So. My boyfriend dumped me.

At least I think he did. He just stopped talking to me. He might have dropped dead in mid-conversation; so, a lack of communication would be understandable and God rest him. Or he might have just decided to ignore me which is just rude and God can do something else with him. We weren’t even fighting, although I was being a little snitty about something I believe he did wrong. He never addressed anything; so, I don’t know if he actually did it or if it was all an honest misunderstanding. It might have been. Apparently, our relationship wasn’t worth the potential confrontation to him. On the other hand, it’s not like I went to his house and forced him to talk to me; so, I guess it wasn’t worth it to me, either.

This summary dismissal made me think about interpersonal dealings in general. And hockey – it made me think about hockey, too. I believe that most of us detest confrontation and that we go to great lengths to avoid it – hockey players being a notable exception.

How many times a day do we come across people we just want to snatch bald-headed? Someone takes that plum parking spot we were stalking, or the last rangoon on the buffet, or they post a series spoiler on Facebook without so much as a warning! Of course, we can’t ram them with our cars, pop their hands, or smack them through the internet (although a “thanks a lot” button on Facebook might be a good idea). We fume while we circle the lot again. We smile and say, “No, really, that soggy-assed spring roll will do just as well.” We skip the episode because watching it is just pointless now. We don’t confront. We absorb the disappointment and even anger, then we go home and yell at the people we love who had nothing to do with it.

Not so for the men on the ice.

A player checks a little high, hits a little dirty or gets in the goalie’s face? He’s gonna smell some gloves. An Enforcer is going to come along, drop his gloves and invite the offending player to dance – that or he’s going to ram the guy into the boards to get his attention. And I’ll be on my feet in the stands or in my living room, screaming like a savage, letting my Viking genes take over. (My father observed that I become positively bloodthirsty watching a hockey game. Since he’s the source of the Viking genes, I blame him, although the trait seems to have skipped a generation there.) Hockey fights provide a vicarious release for me that organized fighting does not – I’m not a boxing or UFC fan at all. The spontaneous nature of the fight on the ice is what makes it attractive. In my mind, I’m the one laying into that idiot who cut me off in traffic.

Obviously, I don’t advocate violence in the streets or at The Golden Wok, and I certainly don’t advocate it when some man or woman ends a relationship rudely. While we weren’t in love, we had fun. I’ll miss our visits and adventures. Still, the frustration over his silence is there and, at the next game I attend, the player on the receiving end of the pummeling will likely have a specific face, indeed.

When I first started writing this blog, my life was in transition. I was leaving the world of aviation (my career home for more than two decades) and moving into the world of  insurance and financial services sales.

That didn’t go well.

For months, I worked my posterior off. I did everything I was told I had to do to be successful. I networked at five to six events a week. I held meetings – sometimes up to five a day. I gave illustrations. I explained policies. And I sold nothing. The more I learned about life, disability and long-term care insurance, the more passionate I became about it. Yet, I was unable to translate that passion into sales. Many told me that I was “just the kind of person (they) wanted to buy insurance from,” but  no one did. Ten months after I started, I was basically broke, broken, defeated and angry.

Very angry.

Like I do, I thought about my anger. I turned it over in my hands, examining it from every angle, trying to find its core. Recently, someone else crystallized it for me. I am angry because I planned and I worked hard, believing that I would be rewarded for those things with a comfortable middle age. I was knowledgeable, trustworthy and good at my various jobs. I thought that success would necessarily follow. Often, I’m learning, it doesn’t work that way. In fact, a recruiter recently told me to remove the C suite and VP titles from my resume since they make me sound over-qualified. He also suggested that, if I was at least a six on an attractiveness scale of ten, I should submit my resume in person at various facilities. To say the least, I was disappointed in his advice.

In the end, I find myself now middle-aged and starting literally from square one.  Since October, I have been working at a local warehousing facility. The work is physically demanding and very different from anything I had hoped to be doing. However, the organization is a good one and the more I learn, the interesting a future there becomes.

I often read motivational posts and memes quoting Zig Ziglar and, frankly, I’m about sick of most of them.

• Desire is what takes the hot water of mediocrity and turns it into the steam of outstanding success.
• If you can dream it, you can achieve it.
• You are at the top when: You have made friends with your past, are focused on the present and are optimistic about your future.
• Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

The truth is that I’m not very optimistic by nature. (This surprises many.) By nature, I am not a positive thinker and faced with the adversities of the last several months, I haven’t been a positive thinker in action, either. It’s tougher than a meme makes it sound. Sure, Zig, I was “designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.”  How is that going to put gas in my car this week or food on my table?

When I am in the grip of fear, negativity, and failure, it is difficult (if not impossible) to raise my head high enough to see down the road. Sometimes, I don’t need to hear about my innate greatness, I need to hear that I can survive today and that my daily survival is good enough.  Sometimes, I’m more inspired by “one day at a time” than I am by “you can rule the world.” Then, after awhile of healing, I’m ready to start sowing those seeds of greatness again.

So, my friend, if you are like me and need to take it “one day at a time,” take my hand and we’ll do it together. If you’re sowing the seeds of greatness, then hold out a hand to the rest of us until we are, too.

“I’ve got a dead bobcat in my freezer.”

One Easter morning, over eggs Benedict, my dad just threw this statement out there. It was apropos of nothing. There was no segue. He just launched this thing.  The statement was met with silence, then incredulity, then hilarity.  We came to call those kinds of statements Conversation Grenades. You just toss one out there, wait for it, then Boom! enjoy the aftermath. (In this case, it turned out that he had found the bobcat on a road where it had been killed by a vehicle. It would make perfect sense for him to have it if you knew my dad.)

A few times in recent weeks, I’ve been in situations where others politely inquired, “How are you?” My reply is something vague and innocuous because there are those who would be gleeful at my struggles over the past 18 months. They would appear to commiserate, but would gather later to gloat. I know they would and, maybe I would deserve it a little. But, since I had no interest in watching the Goblin joy of these members of the Schadenfreude family, I smiled, nodded and said I was fine.

But, just once, it would have been kind of fun to lob a conversation grenade, just sit back and watch. Don’t you think?

When someone who doesn’t really care inquires about your condition, wouldn’t you like to give them a shocking answer just to see what they’d do?

“How are you?”

• Back on the pipe, but what can you do, right?
• Suicidal and bankrupt, thanks, and you?
• Well, the voices are back, but at least I’m never lonely!
• Super excited my case was dismissed!

Of course, we can’t do all that. We have to be polite (except in therapy) or things will grind to a complete stand still, if just from the shock alone. We have to say that we’re fine or something vaguely positive, right? No one wants to hear the other stuff.

Well, most don’t, anyway.

I was reminded by a friend who once let me down in a MAJOR way, that there are people in our lives who do care. Sometimes they screw up and let us down, but, as he said, they can learn. They may not know how to help or how to spot a crisis unless we tell them, but we should never mistake their inability to see the problem with an unwillingness to help. These are the people who will deal with our grenades.

They might fumble with them a bit at first, but eventually, they’ll get control. They will comfort us or help us while we deal with the issues. We just have to let them. We have to expose our vulnerabilities, our soft underbellies to them.

But sometimes that’s the hardest part.

U.S. Navy admiral and University of Texas, Austin, alumnus William H. McRaven gave the recent commencement speech in Austin. His words are inspiring for graduates and, well, really anyone with a pulse. Here’s what the warrior had to say:

I may have to watch this daily…..all but that “hook ’em, horns” stuff.

I was working on another piece, but my sweet friend Jennifer shared this on Facebook yesterday. The video has wiggled into my brain and may be changing my perspective.

We’ll discuss tomorrow.

A few years ago, I read a book called The Holographic Universe that made my head hurt. I need to read it about ten more times to really understand it. It’s about the holographic theory and I’m no physicist; however, there is a concept discussed in the book that I did understand and that we experience regularly. I certainly did last week – synchronicity.

We call it coincidence – I’m thinking of a particular old song and, without my mentioning it, you start singing it or I hear it on the radio, that sort of thing.

On Monday of last week, a friend marked the tenth anniversary of his father’s death from cancer saying how much he loves and misses his dad, their talks and just being together. Joe’s words describing his feelings reminded me of the Sandra Bullock movie Hope Floats.

Then, on Friday, I saw a list of Sandy’s best and worst movies. On the best list was The Proposal (yes), The Blind Side (of course) and Demolition Man (are you kidding me?). On the worst list were Speed 2 (I’m sure), Practical Magic (what?) and, you guessed it, Hope Floats (no way – if for Harry Connick Jr’s scrumptious self alone!).

In the movie, Birdie and her mother have a complicated, often conflicted relationship. Still, they clearly love each other as is illustrated when Birdie is dressing for her mother’s funeral. She walks into the closet, catches her mother’s scent on the clothing and, grown woman that she is, sobs like a baby.

Now, in case you didn’t know, I have a weird thing about smell. I once couldn’t date a man because he smelled wrong – not bad, just wrong. (Pheromones, I guess.) I used to try to swipe my dad’s handkerchiefs so that I could carry his comforting smell with me. And when I see my son after a long separation, the first thing I do after hugging him is to smell his hair. It’s just something I do.

Anyway, because I do this weird thing, that scene struck me hard the first time I saw it and it still gets me every time. My relationship with my mother was also complicated and conflicted. She was not my best friend; but, she was my mother and we loved each other. Cancer took her just over eleven years ago. No closet contains her scent anymore.

If we are lucky, we have relationships the losses of which we can mourn. Imagine losing a parent or friend and not feeling the hole they left in your life. It is our choice to both love and like others that makes them precious to us and makes us feel their loss acutely. Joe clearly had such a relationship with his father. I had that with my friends Joey and Sandy whom I still miss every day. And, there’s my mom.

The smell of my mother may be gone; but, if it’s not and if I should ever encounter it again, I will know it instantly and, grown woman that I am, will sob like a baby.