the story of me, yet sometimes it’s easy to see the negative and not the positive. I am certain that one reason this story stuck for so long is because traditionally women are not raised to blow their own horns.

Let’s face it, too many of us see sharing our successes and victories as bragging and well no one wants to be a braggart, the problem is those old truths hold us back. They get in the way of our reality and frankly it has got to stop! We need to start celebrating and strutting our stuff. If you are an at home mom, raising the kiddos and maybe even homeschooling them and they are thriving, share it! Whatever you do and do well, it’s okay to be eager about it and to talk about it.

Kids are amazing in that whenever a kid learns something new and they feel they have accomplished something, the joy with which they share that success is amazing. When the girl child first started reading, she told everyone. Just the other day an old family friend came over and the girl child proudly proclaimed that she could now whistle and gave a demonstration. Hey, that may sound small, but hell she is already whistling better than me!

I look at my girl and think I want that enthusiasm in my life! Once again we think we teach our kids yet really they teach us, in more ways than one. I look at my girl and want her to stay rooted in that belief and enthusiasm in herself, not reach an age where she feels she can’t strut her stuff. Yet as her mom, I know I need to look at what I am modeling and until recently, sharing my own successes felt weird, out of place, or in the back of mind I thought will someone think I am thinking too highly of myself?

Well, it matters not, because in the end confidence is powerful, hell it’s sexy. So go ahead and strut your stuff, you earned it!

Navigating life…wisdom from the elders

I was an only child until I turned 8 years old and because of the gap in years between my brother and me, we often joke that we were functional onlies. By the time he reached an age I may have wanted to get to know him; I was already out of the house. As a result of that age gap I spent a lot of time around the grown-ups. Back in the 1970’s and 80’s when I was coming up, entertainment options were limited, no cartoons past 11am, parents back then did not tailor their social lives around their kids either. In many instances kids just got brought wherever parents went and you adjusted. I suspect that is why I was a big reader as a kid, no iGadget to plug in, limited TV channels. So reading and overhearing the grown-ups talk was what I did once toys no longer held my attention.

Looking back, I am sure I overheard quite a few conversations that probably weren’t appropriate but as I became a teenager, I was actually allowed to be a part of the grown up conversations and for that I am eternally grateful. In fact I grew to love those grown up talks, when the grown-ups in my life primarily my parents and grandmother and other assorted relatives would talk openly about life and the challenges that they faced. I knew early on that marriage was hard work; I also realized that adults often hit an age where they seemed to need to figure out who they were. I knew that at almost 50 my grandpa took off for his family home in Texas to figure it out…leaving my Grandma for a couple of years. As a kid, I remember being confused about why Pa-Pa had left, eventually he did come back and they stayed together until he died. Years later when I was a battled scarred young adult leaving my brief and tumultuous first marriage, my Granny told me their whole story, again it still didn’t make sense since even though I was already relationship weary, I still believed that love and marriage was a straight line, that it either worked or didn’t. Now though? I get it, I totally get why he left, why she was fine with it and why he came back and they were fine.

This morning I found myself thinking of those talks within my family as I realized yet another person I know is at what I am starting to believe is the crossroads. That place we get to, where all of sudden we need to align our dreams and hopes with who we really are, where we no longer want to be anything less than our authentic selves, no matter how messy.

Yet I fear with my generation, Gen X and the younger generations we are losing the wisdom of the elders that we all once had to assist us in this journey. As more of us are no longer geographically near our tribes or simply not as close as previous generations used to be, we lose the voices and wisdom of grandparents and other loved ones letting us know we are normal. Instead now we have a generation approaching middle age, or already there that on the outside looks fine but inside is wondering what the hell?

For all our technological savvy and connectedness though, we lose something when we don’t have wisdom from those who have walked before us in this journey of life. I suspect this is one reason blogs especially those written by women and mothers speak to so many of us; sometimes you just need to know you are not alone in this world. After all, even though our elders didn’t have all the gadgets and accoutrements we have that make life easier, something’s remain the same.

Slacker…that’s me!

I am up writing early for me; then again last night my new best friend insomnia decided waking me up between 4-5am was no longer enough, I needed to be kept up all night. Never mind today is one of those days where I actually have a full day and evening of stuff to do aka work. Anyway while lying in bed praying for sleep, my mind started doing what it does best…thinking. Before going to bed I had had a text exchange with someone I know, a simple question was asked but that question stayed with me most of the night.

The question was simple but oddly enough one with no easy answer, where do I see myself professionally in 5, 10 years? Good question. I realized as I typed my reply back that wow, I must seem like a slacker to the highest degree. The truth is I stopped making professional goals a while back. To go back in history, it is rooted in a less than stellar past decade and the fact that most goals I set for myself, I have met and exceeded.

Ten years ago, my professional goals included getting my master’s degree and becoming the Executive Director of a non-profit organization. Well I accomplished that and even more, I have actually been the Executive Director of two agencies, launched a stable part time freelance career that includes a mix of writing what I love as well as what I excel at professionally. I admit sometimes running a small agency I don’t always feel like a serious non-profit player but in the past year I have been approached several times about positions at organizations far larger than the one I head up. In each instance I have decided the time was not right to move on, but the fact that my efforts to grow a truly small agency that was limited in scope to a full service agency on hopes, prayers and glue is being noticed by others is an honor. Though when I think back to my time in graduate school, the same strategies that work in small organizations can and do work in larger ones too; I know I have the skills to lead a 3 million dollar plus agency just as well as I can lead one that exists on under $100,000. The thing is I enjoy working at the smaller one more, I also think that smaller agencies tend to be neglected or ignored; people forget that we all start small. That means businesses, non-profit agencies and people!

So when I think of where I want to be in 5 or 10 years, the answer is I don’t know. I sacrificed a lot to make my goals professionally considering that when most were adjusting to college life at 18, I was married and getting ready for my next role of Mom. When others were graduating at 21 and thinking how great it was to be legal, I was doing the single Mom and poverty shuffle. So having started the professional rat race late and with baggage, I had to work at a far more rapid pace than others. I did not have the benefit of great connections to assist me. I had the gift of gab with a dash of charm thrown in and that has served me well. Sometimes I have been underestimated because of who I am…woe to such people, that’s all I will say on that.

Yet in the past year, it hit me that I am no longer interested in meeting goals, I am interested in enjoying this ride we call life. I suffer from what many suffer from who lose parents early in life; part of me wonders seriously will I live to be older than my mom? I am 11 years younger than the age she was when she died. She died at 50 and the gift of many years is a mixed bag on my Mom’s side, hell her Dad died at 54 and she beat him out by checking out at 50. So I am cautiously optimistic that I will be here a real long time but I also know life is what it is…so my desires are to be present in my life daily. To not get too caught up on that treadmill of work and minutia that at times keeps us too busy to really enjoy each day we are blessed with. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my work, if I didn’t I would have moved on almost certainly but unlike years ago when professional success was truly a goal, it’s less of a goal.

My goals if I were to label them as such are to be joyful, to be open, and to be abundant and a few other items that are a bit too personal to share. Needless to say they keep me busy since I find daily, I don’t quite make the mark. I probably am a tad bit of an underachiever but that’s okay, the world is big enough for all types.

You don’t always get what you want, it’s called adulthood!

You ever wake up and realize that for all the fun you get to have as an adult that sometimes being an adult, plain old sucks? The older I get, it’s started to set in that when making decisions you have to think not only short term but long term, that’s where I am now. For all my jokes and difficulty parenting my girl child at times, I have to admit my uterus has been feeling empty and abandoned, hell it wants to works again!
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Several years ago, the man and I discussed the possibility of adding to the family when the girl was 6, well she is 6 now, the boy is 19 and the man is done! I admit when he told me he was done a few years ago, I thought, well he will change his mind…nope he hasn’t (by the way this post is not meant to shame him, he knows that). I brought a child from my first marriage into our union, as my son recently told my husband, drop the step son crap, after all the man has been a part of college boy’s life since he was 3! My husband is a wonderful man and a great father but he also knows his limits, we have 2 kids, one of those kids is in college (for folks with little kids, don’t let well-meaning people lie to you, college is expensive and there are very few free rides offered unless your kid is the next Rhodes Scholar or Kobe Bryant, you will pay something!) and the other is a 40+ pound of fire and joy! In other words our hands are full.
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I must confess that coming from a small family with only one sibling and no extended family that I am in contact with fuels a lot of my desire for more kids. The world didn’t seem so small and lonely when my Mom and grandma were alive but outside of the hubster and kids, all I have are my Dad and brother. My kids have no cousins since my brother is not ready to settle down and the man is an only child. Let’s just say a small family keeps the holiday craziness down, on the other hand it means there is less of a support system.
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My kids are 13.5 years apart, they are as close as you can be when one of you is a college sophomore and the other is a first grader. My own brother and I are 8 years apart and I guess truthfully we are neither close nor un-close, but that age gap is quite a bit to overcome. Granted it started to chip away a bit when our mother was sick but only now is my brother really at the same adult stage I am at.
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I realized recently that as I look at another birthday coming up next month, that the baby clock is ticking. Sure women can have babies well into their 40’s but the reality is it’s a lot easier when you are younger. I know that first hand, having a baby at 19 was a breeze compared to the repeat performance at 32. My body is the past several years has let me know, you can believe that young hype if you want but baby you are aging! In other words if another baby is going to happen, this is the time.
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Only this is not the time, our marriage while improved is still recovering, our finances while improved are also still in the recovery ward. I have known women who wanted babies when their partner said no who were advised by well-meaning women to go for it…that in my humble opinion is a bad idea. I am a risk taker as the man reminded me last night, it’s true I do take risks but gambling with a life is not a risk I will take. Sure he is willingly to have another one, but it’s clear that his heart is not in it, to risk that a child will arrive and he will love it is silly. At 29 I might have believed that but at almost 39, nah…life isn’t like that.
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So I am learning that sometimes, well you can’t have what you want, having it all is simply not possible. It being the man, the 3 kids, the job and all that jazz…in my generation there are many of us who believe we can have it all, it being whatever it is that our hearts desire but no one can have it all. There are seasons to everything and even with seasons, some desires simply have to be tabled and the sticky part of growing up is knowing that and accepting it.

Be me…the joys of being myself

Yesterday was that rare day where the sun shone bright in my world, all was well with me. No, the day did not involve a windfall of cash (which would have been nice though) nor did it involve any mind blowing sex (that too would have been nice), hell it didn’t even involve a day without work. What it did involve though was a concerted effort to live in my truth, to be me and to shut out the voices that often come from a myriad of places telling me I should be more or do more.

A few nights ago while reading Byron Katie’s Loving What Is, I had a light bulb moment when in actually doing Byron’s inquiry process, it hit me that so many times my inner strife is due to the mental tug of war I put myself through. So many times I beat myself up because I don’t earn enough, I don’t spend as much time playing with my kid as I think I should, and the list of what shoulds go on. The thing is all that stuff does nothing but to make me feel bad and as someone predisposed towards anxiety attacks, I end up doing a lot of work avoiding the attacks.

So I started my week off saying screw it! Instead of forcing myself to be who I am not, how about an experiment where the focus is on being who I really am? It’s still early in the process but let me say I am loving it! When the focus was not on forced play with my child, I found myself creating opportunities to connect without the pressure; the result was bonding time while painting a dresser for the girl’s room. I admit the dresser didn’t come out nearly as well as I had hoped but we had fun and the kid’s room is better organized. That task had been on my to-do list all summer but only when I took the pressure off myself did it happen. I went to a morning yoga class and took some chances on the mat that I had been previously unwilling to and even surprised myself. My yoga teacher often tells me many times we work life out on the mat…she might be right.

It hit me last night when I sat down to unwind and hopped online that when I am busy living my truth, the truth of others means less to me. I am less likely to compare myself to my friends who eat better than I am, I eat what my body needs and it’s fine. Suddenly I can take real joy in my work and greet the kids and families I serve with the authentic me when I live in the knowledge that in my corner of the world what I do matters…I can trust that the universe will provide for me.

As a heavy user of social media, I think at times it’s easy to get caught up in the comparison game. I hate to admit there are many times when I have read another person’s blog, looked at a friend’s photos and felt like a failure. I suspect I am not the only one this happens to and frankly as much as I love social media, I am learning there are times you need to turn it off. A while back I was discussing a local blogger and it turned out since Maine is so small, that two buddies of mine actually know the blogger. So I asked them both, is she really who she appears to be on her blog? Both said yes and one who has known her for many years shared that the blogger has always been working towards the life she has, that even without social media Amanda would be living this life. I admit that tidbit stayed with me and as I look at my own life now, I get it…when we live our truth, we present our authentic selves and that’s when it all comes together. Striving for anything less than being myself is a waste of time.

PS: If you are in Maine and near the Portland area, I will be speaking next week Sept 22 as part of the She Changes Speaking Series. It will be a great night of women speaking their truths! Check it out!