Five Years

There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. – Ralph Waldo Emerson






What would you say to the person you were five years ago? What will you say to the person you’ll be in five years?

Oh gosh gentle readers. This hits a little close to home. But, it's something that your MatchGirl has spent a lot of time thinking about ... as she ponders her life and times.

What would you say to the person you were five years ago?

Five years ago I was 30. I was excited to be thirty. I still felt young and like life was still of possibilities (at thirty-five, I still feel this way), but I was a bit of the mind set that life would happen to me. I wasn't quite sure how to make life go the way I envisioned that it should be.

To my 30 year old self, I would caution that life is what you make of it, not what happens to you.

To my 30 year old self, I would say, look around at all these people, at this birthday party. These people, they are your best friends. In five years, 90% of them will still be a part of your life. Love them and treat them right. They'll love you right back. And they'll protect the shit out of you - no matter what happens. I know you cherish them now. Continue to do so.

To my 30 year old self, I would remind that it's OK to be single. While sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's kind of fun. Take every day and every relationship and every man as it comes. Don't try so hard. Don't force it. I promise it will be all right.

To my 30 year old self, I would say, don't be so afraid. The worst that can happen is that you'll mess up. Life is to be lived. Stop being so timid. Stop being so cautious. Get over it.  Life is best when you live it.

What will you say to the person you’ll be in five years?

In five years, I'll be 40. That's a big number. I remember my dad turning forty and everyone saying he was over the hill. Of course, my gay friends say that 40 is the new 21 (these are the same men who told me that 30 was the new 21). But that's okay. I don't want to be 21 again. That's a hard age. Looking forward, I'm not exactly excited to turn forty. But I don't fear it.

To my 40 year old self, I will say, know that your children are their own people. You can't right your regrets through them, You're journey was yours. You have to let theirs be their own.

To my 40 year old self, I will remind, that this journey has been a tough one, and, even if it still is a struggle, every piece is worth it. It must be - it has been so far.

To my 40 year old self, I will say this: Lighten up. Stop being so serious. Remember to spend at least as much (if not more) time living outside your own head as you do in it.

To my 40 year old self, I will say, look at these friends around you - this man you've chosen to spend your life with, these people whose weddings you've attended, this extended family that you have gathered around you, blood or not - these people have been with you for all this time. Love them and cherish them and treat them well. They love you and cherish you and, still, will protect the shit out of you. These friendships, this community - this is something that's amazing. This is something that a lot of people don't have. Don't take it for granted.

One Week To Live

Gentle readers, I must admit Sunday's Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance challenge prompt left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. "What if you only had one week to live? What would you do?" Maybe it is because I have been asked similar questions over the years - particularly when I was first laid off and the journey that I'm on now began.

Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. – Ralph Waldo Emerson


If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? In what areas of your life are you preparing to live? Take them off your To Do list and add them to a To Stop list. Resolve to only do what makes you come alive.


Bonus: How can your goals improve the present and not keep you in a perpetual “always something better” spiral?


prompted by Jonathan Mead

But that the thing. Right now, I'm moving towards all the things that I want to do.

My job situation is getting harder, but better, and I see great possibilities.

I'm living with Boyfriend and we are planning a future together. We're arguing about the names of our unborn, un-conceived children and bickering about whether Li'l Wayne is appropriate wedding music (no, we're not engaged, you didn't miss anything). We're building towards that future.

I'm building community online and off.

I'm enjoying time with the people I love and adore.

I'm learning. I'm growing. I'm living.

If I had one week to live, I'd quit my job and travel somewhere ridiculously exciting and romantic, because, cost be damned, my friends, I wouldn't have to worry about expense.

But that's not the way the world works, dear readers. So, living within reality, I'm doing all that I can to push forward and make my dreams come true, and as those who have been long-time readers of this blog know, I'm making pretty good headway.

If We Live Truly, We Will See Truly

If we live truly, we shall see truly. - Ralph Waldo Emerson


Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?


posed by Chris Guillebeau

It's interesting to me, this prompt, gentle readers. Because I don't read the quote "If we live truly, we shall see truly" as having to do with looking outside one's own environment. I don't see it ias a question of going somewhere to find one's true self.

It's great to travel the world. It's amazing to go to a foreign country and see things you never thought you would. To see the differences that make people the same. I have friends who have packed their lives into storage and taken off for Africa and those who have gone diving with sharks. I have friends who have moved to be closer to their parents, a place they never thought they'd move back to, to keep the strong family bond as their children grow. I have friends who have been to every continent except Antarctica (but that's on their bucket list). I have friends who have never left the United States.

For me, I have long loved Japanese culture, and I've dreamed of going there since I was in my teens. I've had promises of trips there whispered to me and I've dreamed of scheming a way to go. The cost, however, has always been prohibitive. I would still love to go, though. While I'm young(ish) would be preferable, but if it's when I"m older, that's the way of life,

I've been lucky enough to travel to London - when I was a walking wiki on all things 90s Brit pop, Norther soul and British invasion; to Paris, in the springtime (though solo, on a business trip, it's less romantic); to Bogota, where I hope to get back to again in the very near future. To Mexico and Canada, too. I'd like to go to Nova Scotia, maybe, to where my family came from. This is something my mother always wanted to do with her mother, but they never got the chance. It's humbling, I think, to go to the place where your family has so much history, to trace headstones with crayon to onion skin paper.

But, for myself, to live truly and see truly, the place I truly want to go is the place that my next adventure takes me. To the place where Boyfriend and I will settle and raise a family. To the place where we will call home as children grow and as we continue to grow. This is what I want most in life, right now, to find the place that we will settle and call home. And I'm not worried about the steps it will take, or that I will have to go through, to make that happen. I just know that it will.

Post-It Question

As I contemplate the Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance challenge, ponder the prompts and reflect on myself and my life thus far (something I have been doing for the past few years, since my 2008 layoff), there is always the question of "How Can I do More?" The prompt put forth by Jenny Blake on June 3rd definitely pressed me back into that thinking.

That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Identify one of your biggest challenges at the moment (ie I don’t feel passionate about my work) and turn it into a question (ie How can I do work I’m passionate about?) Write it on a post-it and put it up on your bathroom mirror or the back of your front door. After 48-hours, journal what answers came up for you and be sure to evaluate them.

Gentle readers, your MatchGirl's biggest challenge right now is a lack of time. There are too many things, personally and professionally that I must do and that I want to do coupled with needing to get some sleep (which is a struggle in itself), your MatchGirl finds that there are really too few hours in the day. So. How to pose that as a question to myself?

I'm rarely at home, so I took liberty with the Post-It placement (I'd never see it on my bathroom mirror or the back of the door) and placed a virtual Post-It in the form of a Mac Stickie on my laptop's screen. If there is one place I am for several (upon several) hours a day, it's looking at my computer screen.

The question I asked myself was this: How can I make time for the things that are important to me?

Pretty standard question, I know. It's one working moms and busy dads have been asking themselves for years. I'm neither of those people, But I certainly have been finding myself a bit overextended of late. And I find myself missing out on things that I would really like to do, because my time is packed. And, often, as is so often the case for those of us with jobs that involve working for others, it's not truly my own.

So how to make the time? How to make sure I do the things that are important to me, with the limited 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week? It's not an easy question to answer, but I think, for me, the key must be saying "no". I want to do everything. I want to attend every event. I want to write every blog post. I want to lend a hand to my over-extended co-workers. I want to assist every friend who asks for my advice or opinion or the donation of my time.

But I can't. It's simply not possible.

So I need to make sure that I have a clear focus on what's truly important to me. Both personally and professionally. I need to make sure that everything I do is measured on its level of importance. And, sometimes, I need to be a little selfish. Not so selfish that I ask myself "What's in this for me?" but selfish enough that I ask myself, "Is something I"m excited about? Is this something that will make things bigger/better/brighter in the end?" What is important to me is projects and ideas that reflect my passions: building communities; spending time with those I love; focusing on how Boyfriend and I will move forward in the months and years ahead; communicating my passions with people, near and far, in hopes of helping or inspiring them.  In order to make sure that I have the time to do what matters most to me, I need to see where what is asked of me fits into those criteria. And go from there.

It's not the final answer, of course, dear readers. The question itself is too broad. I know that.

But certainly, right now, my greatest challenge, is that of time.

What are you doing to meet your biggest challenges?

One Strong Belief

Your MatchGirl spent all day today, gentle readers, pondering the prompt put forward by Buster Benson on the Ralph Waldo Emerson Self Reliance Challenge:

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

It's an interesting question.

It's a challenging question.

It's a question that I cannot truthfully answer.

I love the quote from Self-Reliance that has prompted this thoughtful challenge. I have always been comfortable in my own solitude, in being my own self. And in doing my best, with lapses in my teenaged years, to stay true to that self. It's how my parents raised me. It's how my grandparents, on both sides, raised them.

As I've move through my adulthood, and especially as I now linger in my mid-thirties, I find that I share more commonalities with the people I surround myself with than there are differences amongst us. And I don't mean this answer as a cop out. I challenged myself all day, from the morning when the prompt arrived to the late evening when I sat down to type this reply, to come up with an answer that was true. That meant something. That would be fitting of this question.

I cannot, though, dear readers, come up with something that I know, that I believe, that I believe that any person in my inner circle does not believe. Nothing that's of importance anyway.

I believe in love.

I believe in friendship.

I believe in the power of community.

I believe we are amazing alone and we can be even greater together.

These are the beliefs that I live by every day. These are the beliefs I share with you, gentle readers, as I attempt to answer this question. It might not be the answer that was asked for.

But I certainly believe it's the right answer.

Fifteen Minutes To Live

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Challenge:
You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

My life changed when I was laid off, in November of 2008. This is a fact.

Until that time I had been totally - for lack of a better word - comfortable with my life. That year, itself was miserable. A lot of bad things happened that, in the long run, don't really matter as stories, just as the pieces that fell down and put me into the position to be who I am today. And to see that being someone is to keep striving to be better at being you.

On that day in early November, my boss called me into his office and told me that I was doing a great job. But the company was hemoraging money and, as one of only two salaried people, I would be working my last day that day. I was amazed. I had worked my ass off at that job. I had worked long hours. I had put sweat and tears (and probably a little) blood into that job - working longer hours than even the start-up owners themselves. And suddenly I was being asked ot pack my desk and being escorted out the front door.

I was devastated.
I moped.
I slept too much.
I drank too much.
I looked on Craigslists for jobs that were well below my intelligence and skill.
I was, to say the least, depressed.

And then one morning, I woke up.
And I started writing.
I started this little blog to share my feelings with the world.

And I found out there were more people like me. People who were smart and loyal and beautiful and cared about each other and their communities - online and local. And I started to make a whole new world of friends.

That's the important part of the story. It's about the community that you find when you put yourself out there - truly put yourself out there and let yourself see the world in a different way. It's about the people you meet who you admire and you want to be friends with - who you find inspiring and whom you hope you can inspire.

The most important thing I  have learned, over the past few years, is that if you just put yourself out there - heart wide open - open to pain and to joy and to all the amazements that the world has to offer, even if they terrify you, that is the way to your truest self.

Through sharing my hopes and fears and pains on this blog, I realized that there was a tribe of people out there - some near, some far - who felt those things, too. I met people who were terrified of starting over after being laid off. I met girls who felt like they would be single forever. I met people in my own neighborhood who love it as much as I do and who thought there must be a way to introduce those people to one another - to foster community and relationships. And the best part of all of that is I am still doing it. And I'm helping other people do it. And I'm trying to work with people who are more tech-savvy than I to make it happen more and better and bigger.

The thing I know is that by being your true self - not apologizing, for either your strengths or your weaknesses, you gain so much. You meet the most amazing people. You find your tribe. You learn things you might never have known. You are offered experiences that, were you hiding behind a facade of what you think you're supposed to be, you never would have been privy to. It is a terrifying way to live, at times, with your heart on your sleeve. But, for me, there has never really been any other way.

The best thing that ever happened to me was getting laid off in November 2008, at the height of the recession. It put me on a path that I never would have gone down otherwise. And I can't imagine living any other way.

The #Trust30 Challenge

Your MatchGirl, gentle readers, has been a bit of a slacker when it comes to this little tome. When it comes to this blog in general. I have many side projects, I have my job projects (which include maintaining a few blogs and several Twitter feeds) and I have my life (which I also blog about). At work I'm the go-to girl to answer questions and make sure people know the names of other people in the office, to make sure the interns have projects to do and that they are getting them done. I'm the person who knows where the trash bags are and what time the super goes to lunch. I know who is at the meeting, who is supposed to be at the meeting and why the meeting is happening. It's all, to be very honest, dear ones, a little overwhelming.

Even when I have time to myself, it is not really my own time.

So, of course it made sense that when Amber Rae, the chief evangelist for The Domino Project (of which I am a slacking member of the street team), put forth the Ralph Waldo Emerson Self Reliance Challenge that your MatchGirl thought, "Oh sure! That sounds so good. I have time for that."

But here's the thing, dear ones. This is time for me. To do this challenge, to take these prompts and run with them, to reflect on this book.  Because this is something that I will do just for me. I will share as much as possible with you, on this website, though I may take some of the prompts and tackle them within my journal instead, and I hope that you will take the challenge with me. Not because I challenge you, but because it is time you can set aside to really pay attention to no one but yourself.

Tonight I tackle the first prompt:

Gwen Bell – 15 Minutes to Live

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

I'll share my story with you tomorrow.

Wish me luck!