Grace.

Hello kitties! I am watching Reno 911 with my roommates right now. Have you seen it? Pretty funny.

Had another chat with mom today about finding fulfillment in life. I have an answer for everything, but she’s definitely right. This lady at work said, “Don’t be wishin’ for the weekend, or you’ll wish your life away.” It’s true, but I do it anyway.

On Saturday, as I rode by on a bus, I saw a man on the sidewalk, bleeding from the head. He had a seizure and as my bus drove by, I saw him lying on his side, blood pooling in a very real way.

A week ago, my roommates and I were in the Mission and we a saw a buck naked man wandering in the middle of the street. He was on something, and he was obviously confused. Some people pulled him onto the sidewalk, and wrapped his nether regions in a sweatshirt. One of my roommates called the police.

In both cases, the cops got there in a matter of minutes, thankfully. But one more second could’ve meant the difference between life and death.

I talked to my friend Jewish Atheist last night for a while. I should’ve gone into conducting the census or something. Or maybe doing surveys. Do most girls have guy friends they can ask all kinds of intrusive questions to in order to make sure that our relationship is not, in fact, any different than the next couple’s? I’ve been doing that a lot lately, and I’ve been figuring out the following things:

1. I’m pretty naïve. Mostly by choice.
2. Men jerk off because it feels good. It has nothing to do with the woman they love. They do it not because they’re unhappy in the relationship, but because they are happy.
3. When a guy is depressed, he isn’t as interested in sex. So masturbating isn’t as interesting either.
4. When a guy is depressed, he’ll still masturbate. Who am I kidding.
5. Pornography is prevalent in male society. It’s easily accessible, it’s free, and it’s consequence free. (Except that your computer suddenly starts to run really slowly and the nether-regions get a bit dry if proper lubrication isn’t used. Oh, and getting off to porn is really easy, so when a real woman is involved, you’ll be more likely to get lazy about pleasing her. Maybe I’m wrong? And it hurts the girlfriend’s feelings if you’re enjoying yourself without her there because it makes her feel insecure and ask things like, “Are these big enough?”And she’ll start doing things like buying new clothes, getting her hair done, etc. to get the guy’s attention so he thinks she’s actually different women, and thus a variety of vaginas.)
6. I think on some level porn is about objectifying a woman, any woman, I don’t even care what her face looks like, just put a bag over her head and take pictures of her genitalia, that’s all I really need to get off. No legs? Even better. Less to get in the way.
7. There are some women that qualify for being objectified, and some women that don’t really, but what the hell, she has a vagina, so that’s good enough, I guess I’ll do her just this once.
8. Ok, #7 wasn’t fair. Men don’t actually think when they jack off. They just do it. Sort of like taking a piss, or scratching their butts.
9. There are some women that are too pure to jack off to, so men compartmentalize their more creative desires for certain types of women. (I believe that's a dance on the fine line of objectifying a woman and thinking violently of her. Thinking of some women that way means that some women deserve certain things, and simply don't feel things the same way as other women. Like pain, perhaps. i.e. "She wanted it. She asked for it.")
10. After men indulge in porn, they thank their lucky stars that they have a good girl to sleep with each night, to keep them company, and to share life’s lonely moments. He just doesn’t realize that his indulgence made her love him a little bit less. He chose someone else over her in that compartmentalizing way (it’s got nothing to do with you sweety, wack wack wack, I just wanted this [i.e. not you right now])—that’s insulting. What else is she supposed to feel?

***

People get mean when it’s raining. A few days ago I heard a woman fall down some concrete steps and I didn’t actually see her fall. I just heard the noise. A heavy body makes a lot of noise. She was heavy, and I have to say it was the worst sound I’ve heard since my best friend ran over a dog backing out of a driveway. It was really terrible. Very soon after this lady’s body hit the steps in a thud-thud-plunk way, a large crowd gathered at the top of the stairs, and I came along at just the right time as I rounded the corner to be one of the first on-lookers. Meanwhile, the traffic jam of wet, tired people started snorting for me to get out of the way. The fallen calf—poor thing—lost her shoes, dropped her box of things (the kind of box you carry when you get fired), and sat embarrassed and drenched on the floor.

It’s been the first sunny day in San Francisco in weeks. I forgot how much I hate rain. The first week, I made it through with tennis shoes, figuring it would stop raining soon so why invest in a good umbrella, a rain jacket, boots? By week two, I gave up anyway. Even with waterproof shoes, you still end up getting soaked from head to toe. Schubert and I went to a Russian Festival today on Sutter St. We had some classic food—borscht (hearty tomato/beef soup), pilmeni (meat-filled dumplings), galubtzi (stuffed cabage) and some Napoleon cake (with cherries and cream). We listened to an a cappella quartet sing classic Russian songs (most of which I hadn’t heard before).

Random list of stuff about me:

1. It's been one year since I met Schubert. And it's been a better year than I could have hoped for.
   
2. I have found a permanent apartment in San Francisco with 3 great roommates (so far, that is). My things will be here in a few days from D.C. I can't wait to put stuff away, have books on my bookshelf, have a kitchen full of cookware and have my closet organized. Oh, and a fluffy, clean, comfy bed will be nice too.
3. I'm learning a lot at work.
4. Can anyone else corroborate that making friends in San Francisco is a lot easier than in D.C.?
5. When you make a wish before you blow out your birthday candles, how long do you remember that wish? Does anyone ever write it down, and then check a few months/years later to see if it came true?
6. Is it really true that if you tell someone your wish then it won't come true?
7. What brings me joy is doing something nice for someone I love. I like that about myself--that I can do nice things and really not expect the same things back. Maybe a good hug is all I ask for.
8. I'm going to a Russian Festival in San Francisco tomorrow. Should be interesting.
   
9. I love flowers!
10. And soft things.
    

Writing makes me sad because I know that to do it I have to be alone. I’m subleasing an apartment in the Tenderloin in San Francisco for a few more weeks, and I already don’t want to be alone in this neighborhood. To think of writing means looking forward to coming home to an empty apartment and a mostly bare fridge, with that strange sour smell that I haven’t been able to get rid of, and that’s somehow managed to permeate the fresh items I’ve stored away in there. Everything smells like vinegar and parmesan cheese.

I think I’m at war with writing. I read something good and I say, “I could have written that.” And then I finish the line with “Well, why haven’t you?” I blame others for various feelings ranging from a diluted sense of purpose to a watercolor job to a bland pursuit of the frivolous to a runny sense of time and the amount of it that I have left. I also do a fair amount of comparing: “So and so is getting married and I want to talk about babies too.” So Schubert says, “Why are you comparing yourself to others?” And I say, “Because I want those things too. It doesn’t matter that others have them and I’ve become a cliché of a vague twenty-something. I’m still a person and I want those things too.” I just do.

I don’t write when I’m doing things I’m not proud of. If I write, it better be honest, so I don’t want to talk about things that hurt.

We’ve been having lots of talks, generally unpleasant ones. Issues of insecurity have been clouding our time together, but at least I’m being honest with him and at least he’s perceptive enough to understand me, which really is very hard to do.

A family friend sent me an article about a short story writing contest with the topic of “Are We There Yet?” The contestant can take that in any way they choose to, and they have to write four pages. I told Schubert about the contest and asked him, “What do you think I’ll write about?” Without hesitating, he said, “Marriage. If you and I are ready for it yet.” Note the lack of question mark at the end. I thought he’d never guess, because if even if he did guess, he’d never actually say it. It’s a topic that’s like swarming ants under a carpet. No, not under a rug, a carpet. The thought gives you a sick, churning feeling that sort of creeps you out and sort of makes you want to leave the room or run away and hide. And then blame someone. Who put that carpet on an ant hill? And who brought those ants into the house in the first place? See, now you’re changing the subject. Always changing the subject. Admit it, you just don’t want to talk about marriage.

I’m not sure, but I’m guessing that children of alcoholics might feel like vomiting if they smell liquor. I don’t know. Sometimes, I feel like vomiting when I have to say the word marriage. And I suppress nervous laughter when someone says the pretentious word “fiancé.”

Wife? That’s one word that feels as sturdy as a chimney. It’s a proud word that I could lean on, cling to it like my mother’s skirt. It’s the one word that means there’s hope for me. It has more to do with the woman than her counterpart—without whom she wouldn’t be a wife at all. But still, I feel like she could go on being a wife even when he no longer was her husband. If he dies, she becomes a widow, but I’d just go on thinking of her as a wife, because that comes from within. That’s what gives the marriage solidity and sturdiness, warmth and compassion.

I wiped the smile off my face when he guessed what my short story would be about, and I knew at that moment that I’d never send it in, and I might not even write it. He guessed, and he went on looking at the menu.

If he had said, “You’ll write about politics, the 2008 campaign.” I could’ve pretended that that was it, and said, “You got it!” I then I could’ve kept my secret to myself, the one thing I always think about and the thing that scares me the most. How it makes me completely disoriented, wondering, what now? I think about it so much and I know so little about it. I think I want it and it terrifies me. Mass made lifestyles don’t ever fit me. I try them on and I conclude, “This just isn’t for me.” Wedding planning books make me dizzy and white dresses make me want to spill something on them.

He ordered an omelet, and I ordered a salad. It’s a diner we’d never gone to and we sat across from each other in a booth. I switched seats to sit by him, and that’s when I brought up the writing contest.

The deadline came and went, and I didn’t submit anything. He never asked me about it. I don’t blame him. I blame myself.

I think I want to be married, so I can have a yellow house with white trim and hardwood floors. A big parlor with a cherry wood piano for him. These things mean companionship to me because there’s a default person somewhere in the house. This abstract home calms me, but the real thought of a key being pulled out of my purse, inserting it in the lock, opening the door, and being disappointed by the person I see… that makes me feel hopeless. And so vulnerable. What if ten years go by and then I feel that way?

“I didn’t know how good things could be,” he said, as we sat on my couch after spending an afternoon at Golden Gate Park. We’d had another big discussion, during which I admitted amidst embarrassing tears, “But I don’t want to get married that late.” And he said things like, “There’s so much time left,” and I thought of how long my grandma lived and how long she was sick for. But both of his grandmas are still alive and well, and he’s such a warm soul. He just doesn’t know the way I know things.

He’s an animal, just like me, but we’re driven by different biology. We’re different and equal, and sometimes he’s just flat out better than me, like when he says just the right thing at the right time, and knows exactly how to touch me. But I’m too proud to say, “Thank you. That was exactly what I needed.”

“If we lived together, this is how big I’d want the apartment to be,” he said. Instantly, I was standing in the redecorated room, the empty shelf suddenly had his music books on them, and I felt like we were exactly where we were supposed to be. And I didn’t say thank you for that momentary feeling of calm, like I was the last piece of a puzzle and someone picked me off of the floor and put me in my place, all snug, and full of purpose.

I remembered her tonight as I drank organic blueberry-pomegranate juice. I thought that grandma should have some, and that mom should bring her some next time in a Tupperware sippy cup. Maybe mom will find a straw in the kitchen. Grandma doesn’t eat much anymore, nothing solid. Most things come back up again anyway. So if mom brings her this juice, she’ll really like it. And blueberries are good for you.

I’m not anywhere near her nursing home, and I’m not anywhere near my mom. And my grandma isn’t around anymore, not even at the nursing home, but I swore for a split second as I tasted the gritty blueberry seedlings, feeling them between my teeth, that she was still in that permanent and helpless state. How I got used to that. The decline and perpetual drowning. Completely submerged at the bottom of the pool, the weight just won’t let up to at least free the body to float to the surface. How permanent a slow decline can be, how indefinitely hopeless, permanently not alive and not dead.

I hate that when I think of her I don’t remember the good times. I just remember in flinching seconds that she was never going to get better, that she was so heavy on my mother’s ankles as they sank together. Robbery. Senility robs what I have a right to, a grandmother or at least the memory of one. Her illness stole my memories.

I remembered her tonight as the tangy juice slid down my throat, how I watched my mother’s anger flare up at her because she’d spit back the food, let it drip from her chin down her shirt onto her hands. She’d swat at my mother’s hand as she tried to dry the kasha from her face, swat, slap slap slap. How angry my mother got.

Anger. It sounds like a foreign country, or maybe Angieres. Seething Salem. Panicking Palermo. Defeated Djibouti. Ignore me, I’m just playing with my mom’s emotions or how she must have felt at times. I spent one evening with my grandma, trying to coax her to eat something and I started to feel the weeeeiiiiiiigggggggggggghhhhhht of her age and illness and she looked like Smeagol and I loved her and was angry at her at the same time.

How shame takes hold of us and bares us for all to see. I am ashamed that I just said that my grandma looked like Smeagol, but when the movie first came out, I couldn’t stop thinking of the similarity. How comforting to see that she was well, crawling around on all fours calling something precious, having a desire for something [delectably disturbing].

Goddamned anger. How do you communicate with someone who’s gone? She was gone twelve years before she really left, and when she passed I was relieved. There’s no sense to that. She’d sometimes say in Russian, “I don’t want to live.” Ten days before she died we took her downstairs to the room with parakeets in it, wrapped her in her blue blanket, and placed her by the couch. My brother read, I did too. I don’t know what mom did, but it was grandma’s last birthday.

When she was laid out on her bed, she was straight for the first time in years. I always saw her scrunched up, hunched over even when she was lying down. Bony elbows and shoulders jutting out at neomodern angles (architects would be proud).

I didn’t want to talk about this.

My blueberry-pomegranate juice evoked a memory, and I just wanted to make her well again, the same way my mom tried to feed her blintzes by mushing them up first. Or when mom packed fresh blackberries and grandma ate them one after the other grinding the seeds between her yellow teeth. I worried she’d get diarrhea and mom was glad she was eating something.

According to a self-help pamphlet I found at a church, I learned that forgiveness consists of four steps. The first is to acknowledge the hurt. The second is to own the feelings of hatred, blame and anger. The third is to accept the need for healing, and let go of the need to get revenge. The fourth is to wish the other person well and offer a chance for a restored relationship. A notable quote is the following:

“Forgiveness is not quantifiable, and it is not contingent upon the repentance or remorse of the offender. Sometimes those who hurt us later realize what they have done and express regret, but often they do not. Our forgiveness of others cannot await this uncertain outcome and actually has nothing to do with it. If we wait for others to be sorry that they have injured us, we may wait forever. The forgiving spirit is a quality within the forgiver, and is not dependent on the moral caliber of the offender. Our spiritual growth must proceed regardless of what others do. The three “Cs” of recovery programs remind us that we did not cause others to be like they are; we cannot control them; and we won’t be able to cure them.”

What or whom have you had to forgive? Please share stories with me in the comments.

I live in San Francisco now. Today is day 10 since I arrived and I feel like this is home. I’m staying with my boyfriend, Schubert, until I find a place to live with my lovely roommate, Laura. Schubert lives in a house in the mission and has 5 roommates, who are all musicians.

This is what Schubert and Laura look like:

I’m spending my time doing domestic things. When I’m happy, I start cleaning and cooking, laundering and grocery shopping. Since I arrived, I’ve scrubbed the boys’ bathtub, made the house’s fridge sparkling clean, done about 10 loads of laundry, folded laundry that didn’t belong to me (have received about a dozen thank yous from people), cooked a few meals, made some great dessert to share, swept floors, scrubbed countertops, and organized my boyfriend’s closet (mainly to make room for my things in it).

He’s been a sweetheart about all of this stuff. Instead of saying, “Stop meddling and leave my stuff alone!” he’s said thank you to me for every little thing I’ve done, including getting rid of the squeaky hinges on his bedroom door (the trick: take a Q-tip and dip it in olive oil, dab on to the hinges for a quick fix). I’ve replaced a burnt-out light bulb and bought him an adorable Wonder Bread sandwich box—he said thank you and thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’ve found a lovely balance here.

All women really want is acknowledgement. When she does something nice, like remove the goo off the soap dish, all she wants is a quick, “Hey! That goo is gone. Thanks!” Not saying anything is not a good idea, but it’s certainly better than saying something like, “What did you do that for? What a waste of time!” The last response will explain why you don’t get laid that night.

I folded Schubert’s still warm, freshly laundered bath towel and I brought it up to his face while he was working busily on his composition. “Isn’t this nice?” I asked. He smiled and said, “It’s all in the details.” And that is how, ladies and gentlemen, he made me feel appreciated.

***

I’m not working right now, so I’m trying not to spend money where I don’t have to. My job starts on October 29^th, and I considered calling them up and saying, “I’d like to start earlier, please.” But then someone said to me, “Are you nuts?” And I had to seriously consider that possibility—Who in their right mind would give up two weeks of vacation time, especially having just arrived in a new city, where beautiful coffee shops and used book stores cry out for attention? I planned on spending this time looking for apartments, but certain technical difficulties have kept Laura and me from signing a lease. We’ll regroup in a few weeks and go from there. In the meantime, I take meandering walks around the neighborhoods and window shop. I sleep in late, cook meals at home, visit with Schubert during his breaks, and read a ton. There are no TVs in the house, so I watch movies on Netflix and read books instead.

Currently, I’m working through Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt and A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Very different books—the first is a memoir about an Irish family and their survival from the perspective of a little boy, the second is a memoir written by a man from Sierra Leone about his childhood surviving as a child soldier. I'm reading the first one because it won the Pulitzer Prize and the second one for a book club that's meeting soon.

***

Things are great right now. How are you all?

I don’t know whose idea it was, but it sent several Russian immigrants running. My father came home last Friday evening from work, and he seemed glum, distracted even, as he watched his customary evening news on CNN. Mom leaned over to me and said, “His office is having him read a few lines for a skit.”

A skit? Oh, right. He does work for a big insurance company; corporate America at its best. His office will have five teams of about 10 people putting on a creative commercial in front of about 100 people at their biannual meeting. I don’t know if any prizes are involved, but I do know that a great deal of preparation is being made by my father and his neighbor, both Russian men, programmers in their late fifties, both with tremendous Russian accents. There are two other Russian programmers in his group of 10, and I’m willing to bet that they all had similar, pained expressions on their faces as they sat down to eat dinner that night.

Cultural discoveries have been made before my very eyes over the last week. “No,” I said to dad, “It’s not Mr. Hovel, it’s Mr. Howell. Pronounce the owell like the word owl, not like the word shovel.” Dad tried it a few times and finally got it. Sort of. “Dad,” I told him, “It’s Gilligan’s Island, not Gilligan Island. It’s a possessive apostrophe s.” Then, he sat on the floor in front of the new big screen TV watching an old episode of the show, singing along with the theme song, practicing it several times before he got the hang of it. Mom told him, “Just don’t sing loud and you’ll be fine.” Dad laughed at the show as Maryanne tried to seduce a native who resisted her by mumbling in an “ethnic” language: “You’re not the type of girl I can bring home to mother.”

Yesterday, as on most evenings, I carpooled home with my dad’s lifelong Russian friends turned neighbors turned coworkers. I listened as the woman corrected her husband’s pronunciation. “No, it’s not strugety it’s strutegy.” This went on for a few minutes, and I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. I threw myself into the fray and said, “it’s just like the beginning of the word stratosphere. Make that ‘a’ nasal sounding, and don’t mix up the ‘g’ and ‘t’. They had me say the word stratosphere five times, followed by the word strategy as it was intended to sound, with the g and t in the right places.

Four out of ten of the troubadouric thespians are Russian, I thought. Did the American who wrote the skit know that my dad has trouble with the word whirl? Did he even realize that my dad would be preparing for his five lines with the kind of fervor that he had when he was studying to be a physicist, the kind of diligence he tried to instill in me when it came to my own algebra and history classes?

My dad’s friend sat in the backseat and said to his daughter on his cell phone, “Listen to me and tell me if you can understand me…” and he recited his few lines, enunciating each syllable, massaging the sides of his tongue against his teeth as he emphasized the American, flat r, chiseling away the rrrolling exotic Russian r to the topography of Wyoming.

As we neared the end of our 50 minute car ride, dad surprised me by reciting his lines perfectly by memory. Each word rounded out like an apple pie’s edges, each intonation of a phrase ebbed and flowed like an American flag, and I could see the smile on his face when he finished and saw me staring at him. Almost a week later, he had finally conquered his demon, and I was reminded again of how each victory over the English language is really a victory for my entire family. These battles are being fought and won, but the word immigrant will never be fully conquered.

"I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before."

~Francesca Johnson in The Bridges of Madison County  

I quit my job today and accepted a new one in San Francisco. It’s the end of an era for me in D.C., as Kirsten noted, and I have to say that I’m happy to close this chapter of my life. I’ve been toying with the idea of writing an advice book for young women who’d found themselves in similar situations as me—moving to a new city with a guy, living with him, getting ditched, feeling lost, slowly recovering, learning how to make friends, growing sturdy survival legs, and moving on.

It’s sort of trite, but maybe it could make good material for some short stories.

List of Advice:

1. Unless you’re okay with endless dating, don’t live with the boy. Get your own place.
2. Don’t devote your time to his every need. Examples: Don’t sacrifice happy hours with your coworkers to go to his work events.
3. Don’t get involved in his family drama. As a follow-up, pay close attention to the relationships within his family. If they don’t sit well with you, take that as a predictor of your future together.
4. Reserve chunks of your life for yourself, like drawing a line in the sand which he can’t cross over. The hard part? Really meaning it. If you pick up painting, don’t paint and think, “I wish I was with him on the couch in front of the T.V.”
5. Don’t share finances, for the love of God. And don’t give out social security numbers.
6. When you feel you’re not being respected, believe that feeling.
7. Love is not hard. You shouldn’t have to force yourself to feel good, and you shouldn’t have to force yourself to like someone you should like naturally.
8. Sex is a huge indicator of how your relationship is fairing. If he’s lazy in bed, he’s lazy out of the bedroom. If he puts your pleasure second, he’ll put you second in other areas of your life together.
9. If you feel lonely while sitting with him with no distractions, something’s not right.
10. Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched—planning is great, don’t get me wrong, but planning the paint color on the walls of the house you haven’t bought together is bad news.
11. Keep your families apart until you’re engaged. There’s no reason for parents to become friends if you don’t even know how the relationship will turn out.
12. Don’t let your boyfriend’s mom treat you like a daughter. You don’t need another mom—you’ve got one already, like her or not.
13. Don’t let your boyfriend’s mom treat you like a daughter-in-law, since you’re not married to her son yet. Examples: shopping with her, and allowing her to question your style in clothing.
14. Make friends, the real kind. Call them, make plans, and follow through. Genuinely care. If you can’t genuinely care, take some time to figure out what’s wrong. Maybe all of your attention is being focused on one person?
15. Plan your life as if you were going to have to do it all alone. While this isn’t the best case scenario, it’s a contingency plan. Anything above that is gravy. As I’ve heard in a movie: “We come into this world alone and we die alone.”
16. Ladies, take your careers seriously. Divorce rate aside, desire to bare children aside, your job does matter. It affects your self esteem and from what I know of men, they love a strong woman. If the guy doesn’t appreciate that in you, re-evaluate why that may be. Does he feel threatened by you? Does he trust you without feeling like he has to bribe you to stay? Does he insist on earning more than you? Is he more competitive with you than encouraging regarding salaries?
17. Negotiate the job offers you get. A disproportionate number of men negotiate compared with women. Don’t be afraid of seeming like a bitch—this is your time you’re being compensated for. It’s your future, and if you’re planning like you’ll be doing it alone, salary starts to matter more.
18. No body owes you anything. If you were privileged growing up, don’t think that’s how things are supposed to be. If you want something, go out there and get it. Don’t expect people to hand you anything.
19. Stop leaching off your parents. It’s one thing if you need a place to stay when something goes wrong, or if you’re between leases, but don’t depend on them to bail you out. Remember: live life like you’re doing it alone. It builds strong legs to stand on.
20. If your goal is to get married, raise a family, and move forward in developing your relationship with your significant other, share that from the outset of a relationship. Once it’s out there, stick to your guns and be ready to leave if your instinct tells you it’s not going to happen. This is why #15 is important. You’ll be more likely to survive a break up if you feel you can take care of yourself no matter what.

I see how I’ve become. When I was so depressed that I could barely breathe, I’d fly and think about what it would be like to die. I know. It’s not PC to say that in this post-September 11^th world, but I’d have dreams about dying in a plane crash. While wide awake. It was my private, reckless way of saying to the world, “I don’t care if you take me, I don’t care what happens to me.”

I’ll call it my teenage depression because it lasted from 6^th grade through 11^th. It was always there, a lump of old bread in my stomach. Maybe it was a learned behavior from my mom, or maybe it was partly hormones, maybe both. I want to dig through boxes to find my old journals from those times. I’m sure there are some great quotes about wanting to die, morbid things I wrote, and really felt. But everything is already packed up and I don’t want to step barefoot on the garage floor.

I was depressed for six school years, most days surviving, some days clawing at anything that could help me out of the hole I was in, and very few people knew. I made it through alive because I never had the resolve to off myself, even though one of my classmates did, and her grave is next to my grandmother’s grave in Minnesota at a Jewish cemetery. This girl was also Russian, so I guess we had a lot in common. Except she still has an image of Winnie-the-Pooh on her grave stone, the one that’s carved in the shape of a music note, and I’m still alive.

I made it through the day by sleeping three hours after school and six more at night, playing flute in the band, and messing around with boys when I could. The more boys, the better. The more I could pull them along, the healthier I felt. Self esteem problems? Never. Seriously. I wasn’t plagued by such things at that age. I was sick with the disease that made me act like a self-destructive adult at fourteen.

I was also plagued by my mother’s frowning looks and her own depression. The way she and I squared off in the kitchen, one moment hating each other, then standing side by side, cooking at midnight.

My brother’s friend, Marc, would stop by our house some nights when it was very late, and he’d quietly knock on the window of the kitchen, jolting my mother and me out of our walking insomnia and shared depressed eyelids, sticky from sweat, cooking oil, and sadness. He’d sit with us at the table and eat dinner at two in the morning some nights.

I dated a guy for years who was controlling and very jealous. Marc came by one night, and I had to tell him that he wasn’t welcome to visit me anymore, that the guy I was with didn’t allow it. He’d get mad at me, and I’d have to deal with his anger. Marc’s reply: “The Marina I know wouldn’t let a guy do this to her.”

He was right, but I didn’t listen until much later. I’d make crepes with my mom and fill them with sweet apples and cinnamon. I’d rake leaves in the back yard during my weekends home from college, and I’d quietly hide the controlling boyfriend’s effect on me—the side effect that comes from knowing you can fall in love with abuse—the feeling that you could get through anything, if you were just strong enough, if you weren’t so weak.

Raking leaves into little piles, filling a first aid glove with dead leaves, I’d make turkey heads and run around my parents’ yard. Those Indian summer afternoons. One such day brought me the news of my cousin’s suicide, and my dad’s way of delivering the information: “Irit is no longer.” Of course, it sounds different in Russian, but the gist is the same, and my mother snapped at him, “Tell her the truth! She is old enough to know. She’s in college for god’s sake.” So dad says, “She killed herself. With a gun.” And then mom told me to put down the damn turkey head, and what was wrong with me, couldn’t I feel grief like a normal person? Why was I so juvenile? But I couldn’t at the time. I was busy grieving for me. “People deal with grief differently, mom,” was all I could say. And I hated her for a while for not approving of the way I felt sad.

When I finally awoke from my rotting state, I eventually stopped cursing the world around me. I don’t remember when my desire to live resurfaced, but I knew one day, as I sat strapped into a plane seat that I didn’t want to die. So I started making all kinds of deals with god, “Please let me make it through this landing. I promise I’ll be better towards my parents. I won’t be so selfish anymore. I just want to land safely.”

I made it through without medication, or counseling. My general physician once did an exam and said to me, “I’m not sure why you’re so sleepy. Your iron levels are normal, so it’s no anemia. All other tests are coming out fine. Unless…” She trailed off, and then continued, “Unless you’re depressed and you aren’t telling me. Of course, there’s no way that I’d know if you’re good at hiding it.” I sat silent, mortified, wanting to curse the day I’d referred my mother to my doctor. This woman was treating my mother for heavy depression, so no doubt she knew my family history. I guess she could see that I wasn’t fully well, but there wasn’t much she could do for me unless I requested treatment, and I swear, the room was so uncomfortable because the word “depression” had farted its way into our faces. So I went untreated, and I survived.

That survival is a story for another day, but I saw how I’d become—I had finally started caring about my life, and I desperately clung to every missed opportunity, every chance I’d given up for happiness. I began to regret the self destructive things I’d done to myself, like being friends with a girl named Kari in high school who said I embarrassed her when we hung out with guys, how my shirt wasn’t low-cut enough, how I had to stop being so weird. I regretted that I never tried out for a play, or sang in the choir, or took writing seriously. How I doubted myself every time I’d raised my hand, how I didn’t kiss the popular boy I had a crush on and got to go home with after school to work on a home movie English project. I regretted wasting time. I cared, all of a sudden, and that change surprised me to my core, because the very mournful friend I had known for so long had somehow died, and I wasn’t grieving for her.

I’m back in DC, or Maryland, I should say. San Francisco was wonderful, as it always is, and I feel like it’s home.

Home.

What the fuck?

Why is it so hard to just find a place, slap a few things on the walls, get some friends to help lug your freaking oversized couch up the narrow stairwell, and really feel at home? Well, first off, I haven’t found too many friends in DC that would help lug a couch up some stairs. Second, I couldn’t afford an oversized couch when I first got here, and I now know better than to make that kind of an investment in this city. Third, home is about something intangible.

Like how happy I get when I sniff a heavily boy smell saturated t-shirt, my boy’s smell. Or when he puts me in a femi headlock and shoves my nose into his armpit, further emphasizing his masculine prowess as he whispers to me, “This is where your home is.”

And all of my insides melt like salami on a frying pan. My stomach flips, my throat prepares to say something, but all that I can do is laugh hysterically and hold him tightly and breathe in his armpit smell.

Bread, butter, tea, Russian salami.

Cool, San Francisco morning air.

Silent kitchen, two people at the table,

The whole day ahead to lazy it up.

I'm in San Francisco for the weekend. It's heaven here, and I don't want to go back to DC. The days involve long walks through pretty neighborhoods, where I explore cafes, which serve buttery croissants, and organc ice cream shops that serve flavors like "Honey Hill Mint Lavender". In between each mini adventure, I go back to my boyfriend's house and we take afternoon and evening naps, interspersed with movies on laptops and the kind of lovemaking that makes me feel like the entire state of California is on top of me, wrapping me up from the inside out with sunshine, coastline and sweet necatrines.

Yesterday morning we went to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building on Embarcadero. We bought some odds and ends, came home, cooked a late lunch, and before I knew it, it was 9 o'clock, and time to meet up with my cousin. She's great, and I love spending time with her.

More later on this adventure. Today, we're going to the Richmond District in search of the classic Russian store. We're hoping to find the great salami and smoked fish that I'm used to, and also a napoleon cake, filled with cream and layered with puff pastry dough.

I now keep a private journal of the classic variety. It’s a bunch of blank, unlined pages, bound with a black cover. I write everything in it—stuff I don’t even want to admit to myself.

Last weekend, I flew to attend two weddings in California, and when I returned, I couldn’t find my journal. I thought at first that I left it at the hotel I stayed at in San Diego. I started thinking of what the hotel staff must have thought of me when they, no doubt, read through each page on their breaks. Sandwich crumbs and soda can rings, my jealous thoughts and needy wining. I thought of my journal in the lost and found bin among keys, wet swimming suits, lonely socks. I was embarrassed. I felt like the real me was out there, being passed from hand to hand, being laughed at in groups, but privately, these people would go home and really understand me because they would feel the same way about most things as I do.

I ransacked my parents’ house to find it (I live there again). And when I did find it, it was hidden in my suitcase, where I left it, between two zippered pieces of luggage.

Lots of things have happened since I last posted, and I’ll try to start writing on here again because I miss it. But I have to find a balance between what I write in my private journal and what’s honest enough to be written on here.

A quick update on my life is that my best friend is getting married next year. I’m her maid of honor, and I’m thrilled that she’s marrying such a sweet, loveable and caring guy. They’re perfect together. Over the years they’ve started to look more like each other, which is actually the sign of a perfect match. Soon, I will buy them matching windbreakers and wheely bags. Then, the transformation will be complete. My best friend hates this image, but I think it’s the epitome of unity.

(Aside: I feel like I abuse commas. Comments, anyone?)

***

On my walk from the metro to work, there is a stench that is so gruesome, I wonder if perhaps someone died in one of the garages and then a maintenance worker boarded up their body in the garage. It’s like this decomposing body is a mass of greenish velvet of rot, or the remnants of a kaleidoscope of maggot-infested salad beans. I am not the only one who feels this way. Now, a group of us is rethinking our morning route, and we’re considering walking a block out of our way to avoid the stench. I am concerned that perhaps something organic did actually die under Union Station, and it really is melting in the August heat. My God, that smell could kill an innocent bystander.

***

My brother is also getting married. My family, myself included, couldn’t be happier. He’s with a great girl from Prague, and they’ll most likely have tiny children with very heavy heads and soft ears. As slightly older kids, they will be beautiful and will have genius-style brain sponges, and I will love to have them over for varying degrees of spoiling sessions. I’ll feed them banana bread and we’ll do sissy art projects involving elbow macaroni and glitter. Then, they’ll look up at me with saint-like eyes, barely able to contain their huge, brown, marble eyeballs in their huge heads, and they’ll say, “Aunt Marina, really?” The same way that I say, “Really?” when a Northwest Airlines representative tells me there’s nothing he can do for me; the flight is cancelled until three days from now and no, they can’t put me up in a hotel or give me free vouchers, that I have to call the customer service helpline 24 hours from the cancellation of my flight to redeem my 1,000 miles of allotted freakin’ flyer compensation. (freakin’ flyer=frequent flyer, same thing)

Then, these kids will open my fridge in search of a carton of milk, the kind that opens up at the top and is a single serving, and instead, they’ll pull out a tiny universe, between the size of a grain of sand and a Cheerio, and they’ll say something prophetic in unison. Something like, “Don’t worry, Aunt Marina, the dream you had last night is contained in this grain of sand.” And I’ll pry the little boy’s sticky fingers apart to, indeed, reveal a sparkling, gemlike universe, covered in doughy banana crumbs. And then, I’ll eat it.

When their parents come by to pick them up, the kids will say they had a good time, and that they’d like to come back soon.

***

I’m still very much in love. I know because when I think about lying in bed with this person, or walking to a park in San Francisco on a Saturday afternoon, I don’t want to be anywhere else. I’m a little concerned that we don’t fight. I thought that fighting was normal, and I wonder if one day, we’ll have a fight, and not be ready for it. But the fight will probably be in whispers, while I’m cradling his head in my lap or squishing his face between my hands, so that we forget about the fight for the moment and make love instead.

I swear I'm still alive. And everything is fine. Lots of family is in town, work is busy, trip next week.

=

No time to write in a quiet environment. 

I like how my bed smells like you. You’re out there, somewhere. It’s 7:30 PM and I think other people are eating dinner with their families, and those that don’t have families and are very much alone are somewhere else entirely—bars, streets, crouched in corners.

There are so many homeless people in DC, and so many hungry people. Others are neither, but they sit on the front steps to their buildings, tank tops over dark, wet skin. Necks crane as the one white girl passes through their neighborhood, nods, “Hello, how are you,” bikers on sidewalks speeding by, sticky kids screaming, teenagers hanging around street corners checking each other out.

I like the sense of must and the feeling that responsibility gives me. It’s a sense of purpose, because for me, that’s what keeps me from being one of the people on the street. I like to walk and think about what my future holds. It’s not some sort of set-in-stone road map. It’s a dream, a long dream that starts and stops as I run my errands, stop at CVS to buy shampoo, soap, smell the soap, buy the bottle on sale, will I have children? Do I have my CVS discount card? I can’t separate these thoughts from my daily life because my sense of purpose is very much connected to what I want in the future. I survive today, and I come home today, instead of hanging around on street corners or bars because I have an understanding of what today is for. It’s for tomorrow.

Sure, today is fine for its own sake. But how much time is left? I know, dramatic and trite, really the stuff that juvenile essays are made of. Maybe.

There’s no real difference between being homeless and being lonely. Transience takes many forms. How sad it is to be alone.

I’ve never been happier, and I’ve never been more afraid of losing what I have found. If I don’t fight for what I want, then no one will just come and hand it to me.

Seven layer dip: green chili peppers, black olives, mild salsa, chopped lettuce, shredded cheddar cheese, softened cream cheese, taco seasoning mix, refried beans, one medium tomato. Serve with chips. Delicious. Don’t have too much or you won’t fit into that dress. Strapless dress, three weddings coming up, swimming suit season, okay, you can have just three chips. Pick around the part with the cheese on it.

Twenty minutes later, half the dish is gone and I’ve given up on the chips. They keep breaking, and I have salty fingers and corn crumbs all over. I’ve moved on to eating the dip with a spoon. Beans. Beans are healthy, right? It was either this or eating the Coco Pebbles, but the milk was bad.

I wonder what the recipe is for suburban living and why every home has the same set of chairs in the kitchen breakfast nook—those wooden, highly sturdy farm chairs that never quite match the table. They’re made to be that height so that when kids sit on them, they can exercise the full force of their hamstrings, swinging wildly under the table, ample room to kick siblings. Wind-up and all. They eat Coco Pebbles too, but in that context, chocolate cereal doesn’t seem sad, and milk never goes sour. Bowls made of fax-porcelain, when they fall in the sink they make a very light clinking sound that reminds me of a toddler’s high chair, the way things sound when they’re dropped from that height.

I could do these things on my own, I could do this all by myself, yet it seems grotesque unless it’s in the right setting. What would I do with a breakfast nook? A mismatched table and chairs? The milk in my fridge would always go sour anyway, even the quart containers, because it would still be just me. And the ants would get into the cereal box before I could finish a second bowl. When my place is messy, it’s sad. When a family’s house is messy, it’s somehow right. Even when it’s messy, everything is as it should be.

I think there isn’t enough room in this world for single living—it can actually be cheaper for me to go out to eat for every meal than to cook for myself. It’s cheaper because having to throw out the leftovers costs me too much emotionally. I hate wasting food, but cooking for one and saving the leftovers is grotesque again. I actually feel like I’m taunting myself. And happy hours with hot wings and half price ciders is like a field trip for the lonelies, even those who are with someone.

I’m not sure what everyone else is doing right now—my neighbors, my family, you. You’re probably at that place you were heading tonight, going about your business, and I know that I’ll see you later tonight. And only then will I feel like things are in their right place, when you lay down next to me, into that spot on my bed that already smells like you.

I have two halves, the one that wants that breakfast nook legitimately, the one that can add something to a conversation about how Target brand diapers are really good quality, and then roll my eyes at how idiotic it is that baby formula costs so much. I’d love to go one step beyond and be one of those parents that never talks about these things, the kind of mom that slings her baby over her shoulder in a hammock-like cloth and takes a long walk through the park, pockets loaded with granola and baby wipes. I would love to be that woman who does it all, and you know she’s happy because she treats those in her life with the utmost respect and admiration, like when she looks at her husband, everyone around her knows that she’s in love. That’s not so bad, is it? It’s not too much to want.

I haven’t been happier since I was a child myself. I remember standing at the side of the road on Christmas Eve, freezing and loving it, holding a candle for the one car every ten minutes, even though I’m not Christian. I was so happy that others were happy that night, probably driving with their families to church, that I wanted to let them know that I knew. That butterfly stomach giddiness that kids feel before they go on a flight, or before they open their birthday presents. I was happy then, and I’m even happier now.

I’m slowly unwrapping my future, and I have to remember to take it one day at a time. Even the little things that I do and feel are legitimate, regardless of the times I hear people say to me, “Well, your body bounces back much faster if you have kids when you’re young.”

Feist says it all:

Helping the kids out of their coats
Oh wait the babies haven't been born oh
Unpacking the bags and setting up
And planting lilacs and buttercups oh
But in the meantime we've got it hard
Second floor living without a yard
It may be years until the day
My dreams will match up with my pay
Old dirt road,
(mushaboom, mushaboom)
knee deep snow
(mushaboom, mushaboom)
Watching the fire as we grow
(mushaboom, mushaboom)
o-o-o-o-old
I got a man to stick it out
And make a home from a rented house oh
And we'll collect the moments one by one
I guess that's how the future's done oh
How many acres, how much light
Tucked in the woods and out of sight
Talk to the neighbours and tip my cap
On a little road barely on the map
Old dirt road,
mushaboom, mushaboom)
knee deep snow
mushaboom, mushaboom)
Watching the fire as we grow,
mushaboom, mushaboom)
o-o-o-o-old
(mushaboom, mushaboom)
Old dirt road rambling rose
(mushaboom, mushaboom)
Watching the fire as we grow
(mushaboom, mushaboom)
Well I'm Sold...

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping:

“Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house. Those outside can watch you if they want, but you need not see them. You simply say, ‘Here are the perimeters of our attention. If you prowl around under the windows till the crickets go silent, we will pull the shades. If you wish us to suffer your envious curiosity, you must permit us not to notice it.’ Anyone with one solid human bond is that smug, and it is the smugness as much as the comfort an safety that lonely people covet and admire.”

***

“You may have noticed that people in bus stations, if they know you also are alone, will glance at you sidelong, with a look that is both piercing and intimate, and if you let them sit beside you, they will tell you long lies about numerous children who are all gone now, and mothers who were beautiful and cruel, and in every case they will tell you that they were abandoned, disappointed, or betrayed—that they should not be alone, that only remarkable events, of the kinds one reads in books, could have made their condition so extreme. And that is why, even if the things they say are true, they have the quick eyes and active hands and the passion for meticulous elaboration of people who know they are lying. Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery. When one looks from inside at a lighted window, or looks from above at the lake, one sees the image of oneself in a lighted room, the image of oneself among trees and sky—the deception is obvious, but flattering all the same. When one looks from the darkness into the light, however, one sees all the difference between here and there, this and that.”

He sat arguing about the likelihood that the corporate credit downgrade would force the company’s cost of debt to climb to a point of making it impossible for the company to finance the new project in Arizona.

She watched him speaking in a train track way, redundantly, rhythmically, and she saw no end to his monologue. Still, she felt sorry for him, felt so deeply sorry that she would have endured three more hours of his prep school tone and slow speech, which he invoked when he felt superior, if it meant that he would feel a little bit less alone and little bit more loved.

She put the pieces of the puzzle together quickly enough. That morning, the suits walked in to the conference room, all briefcases, polished shoes, perfectly knotted ties, and she shook hands with them, one by one. Tall one, short skinny one, bald fat one, glasses man, two dozen more, and Richard.

Months before, she noticed him. Something about the way he held himself during negotiations, something very brick-like, his back like a colonial home, legs like columns, chest like a fireplace, arms like oak table legs. She noticed how he refused to concede that he didn’t understand something, if that was ever the case, which she was never sure was. She noticed how his hair was never out of place, perfectly combed in a way that made her think that touching it would feel like petting the Velveteen Rabbit. She noticed the roundness of the glasses sitting high on his straight nose, making his Ken-doll cheekbones stand out against the titanium frames.

The minute she found the missing piece, she fell in love with him. It came in the form of an impossible task, a prolonged discussion to set up a future meeting date among the group of two dozen plus suits, all blackberries and personal schedules, family vacations and prior engagements. Ten minutes, twenty, thirty, and they still hadn’t chosen a date and time when all of them could meet again.

True, July fourth is usually a time for families to pile in the van and drive the hell out of town to stay with grandma and grandpa at the family cabin. Or it’s a time to fly to Las Vegas with the latest girl and spend a long weekend making love in the cold hotel room, leaving wet towels on the bed the way you never would at home, letting the water run for a lot longer in the shower because there are two of you in there, then walking into the steaming heat of the evening to get to the all you can eat dinner buffet before hitting the black jack tables.

It struck her as being odd that he was available on all the dates that had been mentioned as possibilities and then thrown out just as quickly. Jim was taking his kids camping, Bill was spending that week with his wife at the beach, Bob was going to visit his mom in the Midwest, but Richard wasn’t going anywhere. He was free on the second, third, fourth and fifth of July.

As she glanced at his left hand, she put it all together. His wife had finally left him, and she took the boys with her. Poor Richard. And then she noticed that his shirt wasn’t as starched as it always was, and that his face wasn’t the same as it always was—dark circles under his eyes, a missed spot by his left ear when he shaved that morning, a general fatigue that took the bounce out of his usual self-indulgent smugness. He was still handsome, but he looked wounded.

Secretaries blend into walls and then peel themselves off the wall paper when someone needs a cup of coffee or when a document needs to be copied. She peeled herself off the wall at that instant and felt such tenderness for him, that she surprised herself. That woman took his boys and left. To her mother’s house? To their condo in Florida? The boys would be on summer break now.

She pictured him coming home to an empty house, walking up the dark stairs, dragging his suit coat in his left hand, briefcase in his right. He’d throw his things down on the divan and go straight to the walk-in closet where a few of her clothes still hung. Blouses from the early nineties, long skirts that she always said made her feel dumpy after the boys came, sweaters that would do her no good in the humidity—he would burry his face in these things that remained, and he would smell her. He would sob for her, apologizing for what had happened in the end, for the speed with which his hand swung around and landed against her cotton cheek, stunning her for just long enough to freeze the silence that came after the slap dissipated, but not long enough before the sound finally came from within her, that deep, broken crying that came from her stomach.

He watched her tear some silk dresses off the hangers, throw some underwear and bras into a suitcase that she pulled out from under the bed. Hair flying all around her face, tears streaking her mascara, trails of black sliding down to her lips. He tried to stop her, tried to get between her and the bedroom door, tried to keep her from waking the boys, pleaded with her, “Just let them sleep till morning. Please, just wait, lets talk about this.” He couldn’t figure out how the taxi got there so fast, or when she’d even had time to order it. In a whirlwind of rustling fabric and feet running over the carpeted floors, she was gone with his children.

After the dust settled, late into the night, he sat in the living room staring at the front door, certain that she would come back. When the sun spread its unwelcome dusty light through the curtains, he realized the gravity of the mistake he had made—that in all the madness of her packing frenzy, he had not apologized to her. How quickly he had lost his temper at the accusation of his infidelity, how suddenly he had turned into his father, how brief that moment was—the moment that sealed his fate forever.

She watched the room empty out, suits filing into the hallway one by one, and she watched him shaking hands with the committee members, sure of himself, but not quite, confident and slightly weak. With anyone else, she would have thought that he deserved it for working eighty hour weeks, for sleeping with her friend in the cubicle next to hers. But for him, the golden boy, she felt a sick, devastated feeling, the way it must feel to see someone you love get hit by a car. She watched him as he stuffed his left hand into his jacket pocket, concealing the only evidence of what had transpired a week ago, the little circle of soft skin on his ring finger where the gold band had once been.

I got off the phone with a friend who is living a life that I could see myself living. And I was happy to talk to her—it’s been about six months, and the last time we spoke, I wasn’t a very happy person. I have to give credit where credit is due. She’s the main reason that I eventually came to the conclusion that if you want change to happen, you can’t just sit on your ass and wait for it to happen. Sometimes that works, but more often than not you end up getting something you never wanted that way. Change has to be actively pursued, and with direction.

I hate to sound like a self motivation guru, but I think this realization was one of those life-changing “Aha!” moments. When I grasped that concept, I began to live life differently. Also, when I realized that, I started seeing more and more of that idea around me. I ran across this speech by Jerry West, President of Basketball Operations (whatever the heck that is) for the Memphis Grizzlies. He spoke at a commencement ceremony on May 14, 2006 at West Virginia University, and I ran across the transcript randomly online. I hope it’s ok to paste it here. (If anyone who comes across this has a copyright problem, I’ll take it down.) Without further ado:

I was once told that there are three types of people in the world, and it is a view that I very much believe in. There are fighters, flee-ers and floaters. Let’s take a few minutes to look at what happens to each of them through their lives.

A floater is a person who drifts through life taking things in, going with the current, sharing in success and failure, but seldom determining his own fate.

There are many successful floaters in the world. As you look around you today, I am sure you can pick them out. They spend endless amounts of energy positioning themselves. They can often avoid failure, but the success they achieve cannot possibly be personally rewarding.

In my mind, success without a sense of personal accomplishment isn’t success at all. It is merely positioning. These are often the same people who equate success with money. Money is a measure of buying power, but seldom is it a measure of success.

Below the floaters are the flee-ers. A flee-er will jump from job to job, will run from challenge and opportunity alike. A flee-er is the first to cast blame, to make excuses, to point a finger when things do not go his way.

Alone, a flee-er is fairly harmless to anyone but himself. It is when he latches on to a floater that they begin to have a meaningful impact. A flee-er will bring down a floater. A flee-er believes that misery needs company.

A flee-er’s worst nightmare is a fighter.

A flee-er and a fighter are the opposite ends of the spectrum of self-determination. George Bernard Shaw eloquently described the difference in these two types of people.

He said, “Some people are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

What Shaw describes is a fighter. A fighter is a person that will succeed. A fighter is a person with a direction. A fighter is what I challenge each of you to be.

What sets a fighter apart is simple to describe, difficult to maintain, yet vital for personal and professional success.

What sets a fighter apart is a goal…a dream…a vision.

I grew up in West Virginia as part of a family of six. It was a less than ideal environment. I don’t want to go into details today because I don’t believe the details are relevant to you today. I believe the lessons are.

Because my “real life” was difficult, I was propelled by a fantasy life. It was a fantasy life built around the one thing that I had fallen in love with. That was basketball.

I was the kid who played in the driveway hour upon hour. It was my escape. It was my private world. And although I didn’t know it at the time, it was my way of becoming a fighter.

My fantasy games always ended the same. Jerry West had the ball as the clock ticked down. All eyes were on him. Success or failure was in his hands. He couldn’t float; he couldn’t depend on someone else. He couldn’t flee; there was no one else to turn to. Jerry was the ref, the coach, the fan and the player.

How odd I must have looked talking to myself, cheering myself on.

As kids, we are blessed with the most vivid imaginations. Growing up in a small town, your mind becomes your best friend and your own little TV set. Always when things looked the bleakest, I could turn that TV set to the most pleasurable channel. I could imagine being anything that brought me comfort and joy. My mind always seemed tuned to that basketball game. I simply would not let myself fail. As I became older, I realized that at a very young age, I was really setting goals for myself.

The shot always went up. Jerry always won the game.

My driveway basketball games made me competitive, competing with the most important person – myself.

My driveway basketball games were all about achieving dreams.

I became a person with goals and dreams.

Those goals ultimately brought me to this place – to West Virginia University. Without the game I played, I would never have made it here.

All of you have also made it here – to West Virginia University. Your paths are as varied as your faces. Your journey, however, has just begun. Believe it or not, the easy part is over.

When I arrived at the University, I was homesick for Cabin Creek, the town of 500 I had left behind. I soon realized that my dreams and goals had to expand. While I had a God-given gift, that gift was not going to be enough.

And while I did not realize it at the time, my goals were achieved because I possessed three additional characteristics. It is these three characteristics that define a fighter. These three characteristics allow a fighter to believe in his goals.

They are character, determination and resolve.

Character, determination and resolve will give you the foundation needed to face the world.

Character, determination and resolve will help you stand fast as a fighter, to step above the floater and to surge beyond the grasp of the flee-er.

Character, determination and resolve are the virtues that you can drive to success. And if you play well, with that success will come the responsibility of leadership.

Basketball is probably the ultimate team game. Everyone has a role and everyone is striving for the same goals.

In the world of basketball, the goals are clear. They stand at either end of the court. The goals are always 10-foot high; they are always in the same place at the end of the floor.

The goals create energy. The goals create excitement. The goals create something to strive for. As long as I stood on the court, I knew my role and the roles of those around me.

I had played my role for years – in the driveway, in high school, in college and in my professional career.

It was when my life on the court ended that the character, determination and resolve I had developed faced their greatest tests.

Nearly 30 years ago, I was thrust into a new leadership role that I was ill prepared for – as a businessman. Almost overnight, self-doubt became a major concern. I was fortunate to have people around me who trusted my ability, people who could see things in me that I had yet to see in myself.

As a player, I had refused to accept failure. I had to find a way to feel that same confidence as a manager.

Each of you will likely face changes in your world as well. The path to success is never without its bumps and challenges. These challenges will create internal battles. These bumps will also create new and exciting opportunities.

And with each change, with each bump, with each opportunity, you will again need to draw upon your character, determination and resolve.

With each change, you will face a new group of floaters, flee-ers and fighters. In fact, you will again have to decide which type of person you are.

My point is this: Change and challenges never end. Each day you need to get up and decide what kind of person you are because each day is an opportunity to succeed or fail.

As my life on the court ended, I decided that I was going to be a fighter. I decided I was again going to lead. I didn’t know how, but I knew what was in me, so I knew that I could.

I am basically a quiet and introspective person. I am also very demanding of excellence in myself and those around me. At this juncture of my life, I found great inspiration in reading books and articles written by people who have long been associated with their views on leadership. In fact, I am still a prolific reader.

By reading, you expose yourself to great accomplishments, valuable lessons and many different views. I believe leaders are never afraid to embrace the lessons of others and apply them to their own lives.

A few common leadership lessons came to mind as I thought about you sitting here today. Many of you – I hope most of you – have what it takes to follow the path of leadership in whatever you are passionate about. As leaders, I hope you will remember seven basic lessons that I have taken to heart:

1. As you look forward, it is never wrong to reshape your goals. It is wrong to not have any goals at all. An ancient Greek saying reads: “Before you can score, you must first have a goal.”

2. Leaders who are not limited by their lack of vision can continue to have success as their careers advance. Remember: People copy success. When others copy you, it’s flattering, but it’s also dangerous.

3. What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right. As a leader, you must follow your instincts, but never let go of your character, determination and resolve. You can’t get everyone to like you. If they do, it should be a red flag for you.

4. Keep an open mind and an open door. Don’t ignore suggestions and advice because if you do, people will assume you don’t care and will soon stop offering. Even more than keeping an open door, seek mentors. I have people in my life that I have trusted for decades, and I value their every word. Make sure your mentors are wise, not just smart. Leadership can be lonely, but it does not have to be pursued alone.

5. Don’t become old and dated. Don’t become complacent. Don’t become happy with the status quo. No matter what you are doing with your life, you can bet that your competitors are not ready to settle for second best. As Americans, we are getting copied better than we copy ourselves. We can do better than that.

6. Optimism is contagious. It uplifts and gives people a reason to compete and excel. Surround yourself with people who share your optimism. Some people need to be motivated more than others. Stay away from people who cannot be motivated; they are flee-ers in disguise.

7. Leadership is very lonely; you must follow your instincts when everyone says no.

Gen. Fred Franks, who garnered wide acclaim during the Vietnam and first Gulf War, said, “To lead is to serve. The spotlight should be on the led and not the leader.”

That is, perhaps, the greatest lesson in leadership I can offer today.

A true leader does not need to be the center of attention. In fact, I believe leaders who are selfish and always want the attention for themselves are not leaders at all. They may be good at generating attention, but they are probably not good at commanding respect. A leader commands respect and gives respect in equal measure.

I find a skill I developed as a child still works when I am faced with a challenge of leadership. And I still probably look odd talking to myself, cheering myself on.

It reminds me of the story of an old Cherokee Indian’s description of a battle that goes on inside people.

The old Indian explained to his grandson, “My son, the battle inside each of us is between two wolves. One is evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

“The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Amen to that.

Success in life depends on which side you will feed.

I would venture that the flee-er finds it easy to feed the evil side. The floater will feed whichever side is most convenient. The fighter will only feed the good.

As you venture from the world of university life and move for the first time into what those of us on the outside call the “real world,” make sure you feed the good.

As with many things in life, what is most important is often invisible to the eye. Only you know which wolf you feed, although sometimes it is painfully obvious watching someone who is feeding the wrong wolf.

At other times, personal trouble is not so obvious.

Several years ago, there was a young NBA player named Ricky Berry. He played for his dad prior to going to the big leagues at San Jose State University. Ricky was drafted high in the draft and had a great “up side” at an agile 6 foot 8 and 220 pounds.

His first two years in the NBA were right on track to be a guy who would be in the league for a long time.

One morning it was reported in the San Francisco paper that Ricky Berry had killed himself.

At that time, a friend of mine was working for the University of California, Berkeley. This was very devastating to him personally because he knew both Ricky and his dad.

He went to the campus that morning seeking a good friend who was a philosophy prof who also knew the family well. He went to the professor’s office and asked him why this happened. Ricky had everything going for himself and his family, and he was only 24 years old.

My friend proceeded to tell me a story that I would like to pass on to you.

He said we have three window panes in all of our lives. We have a physical window, a mental window and a spiritual window. He said we need to clean the panes every day so that we can see out of them.

He went on to say Ricky worked out every day of the week and was in top condition – his physical pane.

And he read every day trying to improve himself – his mental pane.

But he had no spiritual commitment and that window became very cloudy, so dark that he could not see out of it.

So, when he had a crisis in his life as he did that morning, he wasn’t prepared to handle it and instead took his own life.

This is a true story. The moral of the tale is that we need to clean all three of our windows constantly.

Three windows to clean.

Three types of people in the world.

Two wolves begging for food.

Three personal characteristics to nurture and develop.

Life is an obstacle course around them all. Strong and clear goals provide the light to guide you.

Carl Sandburg said, “Nothing happens without a dream.”

I have lived my dream. I hope you are able to say the same thing as your journey winds down, as mine is now.

Your foundation has been laid; it is up to you to build from here.

Remember the words of Samuel Insull, Thomas Edison’s personal assistant and the man who created the Chicago Transit Authority: “Aim for the top. There is plenty of room up there. There are so few at the top, it is almost lonely.”

Protect your character.

Maintain your determination.

Build your resolve.

And always, always have a goal.

Thank you. Good luck. And dream big!