A decade in review

January 2010

I don't remember being ready to embrace 2010, but I remember when 2009 ended, I was well and ready to see it go.

I didn't think about it at the time as the end of a decade, but perhaps more the end of an era.

2009 was the year of my dad's seventh and fatal suicide attempt. Some people asked if it was a relief, to finally stop being vigilant after years of constant worry.

It was not a relief.

2009 was the year we bought our house, had a baby, and immediately thereafter started construction while living in aforementioned house.

People complimented me on losing the baby weight fast, and here is what I will tell you: I lost my baby weight fast because I had a C-section and I couldn't do stairs, and we had no kitchen on the ground floor, and Nick worked all the time, and my mom was pretty occupied with grief. So nobody fed me.

Nick would come home from work at 9:00 or 10:00 pm and ask what I'd had for dinner and I think that's about the time I started joking about stabbing him.

(I don't really joke about it with him around anymore because he finds it offensive.)

My friend Kathy asked if I needed anything and I asked her for a stash of protein bars. I put them in my bedside table and that's what I'd eat.

Leading up to Christmas, Nick proposed a fake tree, but I wanted a real tree. And then Nick asked who was going to water it and vacuum up the branches and I was all, OK, let's get a fake one.

It was magical. It was already wrapped with lights. We just used it for the 10th time this Christmas. Half the lights died two years ago and the rest of them went last year, so we snipped them all off and now we string our own. But the tree is still lovely.

I remember Nick being so angry that when it was time to take down the tree, because neither my mother nor I took off the decorations.

When I first thought back on the past decade, I initially said it was dominated by having and raising children and renovating our house. 

However, once I read through this piece I realized that loss was an equally important, if not perhaps the prevailing theme.

By the beginning of 2010 I was being treated for post-partum depression, but I was, in retrospect, not adequately medicated and still barely hanging on. I probably should've also been in therapy. I look back at this video and I feel like it could be a depression commercial.

In early 2010 we had snowmaggeddon, where DC shut down for about two weeks. Our boiler gave out that first night and we were lucky that our friend Kurt, the manager of the guest house across the street, was at our house playing Scrabble with Betty when it happened. He brought over all their extra space heaters, and we kept the pipes from freezing.

I don't remember much about 2010 except that giant snow, and that Jordan was, thankfully, a good sleeper. He'd nurse and fall asleep and I would lie in bed silently fuming about my peacefully sleeping husband and thinking about how Nick and I would divide up the furniture.

If it sounds like I harbored a lot of animosity towards Nick in those early years, it's because I did.

Hate might be an extreme way to put it but you know I don't trust women who never admit to wanting to stab their husbands.

Life is not perfect. People are hard to live with. (I am hard to live with.)

I am even harder to live with while taking hormones, which was the fun thing we did in 2011, which led to the arrival of our delightful India in 2012.

Also in 2011, we sold Betty's house and she moved in with us shortly before India was born.

In the GW hospital exit class, I met Meg, a woman who would become one of my dearest friends. Our daughters were born the same day, and we spent our maternity leaves together nursing all around DC, and now we and they are lifelong friends.

We plan for them to take their gap years together somewhere fabulous that their mothers would like to come visit.

In 2013 we lost Nick's dad. India was a year old, and we rented a minivan to drive all of us all to New Jersey. India threw up repeatedly in the car, and we drove straight to the church. Nick's partner Scott arrived at the same time as us, and came over and opened the passenger door to the overwhelming smell of baby puke.

We'd all just gotten used to it over the hours and miles.

In 2014 we lost Auntie Lou, Maude's mama. We still use her recipes and tell funny stories and talk about how much we miss her.

In 2015 we took our progeny and my mother to Spain and I almost died of exhaustion.

In 2016, my cousin Travis passed away, and now I walk in his honor on my Overnight walks. And I wouldn't say this was a highlight, but on the way home from the memorial service, Betty and I both got puked on on an airplane.

In 2017 we lost three people we loved, and it was a year that walloped me. We lost dear Pat, my other mother. We lost John, a dear family friend, whose family I'd known since I was born. And we lost Kim, AKA Australian Builder who remodeled practically our entire house (you may remember him along with Hector Big Wood).

We also went to Family Camp at Winona for the first time, which was the camp experience I never had growing up. It was beautiful and fun and except for the lack of sleep from sleeping in a tent, pretty much perfect.

In 2018, Nick turned 50, and took the day off and took the kids for a helicopter ride. Ever since they've asked if they can play hooky.

I think of helicopters as certain death, and in any case, I'd gone back to office work. That summer I  took the kids to camp in Cartagena, Colombia, for two weeks by myself.

In September of 2018 we had our 10th wedding anniversary. We both agreed that if we could live together through everything we did our first year of marriage, we could stay married forever. There have been periods of time that have tested this notion, but on the whole, we ended 10 years way stronger than we began.

Also, and I am very proud of this, I got my first paid article published in the Washington Post's On Parenting section.

I'm going to say it here: I have a goal of getting three pieces into publications in 2020.

I did practically no writing the last couple years. This is the year I return to it.

And in 2019, the last year of this decade, I was reminded of the fact that whenever I decide to cut off all my hair, it means I'm in crisis. Even if I don't seem like it on the outside. Even if I'm all, oh, I just need a change.

NO.

Next time I'm like, I want a pixie! Just for fun! Please ask me if I need to review my medication (I did) and perhaps make a change (I did).

I don't know why existential crises and the shearing of hair are so closely linked for me, but they are. It's a follicular cry for help, perhaps.

Also, I turned 50 and went to India to commemorate the milestone birthday.

Anyway, I'll be growing out my platinum pixie in 2020.

I think Nick and I ended the decade with a much more solid relationship. Knock wood the big renovations are done, which is good because not only are they expensive, but they take an emotional toll.

And, in November, we got Wanda. We tried to change her name to Carmen (after Carmen San Diego) but we called her Wanda half the time and Carmen the other half and my mom just keeps calling her Gloria after our best dog ever. So we stuck with Wanda.

My goal was to get a calm dog, and she is an anxious piece of work. She's mostly over being scared of Nick, but alternates between adoring him and getting all shifty when he's around. She adores Betty and Jordan. She likes India but half the time India rushes at her and says things like "Booya booya booya!" which freaks a nervous girl the hell out.

But she's gentle and kind at heart, and that goes a long way.

That's my decade in review. I know I rarely blog anymore, and I appreciate those of you who are still with me.

I am constantly reminded that life takes a village. Happiness takes a village, because what matters more than people we love who love us?

Happy New Year, my friends. I'm wishing you all the best in 2020 and beyond.

So much love to you.

Kind of an incredibly big huge deal to me

My dear friends,

I started this year with a personal goal of getting an essay published in a publication that pays.

I've gotten rejections, which don't feel good but are to be expected.

Sometimes I wonder if I should keep blogging, because I have so many friends who used to blog, but haven't for years. I wonder if I should be making myself write and submit more essays for publication, rather than spending the time on the blog. But I like LG and it keeps me writing, and there are so many stories I tell here that nobody would be interested in publishing.

So.

One night after work a couple months ago, I was waiting for the light to change at the corner of Connecticut and Q. I checked my email  and almost stepped out into traffic.

There was a message from an editor at the On Parenting blog of the Washington Post. She liked my blog. Would I be interested in writing a piece for them?

Would I?!?

It is up today, and you can find it here.

My essay is about talking to my kids about the fact that my dad died by suicide. It is, as you might expect, deeply personal, and I'm so proud to have this piece up at the Washington Post.

Truly incredible people were willing to talk to me. They so generously shared their time and their expertise. I learned a lot that I will use with my kids, and I hope I conveyed my story and the advice  in a manner that's accessible and helpful.

If it resonates, I'd love it if you'd share.

Hugs,

Lisa

A whole lot of things all at once but mostly the quiet juggley inside your head kind

Oh, and I like to do a little protesting as well

I've been doing a self-paced online parenting class, and watching parenting videos, and reading parenting articles. (Honestly, I'm trying to be a better parent than I've been. A really good, loving parent, who doesn't lose her shit.)

And I'm in a six-week online writing group focused on using time effectively, and how to create writing space in a busy day, and fashion a writing life for yourself. (Here sometimes I'm like, do you actually need to write your story? Maybe you should stop and  just live your fucking life. Although I'm not quite sure what that means, as I don't know how not to write.)

I parent daily, hourly, minutely (hey--I just realized! minute+ly! minutely!), with varying degrees of skill and success. And I try to write almost daily, although I haven't been writing here.

Both of the activities I mentioned meet in Facebook groups.

Actually, I'm in another Facebook group, a workout one, where we post daily status updates on our workouts. Or our boobs. Peri-menopause symptoms. New jobs, injuries, disappointments. Life. But my friend Wendy started it originally as a workout progress group.

You know, I think my blog used to be kind of my own personal life progress group. I used to write here daily. But I also used to feel like interesting things used to happen to me daily.

Now I feel like there isn't enough compelling stuff to write about, and I worry that everything funny or interesting that was ever going to happen to me has already happened. That's a grim thought, isn't it?

But I do also wonder if the issue is more that so much life happens all the time, and I don't necessarily have time or energy to tease out the interesting bits.

Oh, because have I told you that it doesn't matter how long I sleep, I never wake up refreshed? This has been going on for years now.

About two months ago Nick left me to sleep until I stopped sleeping. Which was noon. I'd slept for about 13 hours.

So in December I went to a functional medicine doctor, which is the term for an MD who looks beyond Western medicine and incorporates herbs, acupuncture, etc into her treatment plan.

This doctor took my blood, had me do a test where I had to fill a tube of saliva at specific times during a day, freeze them, and ship them off to a lap. I also had to give five days of stool samples. I'd done this plenty in my youth, but this whole process has gotten a lot more particular and hygienic since then. You mail those little suckers off as well.

In any case, I did all this and as it turns out there are a variety of biological reasons that I have absolutely no energy and haven't since I got pregnant with Jordan. Seriously, she asked when the last time I remember not being tired was, and my best guess was nine years ago.

It's always nice to have someone tell you that how you're feeling is valid, you know? It's even nicer when that person follows it with, "And I can help you feel better."

It felt like when I first seeing a therapist. I was in such a low place that just knowing that someone was going to help me gave me this overwhelming feeling of relief.

So now I keep asking Nick if I seem any different than I did last week. Last night when I asked he said yes, and then when I asked how he said, "Actually, I just said yes to encourage you. I don't think you're any different."

But I actually think my brain is less cloudy when I wake up in the morning.

For a long time, I'd wake up and I'd shake my head in the same way I shake my phone when it's moving slowly even though I do understand this is a pointless gesture. I know it won't help, but when my phone screen is spinning, I shake it side to side to hurry it up.

I often feel that same impatience with myself, honestly.

It takes me a while to get my bearings, and feels like surfacing from a very deep water swim. I can see the light and the air, it just takes effort and time to get to the surface and be in the present.

It has only been a week but I do think this is improving. I don't think it's my imagination, though I am totally suggestible. If you tell me that some wine has hints of tobacco and forest leaves, I will definitely taste them. I suppose this is why I could be semi-hypnotized all those years ago.

Anyway, I wouldn't say this essay has a point except to say that like everyone, I am juggling all these pieces but most of them are internal.

So it's not like I'm some important CEO and my helicopter picks me up at 7:00 am and I have a day packed with meetings and important decisions and whatever. I mean, we all know this.

Mainly I have all these small, quiet issues and projects that need my attention. I mean, I am one of my ongoing projects at this point. And then I also have these large and growing, loud things I like to call my children who need more of my attention.

And I'm trying to be present, and interested, and praise them for their effort and not for just being smart. And to give them special time. And to connect with them by walking to the room and looking in their eyes at their level and putting my hand on their shoulder, thus upping the likelihood of cooperation.

And when I do this and my daughter, who is five, rolls her eyes and says, "I don't want to. I'm not going to," it makes my head completely fucking melt.

Last night I yelled, and I yelled loudly.

I still feel bad about this. This is not the parent I want to be.

What I suppose I am saying is that I am not fully the person I want to be, but I am trying. I am working at it one little bit at a time.

And so far I haven't posted, "I did my 15 minutes of writing!" in the parenting class, and I haven't told the writing group that I yelled at my kid. (I also haven't told my workout group that I haven't worked out, and it just may not happen today.)

It's Monday, and I'm doing my best. I like to believe we all are, though that thought has been sorely tested of late.

Please and thank you. Many heart emojis.

Hi friends!

I have a favor to ask you. It is not about the election.

In fact, it is entirely about me. Surprise!

I know you are all readers, and that you're smart and interesting and have great senses of humor and an appreciation for the peculiar. I know this because I have great taste in friends, and because you would not have stuck around if this were not the case.

True facts.

OK. So. Here's what I'm wondering.

If you were to put my writing in a category with other writers, where would you put me? Like, if I were to aspire to cozy up to other books you've read and liked, what would they be? Or other authors, if you don't have specific books in mind.

I'm asking this for two reasons.

One, I'm in search of memoirs that help inform my writing, and that I think would likely be in the same category, except that my category, as I currently see it, would be a combo of mental illness/suicide and internet dating/comedy.

Suicide attempts are never funny, obviously, but sometimes you're in a private room near the ER waiting for them to tell you if your dad is still alive and you're so upset that you accidentally dial phone sex.

I'm not quite sure how that goes down. But it is true and real and part of the journey.

My list currently includes: The Suicide Index; An Unquiet Mind; Prozac Nation; as well as a re-read of Girl, Interrupted. Also flipping through my copy of Furiously Happy for fun and research purposes.

I'm focusing on mental illness, but I don't want to overlook memoirs that might be similar-ish or helpful, even if not specifically focused on mental illness. I'm thinking along the lines of Wild, my Cheryl Strayed. I saw the movie but haven't read the book, but the healing journey resonates with me.

That kind of thing. I know I'm being a little bit broad.

The second and realer reason is that I'm working on a proposal and I have to figure out who I might aspire to compete with and/or snuggle in with. Obviously, my voice is my own and I am not trying to change it, and I couldn't make it like someone else's if I tried.

But, for example, I'm looking for author X, as in, "If you like X, then you'd probably like Lisa's writing."

Like, I would love to put myself in with The Glass Castle. Jeannette Walls is an extraordinary writer, and she describes traumatic events without a drop of self-pity. Mary Kerr does this as well. Those are aspirational cozy-up buddies.

Turns out I've always been drawn to traumatic childhood memoirs. It just took me well into adulthood and many years of therapy to know that I had and figure out why.

Why so oblivious for so long, Lisa?

Anyway.

It occurred to me that asking you, people who both like my writing and are not living in my head, or dealing with my fears and insecurities, made a lot of sense.

I would super duper appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

Hugs! Love! Thanks!

Cozy and cold, put the horse before the cart

Me, 10 years ago

Today I have been blogging for ten years.

TEN YEARS!

This is longer than my longest romantic relationship, which at this point is approaching nine years. It's way longer than I've lived in most places.

Really, this relationship, with all of you imaginary friends--many of whom I've been lucky enough to get to know in person--is one of the longest and most constant I've had.

I was thinking about where I was when I started. And it was here: heartbroken, fearful, insecure, depressed...really, kind of broken.

Some of you have been with me since the beginning, when my dear friend Kaysha said, "Do it! Start your blog!"

A few of my friends approved wholeheartedly. Some disapproved. Some just thought I was odd, but that's true; I am odd.

My dad read it from the start. He'd send me notes about typos or grammar. Sometimes he would lament my profane mouth; I'm well educated enough to use myriad other words.

I know now that he was proud of me, although he didn't say it to me. I'd hear the criticism. He'd sent my blog posts to friends, though. He'd talk about my writing.

Recently I was in a writing workshop and someone asked me why I started blogging.

I think the most honest answer is that I wanted to write and I desperately needed support, although I had no idea that was what I was looking for.

Truly, I could never have expected to encounter such fine people. I've met such smart, funny, interesting people, just by showing up here and writing.

Then they also asked how I named my blog, and of course I had to say it was my porn name. And also my Match.com profile name, which is up there with the poorest choices I've mad.

When I started I wrote every day. Every day. I had so much to say. And I wanted to say it to you!

I wrote blog posts in my head on my walk to work. I spun them around. And I typed them up at lunch. It was so easy. My head is so busy! And I finally had somewhere to put the words!

I now have less time, and honestly, my life is a lot less varied. I don't think I can ever top the Internet dates for blogging fodder. I was looking for love and I found all kinds of fabulous stories.

Sadly, I do think it's true that I got a lot less funny after I fell in love.

Such is life.

Blogging has given me a number of gifts. First would be friends. I have met heart people here, people I value tremendously and genuinely love.

It has made me a more honest person. I've laid myself bare, and people have responded with thanks, with their own stories.

I don't, in retrospect, know that I've always done the right thing being so open and honest. My dad was so angry that I wrote about him. He felt it was very unfair.

And for my part, all I could see was that he was shattering my life all over again. That he wanted us to live in silence because it was more comfortable for him. But it was killing us.

For me, it was such a relief to start talking about mental illness and suicide that I couldn't stop. I haven't stopped. He is gone, and there's no question of fair or unfair. But I don't know that I was 100 percent in the right back then.

Through this blog, I have come to believe that most of us have lived through something terrible, something brutal. We aren't all comfortable talking about it in public, but we need to be able to share, and to know that we aren't alone in our vulnerability, in our pain. To lay it out without being judged.

Darkness and fear are heavy. They are cumbersome. Everything starts to feel better when you call them out by name. When you expose them to sunshine and air they start to dissipate.

I feel so grateful and honored that people feel comfortable sharing with me.

Blogging has made me a better writer. I look back at early posts and I am tempted to re-write them, because I know I could do a better job now. But that's who I was then, and this is who I am now.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for your support, and for holding my hand through some very rough times. Thank you for not bailing on me even when I did things like rub butter on a complete stranger's nose.

Thank you for being part of my life. I am so lucky.

Love and hugs,

Lisa

Your inner voice

I was just talking to a friend who is studying health and fitness, and she said one of the exercises that they had to do was to listen to their inner voice for a day and write down what it said,

For a whole day.

She said her inner voice turns out to be a taskmaster, keeping her on schedule, laying out the day, making sure she moves from one activity to the next.

Have you ever done this? Stopped and really paid attention to your inner voice? What kinds of things does it say to you?

I don't know about yours, but my inner voice is an asshole.

I haven't spent an entire day focusing on it, but ever since I listened to Brene Brown's TED talk, which I have linked to before, I have thought about my inner voice.

I have paid attention to the voice that tells me I'm not good enough. Or asks me who the hell I think I am. Brown was so right about those voices of shame.

Some good things have been happening in my little world, and when they come out, I am going to tell you and the rest of the entire world. One is that I wrote a small piece about my miscarriage and mental health, and sent it off to The Mighty, and they want to publish it!

But! Even after they wrote to say they were interested, let me tell you what my voice said to me: It's not that great. It's kind of a dumb subject. They're said they'd publish it, but after reading it again, they're going to change their minds.

I heard the mean words, and I knew what was going on. I knew that it was the wretched, ugly little voice in my head working to tear me down. It wasn't real.

So I told it to shut the hell up. It sort of worked.

Then I told this to my friend Jessica, who said to most definitely tell that voice to shut the hell up. Because it is so completely wrong. (And then she told me lots of very nice things about my writing and storytelling, which I have reread like 50 times.)

I was raised to look for external validation. I didn't grow up feeling like I was good enough, or even just enough.

This is a process, something I work on every day.

But listen to this.

Here's one of the really interesting things my friend told me this morning. You can actually change your neural pathways. But interrupting your negative thoughts, you stop the cycle. And eventually, the recurring negative thought just stops.

What if we just went forward in our lives, feeling good about what we did, not second-guessing ourselves all the time, or worrying that we'd said the wrong thing? How good would that feel?

I intend to find out.

So there

I learned a number of years ago that your reality is your reality and it doesn't necessarily occur to you while you're growing up that there's anything really special or different about it.

But it's a lesson I forget.

I mean, you know I've been saying for ages and ages that I'm writing a book. And I have been, sort of, this whole time. I mean, on and off. But I get so bogged down. First, I was bogged down with emotion and exhaustion. I needed to write about suicide to help get it out.

But I was also so mired in grief that I would write in circles and not get much of anywhere, much like a dog trying to find that best spot on the pillow and you're watching like, seriously? You're going to turn around again? And again? Even though you're in the exact same place? Just lie down, for god's sake.

Also, I was stuck on my dad's story. And I couldn't figure out how to make it mine. Even though it was mine all along. I just didn't understand how.

That was me.

And now I do. It is fully mine.

But then I have so much insecurity. Oh my god insecurity. Who cares what I think? What do I really have to say? Who do I think I am?

I've asked myself these things even though last year Leigh sat me down and made me watch this fabulous Brené Brown TED talk on vulnerability and shame. (And if you haven't seen it, it is one of the best ways you can spend 20 minutes. I promise.)

Also, I have two kids and I'm tired.

Oh, and I am a kick-ass procrastinator. I bet I could totally win a procrastination contest.

So.

Recently my dear friend Diana, who has for years been one of my most encouraging friends, sent me Big Magic. I haven't gotten very far, but the message is such a good, positive one. (Years ago I quit Eat, Pray, Love somewhere in Pray, because I just got tired of Elizabeth Gilbert. Not her writing--her. But this book is really resonating with me.)

And recently something happened that really drove the positive messages, the ones that say that you can do it, that you have something to say, and that at some point, you really will get it together, home.

It was this: I am taking a memoir writing workshop at Politics & Prose bookstore. In the second class, we were partnered to talk about our projects. My partner grew up in a cult. That's what she's writing about.

She's is worrying about how to write it, making it interesting enough, and giving it a good enough title that people will want to read it.

And I was all, "People will want to read it. I'm dying for you to write it so I can read it. You can title it just about anything and people will be interested."

She said, "Why?"

And I said, "CULT! You grew up in a cult! You had crazy, terrible experiences. This doesn't happen to everyone!"

Right?!? Wouldn't you want to read it?

But her reality is her reality, and she's worried about being good enough. About having an interesting enough message. About other people caring about what she has to say.

And I think, my goodness, if I'd grown up in a cult and managed to escape, I'd be all, hey! Listen! I have all these interesting stories that you need to hear!

Or would I?

Because insecurity is a mean little bitch, and fear and shame work hard to keep us small and quiet.

But I think finally, finally I may be done with small and quiet. I might be able to shove fear and shame to the side, at least most of the time. And so I'm going to commit.

This is really and truly the year I'm going to get it done.

So there.

The beginning of a chapter. What do you think?

When I asked my mother about the roadside bodies, she got a funny look on her face and said, “You didn’t see them.”

“I did see them.”

“How?”

“On the way to school. Looking out the bus windows.”

She sighed. “I thought we’d shielded you from them.”

I'd been unsure of this memory, until her confirmation. "So they really were dead?"

She nodded.

“How did they die?”

 “Well, some of them died of starvation. And others from the river flooding.”

We lived in New Delhi when East Pakistan rose up against West Pakistan and fought to gain independence. India, geographically between the two, entered the war in late 1971. For us this mean air raids over Delhi.

In the summer of  1972, we moved to Dhaka (then Dacca), capital of newly independent Bangladesh and site of my roadside bodies. Bangladesh is low, and floods regularly. Two years prior, the devastating Bhola cyclone had flooded the Bay of Bengal, killing half a million people and leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake.

Even without disasters, there were many easy ways to die: starvation, smallpox, cholera, malaria, to name only a few. You could even just get diarrhea from contaminated water and die of dehydration.

Another installment: Meet the family

Sometimes I think back to the crazy that I pulled some truly wonderful people into, and it's hard to believe that: 1. my life was actually that out of control, and 2. that I was that cavalier about inviting others along for the ride.

March 2, 2001

We don’t exactly have a plan, but we head for a strip of motels on Route 7 in Falls Church. This was where my dad was last time, and since he didn’t take the car, it seems likely that he could be there. And we need to feel like we are doing something.

We have only been together a month, and here he is, driving me around to find my dad.

My brother calls almost immediately and says, “There was a charge on the card at 4:15.” He gives me the name and address of a motel in Falls Church. We are very close.

We pull up right out front, and I jump out. The reception desk is just inside the front door, and Ben joins me just as I am telling a now-terrified young woman that I know my dad checked in at 4:15 because there is a charge on his credit card. He is going to try to kill himself, and I need the key to his room.

People never quite know what to do with this information.

She is flustered, and her hands shake as she picks up a sheet of paper. Everything is happening too slowly and I am considering walking behind the desk and taking over when a very large police officer comes in and asks for the same information. She gives us the room number and is fumbling to find another key. She is on the verge of tears.

Ben, the police officer, and I take the elevator up one floor. The doors open and we walk very fast, so although Ben is moving as fast as he can on crutches, he lags behind. We get to Dad’s door, and the officer pounds and booms, "Open up!" I put a hand up to hold him back. “Please,” I say.

I knock and say, “Daddy? Daddy, it’s me! Can you open the door?”

At this point a clearly inebriated guy in the next room has stepped out into the hall to see what’s going on, and our giant officer orders him back into his room. He complies without hesitation.

Dad opens the door, wearing nothing but a white undershirt and underwear.

He says, “Hi, sweetheart!” It is clear that he is seriously fucked up.

By now Ben has gotten to the door, and I say, “Dad, this is Ben. Ben, this is my dad.” Ben holds out his hand and says, “Nice to meet you, sir.”

Dad shakes his hand warmly and invites us in. “Come on in, kids! Would you like something to drink?”

Another installment: This one is brutal, so you know

Some of you lived through this night and the following days with me. I've written a lot around it, just not these particular details. And I'm OK - not falling in a hole or dwelling. I'm just writing, working on the writing.

April 19, 2007

By the time I get within a block of the motel I can see the flashing lights of the police cars, the fire trucks, the ambulance. The motel parking lot is a circus of red and white. I get out of my car and almost immediately bump into a police officer who tells me that I need to stay back.

“But it’s my dad!” I say, lip quivering. I wave in the direction of the motel. “It’s my dad! Is he still alive?”

The officer asks me if I have ID with me and I realize I’ve forgotten my purse. Crap. It’s illegal to drive without a license, isn’t it? Fuck. I am a first-born rule follower.

“I forgot my purse!” I wail. “I was hurrying! Am I going to get in trouble?”

No, he assures me, I am not going to get in trouble. He very gently takes me across the parking lot and up a set of outdoor stairs. It’s the kind of motel that is like a strip mall – all the buildings in a line, and you have to go outside to get to any of the rooms. There are an extraordinary number of police and emergency medical personnel. There are probably a lot of onlookers as well, but I do not notice them.

We get to the second floor and the officer says to a couple other policemen who are standing at the end of the hall, “She’s the daughter.”

“Is he alive?” I ask the nearest one. I hold my breath. I’m so scared the answer will be no.

One of them turns to face me and says, “Yes. We can talk in a minute. They’re about to bring him out. You don’t want to watch.”

I watch. I always watch. I cover my eyes at violence and gore in movies, and I hate life-or-death moments in stories, but I always watch when it’s my dad. He’s my dad, you know? What if I look away and miss something important?

They wheel him down the hall, and the officer says, “He wasn’t breathing when we got here. But the EMTs resuscitated him pretty quickly.”

“So he’s OK?” I want someone to tell me he’s OK. That everything will be OK.

“We don’t know how long he was without oxygen. They put in a trach tube. They’re taking him to INOVA Fairfax, if you want to follow the ambulance.”

“I have to get my mom,” I say. I feel like a small child. I need my mom. I need my dad, but, well, you know.

Both officers pull out their cards and give them to me. The one I've been speaking with points out the number of the station, which I can always call. They are very kind.

I start to shiver, even though it’s not particularly cold, even though I’m wearing that periwinkle fleece. I always get cold when I get upset, even if it’s the middle of summer. I read once that when your body is in crisis, all your blood goes to your organs. I imagine the heart needs it most, so it doesn’t break apart in a million pieces. I pull my arms in tight, trying to stop shaking.

I don’t want to ask, but I have to. “What did he…How did…Where was he when you found him?”

He hesitates. I look directly into his eyes.

“Please.”

“He hung himself.”

I nod. I keep nodding. I can't seem to stop nodding.

I will not think about the grammar until much later, when I am saying it aloud. He hanged himself. Hanged, not hung. But in this moment, I do not think grammar. I think about my dad.

My throat is thick, and I struggle for breath. I whisper, “OK. OK, thank you. Thank you for saving my dad.”

What do you think about this?

This is a tale I've told before, but I'm approaching it differently.

October 1987

I’ve now spent just over a month at Carolina, and I am struggling. I will not learn for a couple more weeks, when I catch a ride home and see my mom, that my dad attempted suicide in September. He's in an institution in another state. He'll be home in a month. I'll certainly see him at Thanksgiving.

Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to affect me that much.

I know now it is because I am already in a depression and hurtling toward the bottom of a pit, so focused on my own pain. Let's be honest, however; the news is not helpful.

When not attending classes, I can chiefly be found drinking before or at frat parties or sitting on the floor of my dorm room eating chocolate covered peanuts and crying. My friend Ann, who lives down the hall and also has one good and one insane roommate, works at Student Stores and introduces me to bulk candy. To this day I've never had better chocolate covered peanuts. Never. A friend of hers rings them up for me cheaply. I buy pounds and pounds at a time and eat them all.

By mid-October I am well into the 40 pounds I will gain before spring. None of my clothes fit anymore. I cannot stop crying, and I cannot stop eating. I once eat an entire jar of my roommate's peanut butter with a spoon in one afternoon.

Somehow, despite this, my roommate Lesley (of the peanut butter) and I form a friendship that  endures to this day. We live in a ridiculously tiny triple room with no air conditioning and two closets. Lesley is an interesting, French-speaking, well-traveled deadhead from Charlotte. When we meet and she learns I went to high school in India, she thinks it is cool. She doesn't ask me if I meant Indiana, or if I lived in a mud hut. She turns out to be unusual in this regard.

Eventually, I will get so tired of being sincere about India, about how we lived, about how modern it is, that I begin saying "yes" to every question. Yes, we rode elephants to school. Yes, we had tigers as pets. Yes, we lived in a mud hut. Yes, yes and more yes.

This was before the Internet. I imagine it's different now.

Our other roommate is Laura, a cheerleader from Goldsboro, who hates Lesley on sight because of her tie-dyed T-shirt and Birkenstocks. She does not know where India is, and feigns interest when I show her on a map.

She mistakes me for normal, that first day, and so it takes her a good week or two to begin hating me as well.

We are both afraid of her, although we outnumber her. Laura, she has a look. Plus, she can eat three M&Ms and then leave the bag. Who does this? She claims an entire closet for herself, leaving us to share the other, and we do not contest it. She is small but she is mean; she punches the wall really hard after a fight with her boyfriend.

Because she doesn't talk to either of us, we only suspect how much she hates us until we begin reading the journal she is required to keep for an English class. Lesley opens it one day, and all is confirmed; she loathes us utterly and completely in poorly written, unimaginative prose. Fortunately, for the six to eight weeks she lives with us before moving out without notice, Lori spends the bulk of her time out in the hall with our shared phone talking to her serious boyfriend. When she's around, however, we drop crumbs of things she's written into our conversation. She knows and she purses her lips tighter.

Laura begins hiding her journal under her bed. With the good snacks. Does she think she can treat us that badly and still expect us to respect her privacy? Or snacks?

We know the precise date she is moving out because we read it in her journal. We count down gleefully. We make sure to spend the entire day elsewhere, and when we return to our pantry of a room, it is entirely, gloriously ours.

Interrupting pirate

So every once in a while someone will ask me how the writing is going.

And then I feel like a dick. Because the writing. The writing. The writing is sort of going and sort of not and it varies greatly with the week and the moon and the tides and thank goodness we finished House of Cards and the vicissitudes of my children and oh, look, a squirrel! And so on and so forth.

Or sometimes a dear friend will not ask how it's going, but will say something amazing to me that both encourages and terrifies me.

Like that they genuinely cannot wait for me to finish my book, because they are so excited to read it. Or that I have to write a book, because I am that talented. That they believe in me and they know it's going to be amazing. Do I actually know how terrific a writer I am?

And let me tell you, I am not one to avoid a compliment. I pour myself into them like a bath. I put them on and mince around in them like a new pair of shoes. And then I fold them up and tuck them in my treasure box, to be pulled out when I need them.

Also, it occurs to me that some might think treasure box is a euphemism, but it is not. I don't tuck them into my ladybits. I have an actual box of treasures. 

But!

But being complimented on something that I or feel like I should be doing more of or doing better...

Of course it makes me feel good. Of course I'm insecure about something that is so personal and that I want to do well and that necessarily relies on other people enjoying. But then I fear I am going to be a huge disappointment. Because the writing? The writing.

Here's what happened.

I started writing this suicide book, you know? You know.

And then I got so pulled down by all the suicide. It is perhaps ridiculous to even say that thinking about suicide daily is really depressing.

After a while, rather than writing because I was excited to write, I would dread it. I would procrastinate not just because I am an expert procrastinator, using a talent I have honed for years, but because when I sat down to do it, it felt bad.

I didn't want to be pulled into the suicide swamp every day.

So.

So then I sat myself down and asked myself why I was doing this thing that I've been so excited to do if it was making me unhappy? Rather than feeling like catharsis, or feeling energized because I was crafting a good tale, I felt heavy and tired and sad. It was making me feel worse.

I gave it a little more thought. Because you know I spend a lot of time in my head and while I'm not always thinking deep thoughts, my head is a very loud place.

I thought about what I enjoy reading. And while the list is varied, one of the ways I myself enjoy escaping is diving into a good romance. An intense love story. Or maybe not even love but passion. And sex. Love doesn't hurt.

Or sometimes it does. But that's part of it.

Yah. So then, then I started writing a romance of sorts. Because oh, that is fun. A really fun project. A sort of off-beat or anyway not pure normal woman and an intense kind of man and I am still figuring out who he is. And maybe who she is, as we go along.

It's all fiction, of course. Because I have nothing to draw from.

And have I ever told you the interrupting pirate joke? No? It's for the best, because my timing with jokes is abysmal, plus I never quite remember how they go.

It's supposed to go like this:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Interrupting pirate!
Interrup...
ARRRRRRRRRR!

Yes. But I never remember that. So then I'm all, "Knock knock!"

And you say, "Who's th..."

And I invariably wind up saying "Arrr! Interrupting pirate!"

Then I realize. "Oh! Wait...no. Let's start over. Knock knock."

So that's where I am. There are currently two parallel stories going and never the twain shall meet or maybe they shall intertwain and twine but for now I'm really not sure. And so how's it going? Um.

If that makes any sense or not. Arrr!

And now I can't stop thinking about dinosaur porn

You know how you will get something stuck in your head and it will not leave? Sometimes it's a song - try getting "Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream..." out, for example.

Sometimes it's a new word you just learned, and you start listening for it. And sometimes it's something like DINOSAUR PORN, which will not enrich your life in any way and yet, there you are, stuck with it.

Yesterday, my friend Cynthia posted a link to an interview with these two young women who make good money writing dinosaur porn and monster erotica.

It's the kind of thing you see and if you are me you cannot help but click on and then you actually read the article and then you are all, goddammit why did I never think of that? Because I had years of tedious, low-paying jobs.

Why why why? Why didn't monster erotica or dinosaur porn ever occur to me?

When asked how much they're making, one replied, "I make more money than our friend who has been working as an engineer at Boeing for a few years and Christie's friend who is a five-year accountant in Dallas, Texas."

I don't know how much engineers or accountants make, but definitely more than I made annually in non-profit gigs.

So I thought, hell, I could totally write dinosaur porn or monster erotica. Couldn't I? I was totally Team Jake, and he was a werewolf.

I could write about women with heaving breasts and dinosaurs with quivering, scaly loins - a young maiden sunbathing on a rock, being eyed lustily by a...tyrannosaurus.

I mean, I don't quite understand how it would work, because really they're giant lizards. I know dinosaurs laid eggs, but the boy ones would still have penises. But probably forked penises, like snakes, which...I just...

And then there's the fact that when given an opportunity to come up with a porn name for myself, I chose Dolly Farton, which as Nick said, would never get me hired in normal porn circles. So maybe I wouldn't actually be good at the dinoporn. Maybe scat dinoporn?

You see?

The fact that I even go down this road when I have so little mental space and could instead be memorizing all of the U.S. Presidents in order or learning some other actual facts that I ought to know is just very indicative of, well, I don't know. Something.

Thank you very much, Cynthia, is what I'm saying.

2014 will be the year I finally...

Care to complete the sentence?

I'm often not so much on the New Year's resolutions, but there are a few things that I've been wanting/needing to do for ages and years and ever.

So.

I feel like I need to make a concerted effort towards the following, and a new year is the perfect point in time to begin.

2014 will be the year I finally:

1. Get organized. I am not kidding.
2. Stick to a writing schedule. Which leads to...
3. Write a whole book. Seriously, Lisa.
4. Embrace color.

Oh, hahahahahaha! That last one's a joke. Want to see my new scarf that my dear friend Jude knitted me to go with my neon orange jacket?

(No, I don't know why I always look so suspicious in selfies. Maybe that should be another resolution? Learn how to take a relatively normal picture of myself?)

Happy New Year! Love to all!

Snippet...does this intrigue?

When you think of foreign travel, you might think of the Louvre in Paris, or Aztec ruins in Mexico, or picture yourself basking on a Costa Rican beach or enjoying an espresso at a charming café in Rome. There are so many lovely and intriguing possibilities, and I doubt that anyone flies to a foreign land hoping to take a day-long bus tour with the Jerry Springer crowd of that country.

Does this make you want to keep reading? Is it too heavy from the outset?

I am 11 when I learn I am good in a crisis, and that my mother is not.

While I am a prolific reader, I don’t actually yet know the phrase, “good in a crisis.” Nor have I ever heard of suicide.

But I know that something is terribly, terribly wrong when out of the blue my mother turns from rinsing vegetables at the kitchen sink, blurts out, “Jesus God!” and rushes for the stairs, leaving the faucet running. I sprint after her, up the hardwood stairs, turning left into their bedroom at the top, and follow her into their bathroom.

We find my father naked and pale, slumped in the bottom of the shower.

I do not yet know what he has done - and even when later he tells me about his cuts, it will still be years before I actually understand - but I know this is an emergency.

My mother seems flustered, and so I say firmly, “Call 911!” We both run for the phone in the next room, and she dials.

It is an ugly damp winter morning. In my memory, it's December. It might be November, though. It is grey and cold and we have recently bought my Christmas dress - a rich green velvet. I remember my delight over the color and texture of the dress more vividly than I remember my terror over my father.

The ambulance arrives, and men rush in and upstairs. We stay in the living room while my mother figures out what to do with us. We've only been living in McLean for just over a year, so we don't know a lot of people.

In what always seems to be an impressively short amount of time they carry him out, covered. My mom follows them to the hospital.

She doesn't tell us anything. In retrospect, I know she doesn't know. You never know, until they get him to the hospital, until they see how much damage he's wrought.

My brother (who has either just turned eight, or is about to) and I spend the rest of the day with neighbors. They are kind, and we are scared and confused, and my main memory from the afternoon is of the heavy greyness hovering at the windows. And that we had baked pear for dessert.

Today I am 44

This much I know right now (not comprehensive, and in stream of consciousness kind of order):

I am older than many of our parents were when we were in high school. And they were old! So impossibly grown up!

My husband is that grown up. I will never be that grown up

I am OK with this. (Pretty sure he is, too.)
 
---

I like myself so much better than I ever have in my life. I have more wrinkles, more brown spots, and now my hair is blonde thanks to the good grace of chemicals, modern foil techniques, and a lovely woman named Sarah.

And yet, I also have so much more confidence. It makes the other things matter significantly less.

Which is not to say I haven't thought about Botox.

---

I have no ability to discern good music from bad. I embrace all things 80s, and 80s dance songs from 1983-1987 seem to be the only ones with lyrics I actually know.

I never know anything musically cool or new. Copacabana remains one of my favorite songs.

Happily, I no longer feel like I need to hide these facts.

---

Blogging changed my life. It made me realize that other people thought many of the same bizarro things that I do, and feel the same intense feelings.

And the people who were going to judge me for thinking and feeling these things out loud were not people I needed in my life.

It was incredibly liberating.

---

Right now I weigh about 10 pounds more than I did in high school Actually, 10-20, depending on the year. But I think I look better than I did back then. I'm stronger and healthier. So much healthier.

Well, not everything looks better. I had significantly nicer abs before babies. Same goes for my boobs.

I do miss my happy little cupcakes.

---

My kids are the best thing I have ever done, the best gift I have ever been given. I had no idea how much richer my life would be.

I also had no idea how much sleep I actually need. It is approximately 1-4 hours more than I get on a given night.

---


This is going to be the year I write my book. It is.

Saying that out loud terrifies me and pulls out all my insecurities.

---

And I still feel like an imposter when I put on lipstick. I don't know why.

---

The only thing that really matters to me is the people I love. That's all life comes down to. I love our house, and I do, of course, have some fantastic boots, but let's be honest: people are what matter.

And I have excellent taste in people. I do. This struck me the other day, and I know it for an absolute fact.

Post-birthday thanks, unraveling knitted threads, and Justin Bieber

I want to tell you how very much I appreciate all your gracious input. I asked for your preferences, and you gave me very thoughtful answers. You all are just wonderful.

As many of you know, I've wanted to write a book for a long time. I'm trying to. It is a big, scary project.

I've started writing pieces but I just suck at outlines and writing is easier because here's what I don't know: What's the story arc? Where does it start and stop?

In other words - what am I actually doing with the whole thing?

I can't even get into am I good enough, because that's another conversation entirely, and one that I cannot indulge in, because it is paralyzing. I mean, I write professionally, but those pieces are not my topics, my heart.

And really, how hard is it to write about caulk?

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

But seriously. When it's you and your topic choices and your heart, could you be more vulnerable?

However, I have to try. If it doesn't work out, at least I won't ever be 80 looking back and wondering, you know?

One of my friends wrote, "I can't really say what story I like the best. They are all short wonderful chapters of your life...like threads knitted together so as you pull on one thread, it pulls another one with it and it another and another. One would not make sense without the other."

Isn't that so beautiful and poetic?

This is exactly what I've been struggling with.

It all ties together. I can't write any of it without writing about my dad. I wouldn't be who I am without him, without the light and dark, without the joy and the struggles and the happy surprises and the terror.

Growing up with my dad figures into everything.

But I don't want to write a heavy book. And I'm having trouble figuring out how to just write about the funny without including the other parts, because, as she said, you pull one and it pulls another with it.

You're always you at whatever point, after all.

And so I turned to you for input on what you like. Because I figured, you already like me and how I write, so mostly it's a content question.

I've saved all your comments and emails in a Word file on my desktop for reference. I appreciate so much you taking the time, and being so thoughtful. These are gifts, and I don't take them lightly.

Also, that little 16-year old singing fuck Justin Bieber? Apparently his memoir comes out in October.

Fear and postponing in DC

Partly fueled by seeing myself on video, I'm in a very bad no good angsty existential-crisisy kind of place today.

Because I was all, why? Why do I make those weird faces? And why am I that pale and wrinkly? Oh, maybe because I'm this old.

Not that I'm old in the scheme of the world, but I'm this old without having done anything interesting. I'm this old in a very safe existence, one that pays our bills and provides health care.

Which are important, to be sure.

But is this all there is?

Am I never going to do anything bigger?

I want to leap. I want to write. I'm terrified to leap. I'm even more terrified to try to write a book.

What if I suck? What if I fail?

Best not to try.

It's easy to not care if I'm good at the things that don't interest me, because I wouldn't care if I sucked at them. Judge me, it's fine.

I've had one job after another that I'm not remotely passionate about. And I've been good, or anyway, good enough at them. And it's all fine.

Fine. Just fine.

But the things I love, the things I want to be good at? Maybe I could do something great.

Which would be better than fine. As you know.

Scary. It's scary. Safe is, well, safe.

And I'm only getting older.

The concentration of a. . .hey, look, a ladybug!

I cannot concentrate. I am distracted by the smallest thing.

Really. I am currently just completely unable to focus for more than, oh, 71 seconds at a time, it seems.

I have work to do. I have thinky stuff I'm supposed to be doing. It's the kind of thing that requires you to sit down and read and process information and then write about it in some kind of cohesive and at least marginally compelling way.

Right. So, I open the document of notes that I've put together. And I get halfway down the page. And then am all, "More coffee would be great!"

So I get more coffee. And sit down and look at my monitor. And I look at the words.

Which is when I realize I need to pee. Or I need more water. Or both.

And the cycle repeats.

There is stuff I really really really need to do. Like, really. Really. Honestly and truly.

And instead?

I'm considering the logistics of covering myself in Vaseline and then wrapping my entire body in saran wrap and going to bed that way. It worked so nicely on my feet. Why not try?

But then I wonder. Would my skin wind up super moisturized in the morning? Or would it fall off? Can you over-moisturize? Is it dangerous if most of the skin on your body can't breathe for 8 hours? Does that matter? And would I ruin the sheets?

When really, I should probably be asking myself things like, jeez, Lisa, why the fuck can't you just focus and get this damn thing done?

No answer. To any of the above.

And now I need some more water.

Argh!