This morning I received a comment on an old blog post I wrote about missing my mother at Christmas. It was one sentence from someone I do not know.

Rgilmore1983 10 hours ago I just lost my mother the 1st of August and I lost my father in January and I am still devastated over them

It went straight to my heart.

I haven’t blogged much this year. When I began my blog, I wanted it to be an expression of my heart and mind. But more importantly, I wanted it to be more than just a place I ramble on about my life or observations about life. I wanted it to have value…have a purpose. I wanted to connect my life experiences and the heart and mind behind them with the life experiences of others who might relate, identify with or in some way derive value from the words I post.

Rgilmore1983 is just such a person. He or she identified with the experience in my life of losing my mother and dealing with the ongoing longing for her to be here. Grief isn’t a nice little package, with the cycles you must pass through to reach a destination. The stages of grief may very well be accurate portrayals of human behavior, but I’m here to testify that grief doesn’t vanish. It is distracted. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Time helps distract us from the wounds. Time helps us learn to cope with the wounds. Time helps us put distance between us and the wounds we encounter.

It comes as no surprise that my first blog post was about the loss of my mother. In the six months that followed, I blogged about missing my mom two more times. It’s not my desire to dwell in a state of grief all my life. But I write because I know that no matter how we move forward after a profound loss, the sense of loss remains. We move forward. We find a way to get through the initial shock and trauma of the death of someone so cherished. But we never forget, and we never stop loving, longing for and missing those we love who have left this earth.

After reading this comment from Rgilmore1983, I wanted to write this post and just say to him/her…I understand.

Photo credit: James Jordan

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lynne Hughes: How Did Grief Get an Expiration Date? (huffingtonpost.com)
• A Time To Rest, A Time To Heal (selfimprovementbase.com)
• Shadowed Grief – Hidden but No Less Painful (health-psychology.suite101.com)
• How to Help a Grieving Friend (psychologytoday.com)
• The 5 Stages of Dealing with Grief and Sorrow (lifescript.com)

I write from a very human perspective, often times “too human” for some, but I am proud of who I am – absolutely human. I don’t have answers. I just have a willingness to open up and share so that my life experiences have the opportunity to be of benefit to others. Lessons learned. Epiphanies realized. Hope reborn.

Somewhere along the line, I learned that to be vulnerable is bad. To be too open, share too much, put out in public what *should* be private is inappropriate, in poor taste, socially unacceptable, and the like. I’m not sure how these voices found a home in my head, but I have made a conscious choice to send them packing since starting this blog. I write here because it is a place I can be human…openly. I desire to share in a way that isn’t often shared in public. Not raunchy, racy or over the top – just authentic, transparent life experience that goes beyond entertaining. Writing that resonates with the heart, soul or mind of another. That is my hope with each blog post I write: to touch – better yet – connect with another.

We all have struggles. You may be experiencing a hardship I once encountered. Or I may be experiencing a difficulty you once encountered. Or we might be experiencing a similar challenge in our lives simultaneously. The point is, what we have in common is that we are human. And to be human IS to be vulnerable.

Life and death, success and failure, love and heartbreak, trust and betrayal, hope and disappointment. We can not aspire for the former of these pairings without risking the latter. To live is to risk. To risk is to be vulnerable. If we are living, we are vulnerable. I have come to realize our vulnerability is a part of us. We’re not invincible, but how often we try to be. Pain, sorrow, grief – such things lead us down paths to protect ourselves emotionally. But what we ultimately find at the end of those paths is more of the same. When we try to ignore our vulnerability, we suffer. We’re always vulnerable, even when we think we aren’t. The question is, what do we do with that?

Here, on this blog, I take my vulnerability and blow it into the air, like bubbles through a bubble wand. At worst, some will stumble into unwanted bubbles I blow. At best, someone will find a bubble and it will have meaning to them.

Many have expressed sympathy and concern for me because I have opened up about personal experiences that involve the less desirable of emotions. They’re painful, unpleasant and certainly not experiences to wallow in. But they are real. They are expressions of a life I have lived and am living. I am alive. Fully alive. Fully active in heart, mind and soul. This is a good thing! Even when it seems *bad* – it is good. It is life.

You’ve gotta take the good with the bad…don’t throw the baby out with the bath water…and keep on trucking. Silly as it sounds in the words of idioms, I wholeheartedly embrace and live out this wisdom.

When I wrote Without You Here With Me, I Don’t Know What to Do recently, I received a few emails of concern. I penned that blog post on a night I was thinking about my mom. I have nights like that periodically. My mother’s been dead for 24 years. The sentiments in that blog post are 24 years old, and yet, I haven’t “gotten over it.” The longing for a mother doesn’t seem to die. She may die. The feelings may subside. But the love and longing continue, returning in cycles spread further and further apart over time, but never disappearing. Writing that blog post when such a cycle of grief visited me was one of my ways of sharing my vulnerability – sharing my humanity with humanity.

Read my blog and know my heart. My heart isn’t disguised.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. — Henri Nouwen

Related articles by Zemanta

• Scott Cairns: Death and Dying: Reflections on Suffering and Loss (huffingtonpost.com)
• The 5 Stages of Dealing with Grief and Sorrow (lifescript.com)
• Life Without Crisis? (dragonintuitive.com)

Photo credits: yadav.1rahul, Jeff Kubina, dino_olivieri

Mom…I’d give anything just to talk to you.

lyrics to “Address in the Stars” by Caitlin and Will:

I stumbled across your picture today. I could barely breath. The moment stopped me cold and grabbed me like a thief. I dialed your number, but you wouldn’t be there. I knew the whole time, but it’s still not fair. I just wanted to hear your voice. I just needed to hear your voice.

What do I do with all I need to say? So much I want to tell you every day. Oh it breaks my heart. I cry these tears in the dark. I write these letters to you, but they get lost in the blue, ’cause there’s no address in the stars.

Now I’m driving, through the pitch black dark. I’m screaming at the sky, oh cause it hurts so bad. Everybody tells me, oh all I need is time. Then the morning rolls in, and it hits me again, and that ain’t nothing but a lie.

What do I do with all I need to say? So much I want to tell you every day. Oh it breaks my heart. I cry these tears in the dark. I write these letters to you, but they get lost in the blue, ’cause there’s no address in the stars.

Without you here with me, I don’t know what to do. I’d give anything just to talk to you. Oh it breaks my heart. Oh it breaks my heart. But all I can do is write these letters to you, but there’s no address in the stars.

****************************************************************************

My heart is poured out through this song. I can find no better expression of how I feel when I think of my mother than to present this video. The lyrics, heart and emotion expressed in this video resonate with my soul – such longing, loss, pain and anguish. Such a desperate desire to connect and communicate with a loved one who has vanished into the stars with no address. As the song says, “all I can do is write these letters to you, cause there’s no address in the stars.”

My message is simple. I miss my mom. Because I was 18 when she died, I’ve spent my entire adult life, over and over again, crying out to my mother:  ”Without you here with me, I don’t know what to do.”

Through the tears and repeated reality checks that she is gone, I’ve learned that I have to figure out what to do. For 23 years, I’ve been learning through trial and error what to do. I’m thankful that those around me – father, brothers, husband, children and friends – have been patient and loving when I don’t know what to do. I keep moving forward trying to find my way. But I never stop feeling that core sentiment of living without her and not knowing what to do. I’m learning, and I’ll keep learning. My greatest hope is by sharing with others we all find comfort in common experiences and learn from each other. Whether you have a mother or not, there’s a good chance that at some point in your life, you have felt the feeling, “without you here with me, I don’t know what to do.” When we come together as many, we find strength, healing, encouragement, insight and wisdom. Without HER here with me, I seek counsel and wisdom from many. And many have guided me along the way, like angels lighting my path at checkpoints.

To the angels throughout my life, I am forever grateful for your illumination. And to those in need of such angels, I offer whatever glow I may bring to your path through my experiences. If nothing else, I offer warmth and encouragement to you, from one who has traveled through many a dark and lonely path to find her own way. You are not alone. We are not alone. Our journeys may be individual, but they intersect for reasons. One of those reasons for me has been to help me make it through the times I’ve felt I don’t know what to do without her here with me.

This is not your typical SXSW post. If you’re looking for insight on the latest trends, you won’t find it here. What I offer is my personal experience at SXSW and what the event taught me.

There are a lot of people in need. Hungry to sell their products, services and brand. Lonely within though surrounded by crowds of people and incessant activities. Many desperately hustling to make sales, attract investors, customers, fans. Many curious, starry-eyed, anxious to see, talk to and/or connect with their idols. Lots of parties, late nights, bars and all that comes with that territory. Big names and no names. Tech savvy geeks to eager young bloggers. Social media gurus and high profile industry leaders blending in with the masses eagerly trying to “get in” or “get going.” So much activity and so little meaningful connection.

My takeaway was this: we are all wanting to connect for one reason or another. SXSW is not a forum to connect in very meaningful ways. It’s a big party with some (and I really do mean some – possibly only a handful of) interesting, informative, new insight on emerging trends, technology and business developments.

More than this takeaway, I left something at SXSW. Love. While I met plenty of people and saw a few familiar faces, it is only a handful of people I can say I connected with in any meaningful ways. And this is the substance of what I left at SXSW and took away from it.

I spent time with a few friends, most of whom I had never met in person until SXSW. In the time we spent together, we shared with each other on a deeper level about whatever was going on in one another’s lives. We gained insight and wisdom, encouragement and hope, laughter and understanding. One friend was overwhelmed. I offered a hug, listening ear and a compassionate heart. Another friend was going through personal chaos. I sifted through the turmoil, comforted and offered counsel. Another friend was new to all things social media. I offered advice on how and where to get involved and where not to, based upon her objectives. I saw my brother, his wife and their four children. I spent time with their family. I took my only niece out for ice cream and had a delightful date with her, jumping into her world and absorbing life from her eyes. It seems every interaction that had meaning to me, also had meaning to those with whom I interacted.

I went to SXSW seeking to learn. What I learned was that my heart is bigger than my ambition. I desire to connect with people in meaningful ways so that both of us are touched for the better. I’m proud to say, though this wasn’t my ambition heading into Austin, this is the crowning achievement upon my departure. SXSW was a great experience for me. Not because of all the opportunities to “do” but the handful of people whose paths crossed mine during that week and the imprints of love and friendship left on each of us.

If you were one of those people, thank you for sharing your life with me and allowing me to share mine with you. YOU are my takeaway from SXSW.

Related articles by Zemanta

• SXSW: The Cool and the Lame (blogworldexpo.com)
• sxsw ’10 comes to an end… (gapingvoid.com)
• What SXSW Taught Me About Social Systems, and Business (blogs.hbr.org)
• Our personal SXSW and why wine blogging is so cool (dobianchi.com)

So far in 2010, I’ve spent a great deal of time immersed in legal research. An opportunity arose in which I have been able to put my love for law to good use. Though it has been consuming my time, I have to admit the time flies when I’m buried in this work. This has had me thinking, as the time I’ve dedicated to legal work has distracted me from writing, blogging and social media engagement – the activities which had previously consumed my time before this work came my way.

A couple of observations:

1. Writing, blogging and connecting with others on social media platforms are personally satisfying for me. These activities are not revenue generating (for me), rather they are outpourings of my heart. As such, when I must generate income and my time is limited, I must let such activities slide a bit. I have done this. And yet…
2. I MISS writing, blogging and connecting with others. Though such activities don’t pay the bills, they feed my soul. There must be a compromise between duties and desires. Blogging and connecting with people are desires for me.

What is work for me (paid paralegal work) sends me into isolation. What is pleasure for me (social media relationship-building) is time “wasted” by time management standards because there is no ROI of such time. Well, no monetary ROI at least. The human connections, the networking, the resource building, the growing relationships and newfound encouragement given and received in my personal expedition into social media – these things are priceless in my book. And yet, I must put them on the back burner in pursuit of income when my time is scarce.

I’m at a crossroads, personally. I don’t have the answers. I don’t have a formula to follow. No social media experts have solutions that I can find. It seems we’re all learning as we go.

If I’m a brand, promoting a product or service, there’s some “justification” in maintaining an online presence. There’s a belief that such time invested will reap rewards for my brand.

But what if I’m just me – a woman on a journey – integrating personal and professional life openly online and connecting with others as such? Is there “justification” for me to “waste” my time on Twitter and blogging…emailing and reading blogs…joining conversations and commenting on others’ blogs? My intuition tells me that it’s not a waste of time at all, but a priority. The question is, where do I place this priority when time is limited? And how much time is enough time for me to indulge my desires in this way?

This is hardly a question for social media gurus. This is a “real person” to “real person” inquiry. What are you doing? How do you manage your social media interactions? What rules of thumb have you found most helpful? I’m seeking answers from others like me. Are you like me? If so, please share how you manage your time in these ways.

Thanks!

Allison

Related articles by Zemanta

• The 9 Types Of “Social Media Experts” – Which One Are You? (socialmediatoday.com)
• California on Social Media (mashable.com)
• 5 Ways Social Media Impacts Consideration (adamhcohen.com)
• Reading Entrepreneurs Question Value of Social Media @WSJ.com (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• Social Media Is Dead: Long Live Common Sense (darmano.typepad.com)
• Ghostblogging will be the death of social media in the law (kevin.lexblog.com)
• Social Media – Integrating with Other Channels (proactivereport.com)
• How Can Social Media Benefit Marketing? (ricksrss.com)
• The Seven Harsh Realities of Social Media for Any Brand (futurelab.net)
• Social Media is for Branding and not Sales? (kylelacy.com)
• A Day Without Social Media (web2.sys-con.com)

Why are you reading my blog? I’ve been wondering this for a while as I’ve been contemplating material for blog posts. With a wealth of life experience and a willingness to share, I have something to offer the world. But it’s not the world I expect to read my blog, it’s you. I offer myself to the world in pursuit of you – the reader who identifies with pieces of my life, as articulated in individual blog posts. I want to give a gift of openness from a sincere heart and thoughtful mind to whoever seeks, needs and/or appreciates such a gift. They say it is better to give than to receive. It’s pretty simple.  That’s why I write here.

If anything I’ve written has provoked any level of connection, encouragement, comfort, hope, healing or growth in just one reader, it’s also brought the same to me. I write from my heart – real, raw and honest. This is the gift – a vulnerable view beneath the surface of a woman on a journey. I write what I wish I would have found and read at different times in my life.

My blog is not for everyone. It’s not a blog with mass appeal. It’s just for you – the reader who finds a blog post that speaks to you in some beneficial way. You are exactly who I had hoped to read my blog when I started writing it. Unless you’ve lived a life uncannily parallel to mine, you probably won’t find every blog post I write to be of value to you. And unless you’re a family member or friend with a particular interest in all of my life, you will probably only visit here once or twice. This is contrary to so much of what I’ve been taught about blogging, yet it’s not at all contrary to my personal goals in writing here.

I have come to seek the reader who only visits once or twice as much as the regular reader. When a woman is dealing with the heartbreak of infidelity, abandonment, divorce or domestic violence, I hope a Google search will land her on “My Season in the Darkness of Domestic Violence” or “When Your Husband Leaves You for Another Woman.” Or when someone is anguishing over guilt and remorse of betraying a friend, I hope a Google search result returns “The Gift.” I write as an outpouring of my heart. When what I write resonates with another person, the human connection is made. And that is the desire of my heart in this blog.

My point? I write for you. So tell me, why do you read?

Photo credits: fotorita, db*photography

Yesterday I tweeted a question on Twitter.

This morning, I awoke to an email in my Gmail account revealing to me that there were four responses to my question. This email was a Google Buzz update with replies to a tweet that never showed up on Twitter. I was intrigued by this. I reviewed my replies on Twitter, and sure enough, these four responses to my question weren’t there. On Twitter, there was one reply, but it was posted AFTER I had received these replies on Buzz. This unplanned scientific experiment (no hypothesis, just observation and conclusion) resulted in: 80% response on Buzz and 20% response on Twitter. I just started using Buzz less than 48 hours ago, and I admit, I have not taken the time to research it whatsoever. Just jumped in to test the waters. I heard about Buzz on Twitter and learned more about it in a phone conversation with a friend who was following the launch of this “potentially game-changing” tool. (Her words, but I concur.) Given this humble perspective, here are my first observations on Google Buzz, based upon my own experience:

1. Your status updates on Twitter are pulled by Google and posted to your Google Buzz.
2. What people comment on in Google Buzz (i.e. a reply to your tweet) shows up in your Google Buzz.
3. What people comment on in Google Buzz does NOT show up in your Twitter stream.
4. In just three days of Google Buzz’s launch, it’s proven to be a more responsive tool than Twitter in my personal experience, at least when seeking input from others.

I have no vested interest in any particular social media tool. I simply seek the tools to connect me most effectively with people. The format of Google Buzz seems to complement Twitter for my use of these tools. We’ll see as I explore more! Also posted at Web 2.H and Techburgh Blog

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Buzz: Will You Use It? (mashable.com)
• Ultimate List of Tips And Tricks for Google Buzz (techie-buzz.com)
• Google Buzz Causes a Buzz (deanhunt.com)
• QOTD: Are You Using Google Buzz? (gizmodo.com.au)
• WordPress Plugin for Google Buzz (crenk.com)
• Google’s Social Move With Google Buzz-Google Is Going Social (techgenuine.com)
• Google Buzz (teabreak.pk)

Sexual Harassment Saga (Part 1), continued…

It was Christmas Eve. The office was nearly deserted. Jeff (my boss), Mike (the Safety Director) and five of the six owners had disappeared for the holidays. With an absence of male leadership (note: all leadership was male) and only a fraction of the “girls” working, it felt like a ghost town.

On this quiet afternoon, I was contently working in my office when he entered. I’d tell you his name, but I forgot it. Funny how something so significant as the name of the man who triggered an 8 year ordeal has slipped through the cracks of my memory 13 years later. What I do remember is that he was old, and I was young. I was in my 20′s; he was in his 70′s. He was a retired California Highway Patrolman, working part-time inspecting fleet vehicles and signing fix-it tickets. His job required him only to interact with the guys in the shop (a separate building from mine, across the parking lot outside my window). I worked exclusively inside, in the executive/administration building. He had no reason to come into my building, much less my office. And yet, he did.

We had met months earlier. Our paths crossed by chance when we were in the dispatcher’s office at the same time. I knew from that first encounter that something wasn’t right. I could sense it. Not just the violating feeling of a man undressing you with his eyes – something more. The sprouting of an obsession. I tried to reject the feeling. Discount it. Dismiss it. Chalk it up to my oversensitivity. The problem is, you can’t shake what you know in your gut. You just try to “act” like you don’t know it.

Not long after that first interaction in the dispatcher’s office, he began stopping by my office to chat every so often. The visits soon increased in frequency and length. Before long, he was showing up at my office like clockwork every day he was working, no longer standing around making casual conversation but confidently and authoritatively pulling up a chair and imposing his will upon me. He wanted to see me…to look at me…to watch me. I wanted him to leave me alone. He knew it, but he didn’t care. There were several occasions during these uninvited visits when he would just stare at me. No conversation. Just silence. He seemed to like the tension and discomfort that created for me. He’d run out of things to say, but he didn’t feel awkward about remaining there, in the chair across from my desk, just gazing. His eyes spoke, and what they said was not good. I had grown more than uncomfortable with him. I was afraid of him. What I saw in his eyes scared me. My gut from that first encounter in the dispatcher’s office was dead on.

But he was old. He could have been my great-grandfather. I was taught to be respectful and polite to my elders. My sense of duty, combined with my feminine inclination to be accommodating kept me from saying to him what I so longed to say: “Leave me alone!” It was that same sense of duty and imputed respect that served me up on a platter for him on that fateful Christmas Eve.

December 24, 1996. I was at my desk, working. The air in the office was light as a handful of us girls were wrapping things up before Christmas. I was loving my job, looking forward to Christmas with my family. All was well with the world…until he appeared in my doorway. As always, his appearance triggered a tensing in the pit of my stomach. As always, I greeted him with an artificial smile and cordial discourse while my insides cringed. As always, he perched himself in the chair across from my desk, looking at me, leaning back with the poise of a predator.

He began with his usual rambling – insignificant chit chat to which I politely offered an occasional response. My reticence was only peppered with one word or one sentence acknowledgements of his monologue. My focus was on my work, with my head down and my hands busy typing, writing, going through papers. He knew the message I was sending, but he didn’t care. He willfully ignored it, as he had been doing for weeks through my escalating hints to leave me alone. After what seemed like an eternity of his fixated stare with little conversation, he finally stood up talking about how he had better get going. Just when I thought my anxiety was nearing relief, he started to approach my desk, asking me if he could have a “Christmas hug.” That’s what he called it – a “Christmas hug.” I was dumbfounded. Fight or flight. Do or die. Confrontation or accommodation. As etiquette seemed to dictate, I reacted with the latter. It was do or die, and I did.

The lady in me – the one my mother raised to be well-mannered, respectful and kind to people – she stood with the poise of a princess that would make my mom proud. As I got out of my chair to walk out of my U-shaped desk, he navigated his tall, large frame around the desk, reaching me before I had stepped two feet from my chair. He went in for the hug. I raised my arms to touch his arms in a semi-defensive position of a faux hug – a “this will technically count as a hug but I’m keeping my arms here to make sure you can’t fully hug me” sort of way. As I did, his little “Christmas hug” turned into his large, long arms reaching around my body and pulling me into him as his face came crashing into mine. With reflexes the speed of light, I turned my head to the side just in time for my cheek to receive an open mouth of saliva and tongue landing on it. He had attempted a kiss…an open mouthed kiss, while holding me firmly in his arms. That was the moment time stood still. That was the day that everything changed in my world, though I had no idea at that time how much of an impact that moment in time was going to have on my future. Like the day my mom died, this day was a historical marker on the timeline of my life.

Photo credits: Will Foster, Matt Hampel