Leap Fearlessly and Dare Greatly

Remember how it feels when you jump wildly into a cold pool or into a lake? Have you ever done that? When you do it you are leaping fearlessly into the unknown, especially if it's a lake. That is how I feel right now. I feel like I just took a fearless leap with my eyes closed.

From Brene Brown's book Daring Greatly

 

When I started thinking about leaving my job of sixteen plus years at the Houston Chronicle I couldn't stop. It was like this idea had just overtaken my mind and every time I tried to get it out of there I found myself doing other things instead. I was writing a Pros and Cons list. I was doing a budget. I was checking to see how much money I had in my savings. I was researching insurance. I knew then that I was going to do this.

I love the Houston Chronicle. Don't get me wrong. I learned A LOT during my years there and I still love what they do. I love that they put out a newspaper every day and that the entire city reads it at the same time. There's something magical about being a part of that for sixteen years.

But something else had happened and it wasn't just the Chronicle. It was me too. I was becoming steadily dissatisfied with my job. It was like a bad marriage where it wasn't just one person. It was both of us. I tried changing positions, thinking that maybe I could spice things up. But the truth of the matter was that there was nothing either one of us could do any more.

I applied at a couple of different places over the last few years, thinking that maybe a change of scenery would do me good. A few months ago I applied at a local organization that I really love and admire. I thought that it would be the perfect fit but unfortunately they didn't hire me.

It was after this last job interview that I told myself that I should just leap. I started listening to Brené Brown and her TED talks. I realized that the only way to really be true to myself and to have self-worth was to leap and to leap fearlessly.

I'm actually quoting Kelly Rae Roberts here too because she's the one who has this beautiful print on a frame that says "Leap Fearlessly." I gave it to my best friend when she got divorced and bought her first house a couple of years ago.

So here I am. Today is the first day of my freedom. I was talking to someone about my big step this morning and I realized something. I realized that when I was applying at another organization to get hired away from the Chronicle it was like I was waiting to get saved. And why? Why was I waiting for someone to come and save me when I could save myself?

That's what I've done! I have gone and saved myself and I have big plans this summer. I will be a stay at home mom with the children for the first time in both their lives. I will be available to have my dad come stay with me for a couple of days a week. Most importantly, I'm WRITING and I'm going to do some much much needed remodeling to my house. Finally, I'm launching Casares Communications part time. I say part-time but people are contacting me already about my services. I'm excited about the opportunities that will come my way!

I know it's a lot for the summer but I feel good about my choice. I feel like for the first time in a long time I'm in charge of my future and it's a good feeling. I'm glad that I took this fearless leap and I'm looking forward to this next chapter of my life.

Writing Tour of Houston

For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook or on Twitter yesterday was a pretty busy day for me.

My original plan was to  go to Lake Livingston by myself on a writing retreat. It seemed like a very good idea at first. Here is a picture of the cabana where I was going to stay.

Then I realized that instead of having an afternoon lacrosse game on Sunday my daughter would have a morning game. I had to be there at 9:15 a.m, of course. Murphy's Law. The only weekend I actually decide to go do something like this and she has a morning game. So therefore it didn't make sense for me to actually spend the night on Saturday if I had to get up that early to drive back. I decided I would drive out in the morning on Saturday and I'd stay for the day and drive home when it started getting dark. I decided all of this on Thursday.

On Friday I started second guessing myself when one of the owners of the camping grounds called to ask me if I was willing on switching over to a kitchenette because the couple who was staying here on Friday wanted to stay on Saturday too. By now I was thinking it was too far to drive there and back in one day so I quickly told her No, to go ahead and to give them the cabana. I wasn't spending the night on Saturday anyway so it didn't seem fair if they wanted it.

After making that decision I sat there and doubted my decision. I kept searching for cabins or cabanas nearby but couldn't find anything. I thought that maybe I could just go to Lake Conroe.

Finally I got the brilliant idea of doing a writing retreat here in Houston. I started it downtown. At first I wanted to go to the old library but I remembered I hate the parking around there. I parked at work for free and wandered around the Rice Lofts when I saw that Shay McElroy's Irish Pub was open and that they were serving lunch. As soon as I walked in and saw this beautiful little room I knew this was where I wanted to write.

I fell in love with this little side room inside the pub and I definitely want to go back there. I got most of my writing done here. My second stop was the lobby of the Rice Lofts and my final stop was the new area in Washington Heights. In the end I wrote more than 2,000 words.

I still want to go back to the old library and the reading room at Discovery Green. I'll save those for my second Houston tour. I can think of other places in Houston where I can write. The Black Lab is one of the places where I thought of going too.

But in May I want to go to the little cabana on the lake for a weekend to myself. This time I'll plan ahead, drive out on a Friday, and I'll stay until Saturday evening.

Apparently writing retreats are good for me. As it turns out, I picked the best day for my writing retreat. April 13 was also a Nanowrimo Write-a-thon Day.

Writing Prompt: The New Yorker for Mothers

I responded to a writing prompt on literarymama.com but it wasn't chosen so I thought I'd share it on here. It's in response to this essay, The New Yorker for Mothers by Becki Melchione.

I was a journalism major and an English minor. My last semester of college I took 22 hours and three of my classes were literature classes. I was reading all the time and I actually loved it. It was insane, but I read some of the best books that I had ever read that year.  I realize now, that those were the best reading years of my life: pre-marriage and pre-children.

Five years after graduating with my undergraduate degree I was getting married while in my first year of graduate school. This time I had chosen an MA in Communication and the reading, although interesting, was not as much fun. This is actually where I saw my reading decline. Between being newly married, a full-time job, and graduate school reading, there was little time for fun reading.

Enter into the picture children and technology when I was 31 and my life was about to change forever. Yes, I definitely saw a change in the amount that I read and what I read. Instead of the wonderful long novels I was now just grasping at whatever I could read online in between breast feeding and changing diapers. 

So I read the internet like crazy, whenever I could. Like the author of “The New Yorker for Mothers,” Becki Melchione, I too found a new favorite read. First I read baby websites all the time . I’d read magazine articles online, short stories, literary sites, and more. Then I started blogging when my son was seven months old and still nursing. Blogging was my outlet and a way that I could read more online as “research” for my blog.

All of this online reading, then social media reading and the years passed me by. Soon I realized that I wasn’t reading the way I used to and I made a conscious effort to start reading again. Honestly I don’t think I really started reading books again until the baby was potty trained and doing more on his own and my daughter was six.

Those babies are twelve and nine now. My daughter is a voracious reader like me. She can go through a good sized chapter book in a matter of two days. She reminds me of me at her age.

My life has changed immensely. The children are older, I’m single again, and I can read whatever I want whenever I want. Well, at least I can when I’m not working or driving my daughter to lacrosse games and my son to football games.

At least now I can read in the car during their practices. I can read in the evenings after they’ve done their homework and they are playing their games or watching TV. I can read on my sacred weekends alone when I can do whatever I want and for just two days I’m not a mom. Yes, I missed reading and I am so glad to have it back.

Thoughts on Aging and How THESE Are the Best Years of My Life

I was at the beach these past two days with kids. As I sat there looking at the family next to me with small children I realized how I am at the perfect age and at the best time in my life right now.

From my Pinterest Board "Great Quotes."

This is the time to really live in the moment. Of course I do believe the quotes that say that every moment of our life should be cherished and we should always live in the moment. That is very true. But let's be honest... some moments in our lives are even better than others and we don't realize it until those years have passed. Like the period between 21-25. I wish I'd appreciated that time more.

But right now my kids aren't babies anymore. They can use the restroom by themselves, wash themselves, dress themselves and pretty much entertain themselves. They are also funny as hell and make me laugh out loud on many occasions. At the same time they aren't in their terrible teens yet either. My daughter just turned twelve and she's on the threshold of puberty, but not there yet. Thank goodness I haven't had to deal with her mood swings when she realizes what is happening to her body. My son is only nine and still years away from that madness.

I'm not an old woman yet either. I'm still young enough that a young man in his twenties would tell me that I look much better in person than on my Facebook picture and that I look younger than his uncle, who is probably around my same age. (That was a great compliment.)

The other great part is that I'm not very young. I'm not a young silly girl that doesn't know any better. I know better now (most of the time) and what I do at this age is my own doing that can't be blamed on age or inexperience.

Of course when I am an old woman and the kids are grown and gone and I'm all by myself again in my house, all quiet and peaceful, I will probably think that that is the best time in my life. We will see then.

Right now is almost perfect. I feel like I have finally embraced my new life and I'm so ready to move on to do the things that I want to do. It is so liberating to pretty much do whatever I want whenever I want, within reason of course. I am still a mom.

Just today I wrote a writing prompt for Literary Mama about how my reading changed after I had children and how I can finally read again now that they are older and I'm single. It's a glorious feeling. Funny how being single frees up so much of your time!

I feel like now in my 40s I am finally ridding myself of burdens in my life that I don't want to carry any more, slowly very slowly. I still have a long way to go but I'm moving in the right direction one goal at a time. Meanwhile I will carpe the hell out of this diem!

The "Leaning In" Movement

A few days ago I came across an article about Sheryl Sanberg's new book "Lean In" and I immediately took notice. I love books like this and more so when the writer is the COO of Facebook. My take on it was that I'd rather have someone who is really successful give me advice, than someone mediocre. Is that bad? I think it's the same reason we as a nation have flocked to Oprah, watched her show, read her magazine, took her advice, followed her money guru Suze Orman and followed the health advice of Dr. Oz.  As people we assume that someone more successful than us has the answers to success.

The big controversy about Sandberg's book and something that was pointed out by Anne-Marie Slaughter, once a senior adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is that Sandberg is 1. blaming women for not "leaning in" enough and 2. that Sandberg really can't relate to the typical working woman with her huge salary and her house of servants.

Critics have said that Sandberg needs to make corporations and government agencies accountable too and that we need to provide more incentives to new moms to return back to the workforce.

First of all let me make it clear that I have not read the book so I am making this commentary based on my experience of working in Corporate America for the past 20 years and on others' commentary.

I thought long about this. I remember reading Slaughter's Atlantic article telling me that I can't have it all, but thinking that I still wanted it all. So yes, I am torn. I can relate to what both women are saying and yes, I have leaned out many times, especially when I was married and the children were young.

Thinking about Slaughter's point I know what she means because even though I was working and making a very good living, when I was married my husband was a blue collar worker that couldn't share in the responsibility as much as I would have liked. He went into work at some ungodly hour like 5 and worked until after 5 many times. He did not have the flexibility that I had, so it fell on me to take the kids to the sitter's and then to school. So how could I lean in? This advice wouldn't have been relevant to me then.

I posted the original article that I read in the New York Times on a Facebook group that I belong to called LLN, Latina Leadership Network. I received some interesting comments but one stuck with me especially. Mari Beck said that she feels "some frustration at the way society looks at successful women in leadership roles and tries to dictate which types of success are more acceptable. I don't see Donald Trump or Richard Branson measured by their household help roster or their ability to relate directly to the average man or whether they "get" them."

She has a really good point doesn't she? Why do we have to have these wars on what is good advice and what isn't? Do we say that Oprah can't relate to us because she's a billionaire? Or that she can because she didn't start out as one? Yes, Sandberg went to Harvard, but she wasn't as rich or successful back then. Why can't we just take Sandberg's advice without making excuses or passing judgment?

Today I read another opinion by Whitney Johnson on the Huffington Post that offered a different opinion. I loved her honest opinion because I could relate to so much that she said. I have been there so many times in the past 20 years. I have seen the different way that we are treated as women or even as a Hispanic woman. Some things are obvious and some things I see because I'm more aware of those things having studied the differences in gender and communication for my MA.

Now that my kids are older and that I'm divorced I'm trying very hard to lean in. Ironically I feel like I can lean in more now that I'm divorced than when I was married. But now I'm older and I can feel that difference too. I'm an older Hispanic woman now. Triple whammy! Yes, there's a chance that I may have lost my chance to lean in. Am I going to let that hold me back? No, I don't think so. My friend has a great quote posted on her wall on FB. "This is not how the story ends." In many ways I think this is where it will begin for me.

So yes, I plan to lean in some more. Yes, I will probably read the book and join in on the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Yes, I may even join a group. Why not? What can it hurt? I think it will help me more than hurt me.

Let's support each other as women. If someone wants to "lean out" and that makes them happy then don't criticize them for that. If they want to lean in, then support that decision. Especially if you're the spouse or a family member that is part of their "village." Because when it comes down to it that's the way we can all lean in, if we have a support network. And when a woman becomes more successful and she is happier then we as a community are better too. It's all part of an even bigger picture.

So I say yes, let's lean in and believe that we can have it all, if that's what we choose. I still believe.

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