Yeah, Write

Oh Mishmash Tree, Oh Mishmash Tree

My Facebook friends have already seen this video. But if you haven't yet, you simply must. It melts my heart every time I watch it (or see it in person).

Keira is redecorating the International Christmas Tree that sits on our kitchen table. I love to pick up an ornament from every country (and sometimes state) that I visit, and they're all displayed on a mini tree every December. I have ornaments from: Mexico, England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria, Canada, Hawaii, Ohio, Colorado, Massachussets, Pennsylvania, and Utah.

She started out pronouncing it "Mistress Tree," then moved on to "Mishmash Tree" or "Misses Tree." She has recently learned to say, "Christmas Tree," to our great disappointment. And I don't know if you noticed, but she's putting all the ornaments on the same branch.

The heavy breathing you hear in the background? That's just Jovie, our resident Olde English Bulldogge.

Merry Mishmash to all! And to all a good night.

Determination in December

One thing I've found during this move and the adjustment to all this newness is that it's helpful to reconnect to some oldness at the same time. It's been surprising that even just a 10-mile move has thrown all of my routines into disarray, and I still feel like I'm trying to find my way around. I had no idea I was that dependent on those old familiar routines. The very word "routine" makes me cringe, so this was a BIG surprise!

So, in spite of the new house and the looming holidays, I decided on December 1st to make two goals to help me feel rooted and familiar in the midst of change.

1. My Health

I made the goal to run a mile a day every day (except Sundays) in December. I was inspired by Elise Blaha Cripe's new workshop at Big Picture Classes, I Choose: Inspiration and Motivation to Make Goal-Setting Fun. As the title suggests, it truly is both inspirational and motivational. The one teeny tiny thing that stuck with me the most is that, for the last couple of years, Elise has run one mile a day from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, taking a picture of her shoes every day she runs. It's truly a brilliant idea, for several reasons.

• One mile is a friendly enough distance that it's impossible for me to say (and believe) that I don't have time. Even during the holidays, I can always make the time for a 10-12 minute run.
• The reward of being able to take a picture of my shoes when I'm done, for a cute photo collage (see below), is extra motivation.
• Even on the coldest of cold days, I can convince myself that I can endure the weather for just 10 minutes. (Unless I'm bringing the jogging stroller, as I did on the frigid 21st of December, when Keira quickly convinced me to turn back after just .3 miles. That day, I took a picture of my slippers.)
• December is definitely my worst month of the year for consistency when it comes to exercise. So no matter what happens, I'll have exercised more days this December than I have any previous December ever.
• Since it's only one mile, if I miss a scheduled run, as I have twice, it's no big deal to double the distance the next day.

In the interest of fair and balanced reporting, there are three downsides to this venture:

• The runner who inspired this goal lives in Southern California, which is a very different environment in December than frigid, mountainous Utah. (And my gym is now 15 minutes away!)
• The daily run absolutely necessitates a daily shower. Usually, when life gets busy, I can skip a day and just mask the lack of shower with a hat or some dry shampoo. But not so if I've run that morning!
• The fact that I'm running every day, even for only one mile, somehow makes me feel entitled to more than a few extra handfuls of Angie's White Peppermint Chocolatier Holidrizzle Kettle Corn. And thus by late afternoon I ruin any caloric advantage I might have had after my morning run.

One more little thing I learned from Elise's workshop is not to feel like a failure if I don't 100% vanquish my goal. I'm absolutely on track so far, but the week of Christmas will be the real test. If I skip Sundays and Christmas day, I'll have run 25 days in December, which is definitely a record for me. Maybe I'll even run an extra 1.2 miles on December 31st, so I can say I ran a complete marathon (26.2 miles) this month!

2. Faith

I've been meaning to do this for years, but I've finally decided to embark on a "40 days through the Book of Mormon" journey, which means reading about 5 chapters a day. I've read this book several times, but usually no more than one chapter a day, which makes it more difficult to grasp the ongoing narrative. I'd pick up snippets of inspiration here and there, but I've never read it straight through, like a novel. I've loved the experience, and I haven't missed a day yet. That same "photo a day" trick that has worked like a charm with my running has been an extra motivator for my reading, too. (Note: That little spiral notebook is a study guide that outlines each day's chapters, plus a scripture and a motivational quote. For the life of me, I can't remember where I got it!)

You can do the same thing with any book that means something to you. Just google "40 days through the Bible," for example, and you'll see lots of resources pop up. (I think that's going to be my next journey, although maybe not in 40 days!) Or why not "40 days through Les Miserables" (about 25 pages a day) or through War and Peace (about 32 pages a day).

Who knew? A couple of achievable goals are actually helping me get through the holidays. Maybe it's because I'm prioritizing two of the most important things, so those less important things are seeming, well, less important.

What goals are you working on? Whatever they are, try the I Choose self-paced workshop to help you get there—and have fun along the way. 

Speaking of workshops at Big Picture Classes, my first workshop, Grammar-Free Journaling, is now open for registration! The fun starts in February, and believe me, it will be FUN as well as educational. I'll be posting sneak peeks and other fun info about the workshop in the weeks to come. And it's available for $7 off for a limited time. Details here.

We Moved 10.3 Miles Away

Don't ever let anyone tell you that moving isn't a lot of work. Perhaps we thought to ourselves, "It's not like we're moving across the country. We're not even leaving the county! It can't be that bad to move 10.3 miles to the southwest of our previous dwelling. Plus, we're hiring movers. This will be a piece of cake!"

It wasn't.

It still isn't.

I absolutely, 100% know that the list I'm about to share is comprised entirely of first-world problems—"problems" that countless people in the world can only dream of having the chance to experience. I do know that. I share this list only in hopes that it accounts for my complete neglect of my blog these 6 weeks.

The old living room on moving day.

Reasons I Haven't Found Time to Blog About My Move (or Anything Else For That Matter)

• Everything in the new house takes twice as much effort. I don't know how to use my washer, dryer, dishwasher, oven, cooktop (it's gas vs. our old electric and I have left the burners on TWICE for hours at a time), microwave, or thermostat. I'll figure it all out eventually, but in the meantime, I'm living in the middle of a life-wide learning curve—and trying not to burn my house down.
• Our 2-year-old has had a bit of trouble adjusting. While we think the new house smells fabulous (don't you love that new-house smell?), to her it probably smells weird. It doesn't smell like her house, the comforting environment where she has spent her entire life so far. She hasn't been sleeping quite as well. She needs more snuggles and hugs. She generally needs more "mommy" time, and that's okay with me.
• Our move was delayed twice due to glitches with our buyer's financing, which meant we had to reschedule our movers, our fence people, and our furniture delivery twice, not to mention everything else that depended upon those dates.
• Five days after we moved in, we hosted 16 people for Thanksgiving, and I was in charge of the turkey for the first time ever (with BIG shoes to fill, since my mother-in-law always makes glorious turkeys). The meal turned out perfectly lovely, and the company was great. But the two delays in our move meant that we had less time to prepare than expected, and I was up until 2:30 the night before sealing grout. I'm now convinced that if sealing grout was an acceptable punishment for certain petty crimes, you'd see a lot less shoplifting.
• I'm trying to keep the moving momentum going as long as possible. You see, I know from past experience that my motivation will only last for so long, and at whatever point I lose the momentum of unpacking, putting away, arranging, and decorating, whatever boxes haven't been opened up until that point will probably not be opened until at least 2015, if ever. And whatever walls are bare at the point of momentum loss will still be bare 3 years from now. Must. Keep. Going.
• Because I work from home, I didn't just move houses, I moved offices too! And I've had to find time to complete my long list of work priorities in the middle of everything else. Luckily, I love my job, so it's not a huge sacrifice.
• I'm working on my first workshop for Big Picture Classes, and it's called (drumroll please) "Grammar-Free Journaling." It's going to be FUN! And it's actually what I was supposed to be working on instead of writing this blog post. I never want to do the main thing on my to-do list. I always prefer to start with item 2 or 3. It's a sickness.
• We hosted Keira's birthmom and her birthdad for dinner (separate dinners) in the same week. I love them both beyond words. These sweet young souls have given us the best gift of our lives. So I wanted them to come over when we were a bit more settled in and I could cook them a proper meal, although the original goal was to have them over in October around Keira's birthday. Curse those moving delays! But all went beautifully, and Keira charmed them both.
• And finally, Christmas is 2 weeks away. Presents? What presents? At least we have a tree. 

The new living room on moving day. (It's slightly more put together now.)

So that's my sob story. Please don't get me wrong, I am grateful. Extremely unbelievably grateful every minute of the day (except for when I'm sealing grout, a job that is still not done...). But I'm also exhausted. For the last 3 weeks, since the first night we slept in our lovely new home, my mood has been swinging from elation to exhaustion to exasperation back to elation again. I just tell myself to enjoy the roller-coaster-like ride, because I seriously WILL NEVER DO THIS AGAIN.

It's a good thing we love our house.

In particular, here is what I LOVE:
my view, my oven (which was manufactured less than 54 years ago), my garage that's attached to the house (instead of being across the driveway), my 700 additional square feet, my open floorplan, my gas-burning fireplace, my quartz countertops, my pantry (oh, how I have longed to have enough pantry/cupboard space to store all of my kitchen accoutrements actually inside of the kitchen instead of in the other half of the water-heater closet downstairs), the gate off of my back fence that leads to a lovely walking/hiking trail and traverses a river and several duck ponds, and pretty much everything else about the house too.

Maybe one of these days I'll get around to taking some decent pictures of the rest of the house.

p.s. Want to see my turkey? A new trick I tried (which was not necessarily mother-in-law authorized) was to cut up a red apple and place it inside the cavity of the turkey, which I was told would "steam it from the inside," make the meat very tender, and give it a slight apple flavor. And it worked!

Tuesday's TED Talk: Your elusive creative genius

I wasn't particularly impressed with Eat, Pray, Love, but I could not resist the title of this next TED talk. And it turns out I was profoundly impressed with Elizabeth Gilbert's creative genius.

This is a good one. Again, an idea worth spreading. 

 

My Takeaways

• Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do? Why are people who feel the pull of creativity afraid in a way that chemical engineers are not? (So true!)
• Why have we collectively accepted that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked? And that artistry will inevitably lead to anguish?
• In Ancient Greece and Rome, people believed that creativity came from a divine and unknowable source, versus coming from within us. There was a separation between the work and the self.
• "Genius" maybe isn't something that we ARE. It is something that we have, and that we all have access to.
• The pressure of having to be the source of all divine, creative, unkowable, eternal mystery (versus a conduit for it) can and does drive artists to various levels of insanity. We really can stop that.
• I love that she said, "I'm a mule, and the way that I have to work is that I have to get up at the same time every day, and sweat and labor and barrel through it really awkwardly."
• I've said to a friend before, "Our ideas are not US." Having a separation can guard from excessive narcissism (as well as excessive despair) about how a creative work turns out.
• "Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that may be."

And especially:

"Maybe if you just believed that [the most extraordinary aspects of your being] were on loan to you from some imaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you're finished...it [would start] to change everything."

I have been thinking a lot lately about mystery—and how I so often search for certainty where it does not and cannot exist. There's something so beautiful and freeing about embracing the mysterious and leaning into the uncertainty–letting myself be carried by the tide of experience, rather than trying to resist it, form it, shape it, and understand it every step of the way.

A Bit Too "Real Life"

I am so taken by the Project Life scrapbookers who document their lives in weekly spreads, showcasing the extraordinary moments and scenes that make up their ordinary days. It's an incredible commitment that results in amazing memories kept and preserved.

At the moment, I'm also ultra-inspired by the eBook I’m currently editing for Big Picture Classes that showcases some of my favorite “Project Lifers” in action—as they create their weekly spreads and make cool connections for some bonus "insight pages," too. You will LOVE it. 

Meanwhile, I also love to joke with a couple of my scrapbooky friends about the "real life" scenes and pictures that no one would ever include in a Project Life album. (It's all about the highlights vs. the lowlights, right?) We often text these pictures to each other with some version of the caption: "Project Life worthy?"

Examples:
For my friend, a picture of a jar of pickled garlic cloves that her husband consumed right before bed. (No kisses for you!) Or, for me, the mouthguard I wear at night, covered in white calcification deposits.

Real life? Yes. Project Life worthy? Not so much.

And that brings us to this memorable week.

While I definitely experienced many idyllic moments that looked like this:

I also experienced many "NOT Project Life Worthy" moments. And here is the comprehensive list.

1. Walking in on a male colleague in the bathroom.
Missed Photo Op: Nondescript brown loafers with pants pooled around the ankles.

2. Nearly tossing my cookies on a descent into Denver, en route to Spokane for three days of meetings at Big Picture Classes headquarters, aka Stacy Julian's house (see yellow chair above).
Missed Photo Op: Barf bag clutched with two white-knuckled hands.

3. Holding up 2/3 of a full Frontier flight to SLC because I accepted the help of an overeager suited gentleman who assisted with my suitcase, rearranging the entire overhead bin in the process.
Missed Photo Op: Me looking over my shoulder apologetically at a long line of impatient passengers.

4. Requesting to be reseated in the front of the plane—in an effort to avoid the airsickness experienced on the descent into Denver—only to end up in seat 9E, a center seat, directly in front of the exit row, which means: a seat that does not recline. Then, the very moment I pulled out the laptop to work on my editing backlog, having the woman in front of me recline her seat and the gentleman in 9F chuckle and announce: "Perfect timing!"
Missed Photo Op: Me awkwardly hunched over, trying to type on a half-open laptop.

5. Regretting the request made in item #4, which resulted in me spending 95 minutes sitting next to a violently malodorous man sitting in seat 9D, bless his little heart. It is important to note that "sweat wicking" materials, such as those found in many track suits and gym shorts, may pull the sweat away from the skin, but the sweat doesn't just vanish. It goes INTO the fabric. And as such, the fabric should be washed more than once every couple of months.
Missed Photo Op: Me mouth breathing and rubbing scented hand lotion on my upper lip—which didn't work.

6. Invading the personal space of the kind man to my right. It really was so bad that the gentleman in 9F tapped me on the shoulder (completely unprompted) and said, "Excuse me, miss, but I'll lean into the window, so if you want to lean in my direction a little bit, you can. If that helps." I smiled. I leaned. It didn't help. In case you think this was insufferably rude, please note that the malodorous man in 9D did not notice as he was sleeping during the entire flight, apart from the one moment the loudspeaker startled him awake and he grunted and elbowed me in the ribs. To his credit, he kindly apologized before resuming his slumber.
Missed photo op: Self-portrait of two airline passengers leaning to the extreme right.

7. Surreptitiously sticking two very small pieces of a Wint-O-Green lifesaver in my nostrils to filter the air, which actually worked for a while. (What am I, 12?) Then being startled by a question from the flight attendant and whipping my head up to respond “Diet Coke, please,” only to have him vaguely notice the lifesaver shard protruding from my left nostril.
Missed Photo Op: Flight attendant looking down at passenger with quizzical expression.

8. Getting lectured by not one but two flight attendants about putting my electronic devices away in a timely fashion.
Missed Photo Op: Air hostess wagging index finger at unruly passenger.

Sometimes this is all Real Life, too, I’m afraid.

Tuesday's TED Talk: Schools Kill Creativity

If you're at all familiar with TED Talks, you've probably already seen this one. Sorry. But I think you should watch it again. It's been viewed nearly 13 million times, and I'm personally responsible for at least six of those views. (You're welcome, Ken. :)

Sir Ken Robinson speaks simply and directly. No visual aids, charts, graphs, bells, or whistles. Just a man on stage, sharing his ideas and insights.

My Takeaways

• At the current rate of change and innovation, we have absolutely no idea what the world will look like 10 years from now, let alone 60. And we're meant to be educating and preparing our children for that world.
• "All kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly."
• Every child is born an artist. The point is to remain an artist as you grow up.
• We run an education system and our corporations such that the worst thing you can do is make a mistake.
• Creativity means being willing to make mistakes. If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. (!!!)
• In our future world, creativity will be as important as literacy.
• If you look at who really succeeds in public education, you'd have to conclude that its purpose is to produce university professors. And university professors are just another form of life.
• A quote that makes me giggle every time I think about it, "Terry, please. I'm trying to fry an egg in here!"

I loved the story of Gillian Lynne, the choreographer of Cats and Phantom of the Opera, who was suspected of having a learning disability because she couldn't sit still and listen in class. Her mother took her to a specialist who wisely concluded, "Gillian isn't sick. She's a dancer; take her to dance school." And that one declaration opened up a new future for a little girl who "has to move in order to think."

I'll close with this quote:
"[We must start] seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and our children for the hope they are."

Look Who's 2!

Subtitle: How to improvise when you didn't plan any part of your daughter's party until the DAY OF her birthday.

This is probably the second-to-last year I'll be able to get away with that. Keira had no idea what was going on for most of the day. But by the time she's 4, she'll probably be on to me...

And possibly by the time she's 4, she'll no longer be terrified of her birthday candles. Granted, they were ridiculously long AND they were trick candles, but (inexplicably) they were the only candles I had on hand.

What kind of first-time mother would forget to buy birthday candles for her daughter's 2nd birthday? The same mother who was in Wyoming until 2 days before the big day, was a nutcase trying to keep the house clean enough for showings, and had just spent 8 hours the day before rescuing a project for an unnamed family member who was heading straight for a panic attack. Disaster averted. Birthday put on the backburner.

Being both a devoted improviser and a terrible judge of time, I decided the morning of that I'd make homemade chocolate ladybug cupcakes from scratch, invite all local family members over to celebrate, and do all of the gift shopping, too, while also meeting a work deadline and being housebound during Keira's 2.5-hour nap.

Yeah, right.

Some of those things got done, but the cupcakes were truly terrible. A little bit hard and sunken in the middle. (Can I tell you how excited I am for the brand new double ovens in my new house? On the other hand, I will no longer be able to blame baking disasters on my appliance...)

Because I was running out of time before the family members arrived, I had to throw out my plans to make homemade frosting that was good enough to compensate for the crappy cupcakes. Instead, I pulled out a can of Duncan Hines buttercream, scooped it into a bowl, and colored it pink.

Then, just minutes before everyone arrived, I decorated exactly two of the cupcakes to look like ladybugs, arranging the unfrosted cupcakes and all of the topping options around them. I announced, "It's a decorate-your-own-cupcake party!"

Truthfully, most of us just munched on the toppings anyway. At least it looked cute and somewhat intentional. The four store-bought red-velvet cupcakes definitely elevated the display.

As for Keira, she couldn't have been happier. A frosting girl through and through, she never eats the cake part anyway. 

These guys didn't seem to mind, either. When you're a kid, sugar is sugar. 

As for the gifts, they would have been wrapped in grocery bags if not for the fact that Buy Buy Baby offers free do-it-yourself gift wrapping (if you don't mind having logos all over your gifts). I didn't mind, and neither did the birthday girl.

She loved her little shopping cart from her cousins, which had the quirkiest collection of fake groceries I've seen yet. Not only was the turkey the same size as the lemon, the boxed foods included milk, chocolate, flour, coffee, corn flakes, cream puffs, and borsch (aka "borscht"). Yes, some of these are fairly common pantry staples in the continental U.S.  But Ukranian beet stew? Can it even come in a box? 

She was also quite proud of her new trike. The new polka-dotted vest was my favorite gift of the evening, but I fear she won't wear it again because of the way it pokes her in the neck when she sits down. How old does she need to be before I can teach her that sometimes we all have to suffer just a little for the sake of fashion? ;)

All in all, it was a memorable day, and I definitely made it harder than it needed to be. Lesson learned! For now, anyway. I'll bet you $100 that I'll be telling some variation of this same story when Keira turns 3. 

Note: I redeemed my baking reputation by making three fabulous loaves of zucchini bread the next day, and I even substituted half of the oil with yogurt and cut out 1/4 of the sugar. And I did it just in time for the home inspector to do his walk-through of the house with the new owner, proving to them both that the 1958 vintage built-in oven does actually work (while simultaneously filling the home with a lovely, inviting, please-don't-notice-any-flaws aroma)!  

So Much to Share!

1. The House is For Sale

Actually, it's under contract. And if all goes well, we'll be moving into our fabulous new house BY THE END OF THE MONTH. The new house, it's just so "us." Details to be revealed when all i's are dotted and t's are crossed. :)

 

2. We Went With Wendy to Wyoming

Wendy Smedley and I completed our almost-annual trek to Cheyenne, Wyoming, in late September, to visit our good friends the Dillows. And we had an absolute blast.

There were kindred spirits.

There was a zombie festival in and around the Saturday Farmer's Market. And Keira was almost lunch.

There was crafting.

There were grounds to manicure.

There were many embodiments of the darling sign in Elizabeth's home that says, "Children under six hold the hand of someone over six." (This may be my favorite picture of all.)

Or maybe this one.

There was snuggle time and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish.

There were flowers to sniff.

There were photo ops galore.

There was a cute little dog.

There were mice to pet (and so much more) at the Cheyenne Children's Village.

There was an impromptu puppet show.

There was lots and lots of eating on Keira's part. (NOT a usual thing for her. We may have to move to Wyoming if we want her to make weight at her next doctor's appointment.)

And there were incredibly thoughtful gifts. Yes, Miss Elizabeth knows me well.

3. I'm Going to Hawaii!

If all plans fall into place, I'll be joining Stacy Julian and the Big Picture Classes crew in Hawaii to celebrate 12/12/12 by Making a Mini-album on Maui! Want to come along? There are still a handful of seats left. But you better hurry, because they won't last long!

4. Keira Jane Turned Two

But you'll have to tune in tomorrow for that one, because I'm tired! I'm off to read Baby Lit to my baby girl. Next on my shopping list will be Jane Eyre (what else?), or perhaps Dracula, just in time for Halloween.

Speaking of Halloween, we'll be lucky if we remember to celebrate this year, with the upcoming move. Although I think Keira would make an adorable Cindy Lou Who (from the cartoon, NOT the Jim Carrey live-action version), so I will do my best to make it a priority. After all, she'll only be "no more than two" just this once.

One Tiny Blond Curl

I'll admit it; I was dreading this day. It's just another moment in a long line of milestones marching into the future, pointing to the inevitability of my baby growing up. But not cutting her hair isn't going to keep her tiny. Instead, it keeps her perpetually annoyed. She's always brushing wisps of hair out of her eyes, unless it's pulled up into her signature "hair fountain," which is forever tickling my nose.

So the time has come for a little trim. I almost couldn't bear to part with her little baby curl in the back. But it also made a perfect keepsake. One tiny blond curl.

She was a champ! Not a cry, not a squirm, not a peep. It doesn't hurt that our good friend Kelli did the honors, so Keira was not in an unfamiliar place.

As much as I thought I'd miss that curl, I completely adore the soft, subtle waves she has left. 

And this is mine to keep.

And there was even time left over for a little bit of reading. 

Next up: the macaroni-and-cheese test. I'm sure Keira has plans to find out how her slightly shorter blond locks will hold up to a rejuvenating cheesy noodles (and/or yogurt) scalp treatment. I'll be sure to return and report. 

Tuesday's TED Talk: Don't Regret Regret

We should always look forward, not backward, right? What's done is done, so just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Live without regret. This seems to be a cultural value that we all generally buy into.

But maybe regret has its place. In fact, the inability to experience regret is one of the diagnostic characteristics of sociopaths, as Kathryn Schulz explains in the TED Talk that's inspiring me today. We just need to put the right framework around it. 

My Takeaways

• Regret requires both agency and imagination. The more we have of both, the more acute we feel the regret.
• The easier it is to imagine a different outcome, the more we will regret what happened (or didn't happen). We will regret missing a flight by 3 minutes more than we regret missing a flight by 20 minutes. (As a person who has missed three flights in her lifetime, one due to being stuck in a no-way-out drive thru at In-N-Out Burger for an uncharacgteristically long time, I can personally vouch for this fact. :)
• As a society, we are incredibly used to not dealing with life's hard realities. In so many situations, we can undo, unfriend, and unfollow. So it can be all the more jarring when we are faced with a huge regret.
• The "Reply to All" button is one of the biggest regret generators in modern times. I know I've been a victim of the dreaded "Reply to All."
• Regret is useful in that it teaches us that we can do better.
• We CAN make peace with regret by: 1) realizing it's universal, 2) applying humor to the situation, even black humor if necessary, 3) realizing that all things improve with the passage of time, 4) believing that our regrets (like Kathryn's tattoo) are not as ugly as we think they are.

I LOVE this quote: "All of us who have experienced regret that contains real pain and real grief understand that humor, and even black humor, plays a crucial role in helping us survive. It connects the poles of our lives back together, the positive and the negative, and it sends a little current of life back into us."

And this one, "If we have goals and dreams and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don't want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn't to live without any regrets. The point is to not hate ourselves for having them."

What are your thoughts about regret?