Wallpaper

Many people claim to embrace change. They love it. They thrive on it. They seek it out.

My theory? Many of these people are full of it. Change is scary, no matter which way you look at it. Disruption of the norm is always a bit tumultuous.

I’ve always been one who is not afraid of a little change; a new haircut, a new recipe, driving a new route to work.

But the big things in life? I’ve always been loyal and true. You might even use the term “staid”.

Dating? I’ve been a long-term relationship gal. Even when I wasn’t totally emotionally fulfilled or invested.

Living quarters? While I may have loaded up the U-Haul truck a time or two, I’ve always made my house my home for generous amounts of time. At least long enough to hang my hat, or, er... pictures.

Cars? I’ve only had four, and I'd probably still be driving my last if not for that unfortunate *blush* fender-bender. When I left the green machine on the salvage lot, I felt pangs of remorse and regret. Why hadn't I been paying more attention on the highway that morning? We'd only been together a mere seven years! I was going to drive him (yes, him...he even had a name) into the ground! My plan was foiled. I even sheepishly took pictures; hood mangled into a menacing looking grimace.

And my jobs? Well, you might call me Dedicated Employee #1. One of my first jobs was a cashier at the local CVS/pharmacy. I was sixteen years old, fresh-faced, and eager to learn. Each year I worked my way up the shaky aluminum ladder and found myself with more responsibility. I caught on quickly and actually enjoyed counting out drawers for the upcoming shifts and swinging around my newly acquired manager's keys. CVS kept a position for me throughout college, and even four years after. My loyalty had paid off, and when I finally turned in my stiff and unfashionable red employee vest and 20% off discount card, I had to swallow the ever-growing lump forming in my throat.

It wasn't until I found my true career path that I finally began to question this concept of loyalty.
One year after I graduated college, I found what I thought to be my dream job. A marketing assistant at a little travel/outdoor publishing company. In fact, my loyalties to an old college friend secured me the position.

I loved it. I loved the people, I loved the location (minutes from my home and the beach!), I loved the hours, and most importantly, I loved the work. I'd found my niche, and within several years, I'd found a more suitable position within the company for my long-term goals.

Each year brought about change (new books, new authors, acquiring new publishing companies). I moved through it gracefully; bending, swaying like a willow tree. My hard work garnered me several promotions; the responsibility made me content and fulfilled.

But suddenly, my happiness ceased.

Soon, the company began a downward spiral. We acquired a New York City publishing house, which brought about new genres of books, new breeds of authors, and a new echelon of employees. The small-town, positive aura had dissipated, and a new dark vibe took its place. The courtesy and respect that employees had for each other was replaced by snarky tones, sarcasm, and callous demeanors.

My work began to feel rushed and shoddy. The authors I worked with were self-absorbed and impatient, and the new employees that filtered in around me were rude, ruthless, and had the impression that all the “older” employees were a bunch of dimwitted country bumpkins.

Years before, my ideas were accepted with enthusiasm and approval. Now, when I voiced opinions in meetings, I was met with new policies and procedures, and "we'll sees". I was no longer able to treat my books with time and careful consideration. I felt like I was pushing widgets out the door. And no matter how proficient, capable, and accomplished I was...I merely wasn't good enough.

Quite simply, I'd become wallpaper. I'd melded into the furnishings; unrecognizable, even to myself.

I now served no purpose to this organization. I felt like a rebellious teenager, who was one outburst away from getting kicked out of her home.

The reality was, I'd stayed too long. I knew it, and it was a bitter pill to swallow. The hordes of my co-workers who'd left before me had known what I hadn't. I'd been rendered useless.

During this time, my mother was in the hospital being treated for complications due to her cancer. It was days before Christmas, and I'd made the trip to the 8th floor to visit her.

She wasn't in her room. I was scared. She never left her bed, never mind her room. Before the panic really set in, one of the nurses popped her head in. “Looking for your mom?” she inquired. I nodded, hoping for the best, praying not to hear the worst. “She’s down the hall in the piano room. They're having a little Christmas sing-a-long."

My mother? Signing with people she didn't know?

Now there was a change. My mother wasn't one to step outside her comfort level and interact with strangers—especially strangers who were likely sicker than she. And caroling? This I had to see.

I quietly watched from the doorway. Cancer patients of every color and creed, bald heads bedecked with colorful scarves or bandanas— or not. Someone gracefully stroking the ivory keys, while the others sang out familiar words of the season. My mother in the middle.

I watched for a few moments, before I tearfully walked back to her room. I'd remembered being a little girl, playing with my dollhouse, and suddenly looking up only to catch my mother watching me from the doorway. It had always embarrassed me—having been jolted out of childlike play--tarnishing the moment. I didn't want my mother's moment of cheerfulness to be ruined by prying eyes. She'd looked fear in the eyes many times after her diagnosis, but this was different. I knew she'd have been apprehensive about caroling with strangers, and I didn't want her to second guess herself.

With tears streaming down my face, I sat in a chair in my mother's room. Tears were normal here. The nurses were kind and empathetic.

I started to think about my mother, looking her fears in the face. I started to think about all the nurses and doctors surrounding me who were working to help all these sick individuals. I started to think about their purpose in life as opposed to mine. For the first time in a long while, I started to think about true change in my life.

Not long after, I started volunteering for Special Olympics Connecticut, an organization to which I'd always inexplicably been drawn. I knew that purpose would come to my life if I could just use my skills to help those less fortunate than myself. There wasn't an open position within the organization at the time. So I took photographs at events, I wrote biographies for the athletes attending National Games, and I did whatever was asked of me. I prayed a little. Ok...I wished, and I hoped, and I prayed. A lot.

The job finally came. And my life changed.

I cried my way out the door my last day as a book publicist. Leaving the familiar and the secure was gut wrenching.

I also cried all the way home my first day as a grant writer. Had I done the right thing? When would I feel like I fit in? Would I become wallpaper again?

I just celebrated my second anniversary at Special Olympics. I am doing my very best to serve a misunderstood and ignored sector of our society, and I truly believe that I’ve found where I need to be. At least for now. I am so proud of myself for casting my fears aside and accepting the biggest challenge of my life. I left behind all that was safe for a complete risk, and I came out stronger and more focused.

Alan Cohen, the Chicken Soup for the Soul guru, once stated, “It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.”

My own life change has taught me that there is no such thing as can’t—only won’t. If you're qualified, all it takes is a burning desire to accomplish—to make a change. The ability to make a change comes from your mind, and your pure desire to move forward. When we do the impossible, we realize we are special people. People of mediocrity ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to.

You can have anything you want—if you want it bad enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with a singleness of purpose.
There are some people who think that holding on makes one strong, when in fact, I believe that sometimes what makes one strong is letting go. Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be. There are things that we never want to let go of, things we never want to leave, dreams we thought were ours to fulfill. But letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life. And the past is all experience.

The only person you are destined to be is the person you decide to be. We’re all tested in different ways each day. Life twists and turns on a dime.

The great M. Scott Peck, acclaimed author of The Road Less Traveled, said, “The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of ours ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

So get out there and find out what lights your fire. Where do you need to be? How do you need to change? Find your calling…and go for it.

And for God sake, don't ever become wallpaper.

Treasured Possessions

Ever hear the old expression, “If you haven’t used it in more than a year, you probably don't need it”?

Really? Could that possibly be true?

Last week I began the daunting task of preparing for a tag sale. The Ultimate, Clean-it-Out, Clear-it-Out, Throw-it-Out Extravaganza. If I hadn’t used it in a year, I probably didn’t need it, right? This would be easy! Oh, the glorious space I envisioned I’d have in my walk-in storage closet!

I began my clean-up by standing in the closet, hands on hips, staring up at three tall stacks of plastic totes—each stack, four totes high. Did we really have this much stuff? I walked out and closed the door. Ah, maybe I’ll begin in my own bedroom walk-in closet. Start small, right?

I walked back upstairs and into the bedroom. Everything that could quite possibly make the “tag sale pile” was three feet over my head and the closet floor wasn’t exactly in viewable condition. Ok…solution! I placed a step-stool on what looked like the closet floor, and for an hour, precariously balanced myself atop the mound of shoes that threatened their escape from the depths of the abyss. An hour later, jubilant and smug with progress, I had myself a small pile of saleable items. A few old belts, a few pairs of jeans, a few blankets, a few handbags. That was easy!

With my enthusiasm for the Ultimate Clean-Out renewed, I felt ready to tackle those menacing totes! But first, I actually needed to haul them down from the leaning tower they’d morphed into. Hmmm…where to rent a crane? Ah, even better, I thought…I now have a husband! Better than what any heavy-equipment-rental-facility could offer me. And free, too!

After much cajoling and quite a few expletives, my husband released the totes from their uncomfortable positions. I could almost hear their lids sigh with relief. Kinda like morning commuters do when they finally reach their subway stop.

As I opened the first tote bin, ready to dig in and throw out, something took hold of me.

There I sat, thumbing through old pictures: me with huge 80s hair (God bless that decade); me at my college graduation—everyone else in beautiful dresses and high heels—with cut off shorts and black converse sneakers (God bless the 90s grunge era); and me with my platinum blond hair with two long jet black streaks running through it (God forgive me for that one!).

The pictures…I’ll always keep. Photographic representations of what life was like during those times. But it wasn’t the pictures that struck my sentimentality chord.

It was the personal mementos that I’ve held close year after year. Ten totes worth.

Sure, I made piles of things to throw away. I mean, who needs old pencils, melted candles, and tape with pushpins and thumbtacks sticking to the dispensers. I even made a recyclable pile (gotta be green!).

But when it came to assembling a pile of things to sell…well, I was stumped. The phrase kept running through my head, like a bad 80s song (God bless that decade, again), “If you haven’t used it in more than a year, you probably don't need it.” Well, what defines need?

Some of these items had been carefully placed in these totes not because I necessarily needed them, but because I wanted them. So what if I hadn’t “used” them in a year. They were part of my past, a glimpse into my history, and I “use” them when I need a reminder of a past I’ll never relive again.

As Oscar Wilde stated, “No man is rich enough to buy back his past." So true. I think we hold on to items from our past—treasured possessions as I like to call them—as a means to hold on to the past itself. It's surprising how many memories are built around the things that go completely unnoticed at the time. And perhaps these possessions aren’t necessarily what we deem so important, but rather the memories each item invokes. For these memories are a way of holding onto the things we love, the things we are, and the things we never want to lose.

What are some of the items I couldn’t seem to part with?:

The SCRUM Sweatshirt:
My brother once handed down a sweatshirt that he’d accidently brought home from a college rugby game. The opposing team was from North Adams State, and the sweatshirt stated that in clear, bold yellow letters across the front. Across the back was the term “Scrum of the Earth”. When my brother gave me this sweatshirt, it was a beautiful, dark navy…crisp and new. What a steal…literally.

I found this sweatshirt in the closet. It is no longer an appealing navy color. More like the color of the clay that masons use on school buildings. Those bold yellow letters? Gone. The front reads NO…SE. Nose? Huh. You can still read the SCRUM on the back, but the rugby ball that used to be replicated now looks like a half moon…or maybe a piece of cheese. And there are more holes in that piece of clothing than the aforementioned cheese. I guess it didn’t help that my former track teammate once ran over this sweatshirt with his sprinting spikes!

Why does this piece of material (can I even call it a sweatshirt now?) mean so much? I’m not sure. Rugby doesn’t mean anything to me. Neither does North Adams State. The word SCRUM is pretty funny. But that’s not why I’ve hung on to this sweatshirt for almost twenty years.

It’s my brother that means something to me.

We haven’t always been close. Haven’t always known the ins-and-outs of each other’s lives. But wearing that sweatshirt somehow brought me closer to him during those years. Whenever I wore that sweatshirt people would say, “Wow! That’s seen a few miles” or “Where on Earth did you get that?” Each time a comment was made about my sweatshirt, I was able to talk about its history…and with that, my brother. Over the years, as the sweatshirt broke down and became threadbare, my relationship with my brother actually became stronger. And that’s something I’m not willing to part with.

My Concert Stubs:
Music has always been of utmost importance to me.

Guess it all started with me being the first owner on my block of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album. From that point on, I’ve always been avid seeker of new music and new varieties of artists. Music is an outlet for me, and as cliché as it sounds, an important manner in which to express myself.

Along the way, I was able to find a friend who appreciates my taste in music…and my sense of humor. She and I have probably been to well over 50 shows together and even began our friendship with a fake I.D. and a fervor for a certain cover band or two.

I found most of my concert stubs held together with an old hair elastic. I hadn’t arranged them neatly in a scrapbook or even stored them in a memory box. They were held together just the way they should be…with a make-do approach and a no-care-in-the-world technique. It reminded me of our attitudes back then.

The concerts and shows we saw back then? Indescribable. But saving these little paper stubs meant more than the actual music. Each one held a hilarious story or an inside exchange amongst two friends. Stories of laughter and the building of a lifelong friendship. There are several other trinkets from this period (the Aloha Mr. Hand T-shirt, the AG hat, and the KH poster stolen like a sleuth), and I’ve saved those, too. But none compare to the tickets that allowed me entry into a priceless time of my life.

After a full week of immersing myself in the Ultimate Clean-Out process, I realized that the leaning tower was going to become a fixture in my life. These totes? They’re not going anywhere…no matter where my life takes me. I hope when I’m gone, people might say, “Boy, she sure had a lot of stuff…but, boy, she sure lived.”

As Irwin Shaw once said, “There are too many books I haven’t read, too many places I haven’t seen, too many memories I haven’t kept long enough.”

And, and damn it, I’m keeping mine. Even if I haven’t “used” them in a year…