The most freeing thing ever is realizing you have choices. I can choose to stay in a gray-walled cube for the rest of my life, because the job is predictable and the pay, somewhat reliable. Because I’m scared to act. OR! Or I can figure out what makes me happy and then do that, working out the money bit when I get there. Which is what I’ve decided to do. Not right away, but eventually.

I didn’t even have to finish the question, “What makes me happy?” before I knew the answer. Yoga makes me happy. I feel my strongest, most beautiful and most capable when I’m pushing past the imaginary boundaries I’d set for my mind and my body, discovering new abilities and most of all, peace. A few weeks ago, I read on Facebook that my old boss (from way back Boston days),had been accepted to a yoga teaching program and I was thrilled forher. After discovering hot yoga back in 2002, I went on and on to herabout it and looky, here she is several years later, becoming ateacher. Serious warm fuzzies. After e-high-fiving her, I realized – that’s what I want. So, I’m going to teach. Not right away, like I said, but eventually. I have some goals I’d like to reach, pre-requisites to achieve, some money to save, yadda, yadda and then, it’s game on.

Sometimes I lie awake in bed at night with little anticipation butterflies in my stomach – the way I used to feel at the start of a new semester. So much possibility! The Dork Lord is sided firmly on Team Yoga Teacher, which couldn’t make me happier. It’s nice to have someone in your camp, who wants your ultimate happiness more than anything – especially when that person shares your concerns about finances and you know, having a roof overhead.

I’ve always known people who love what they do. Or rather, made the choices and sacrifices to do what they love. My sister quit the rat race, went back to school and became an elephant trainer. She now works at the San Diego Zoo saving elephants. My brother ditched a job in software to go to school nights and weekends so he could be a cop. He loves to tase, what can I say? I’m a little disappointed with myself that it took a big forehead slap to realize I found my passion a long time ago and didn’t make a go of it, but mostly, I’m just pleased that I found it at all.

I miss New York today. Broke and bored in Dallas, Texas is a terrible cocktail.

The wedding is going to be one of those awesomely warm fuzzy events, not just because it’s full of mushy I Do love stuff, but because I don’t get to see my siblings very often – I’ve never even met my niece, Penny – so this will be our chance to get in some good bonding time. While wearing pinned-on flowers and acting on our best behavior. I snorted while typing that. You just couldn’t hear.

Well, mostly the wedding will be a warm fuzzy. My mother and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms, which should make the whole wedding weekend one big Lifetime Original Movie Starring That Woman From China Beach. Sometime shortly after Christmas, I (totally against my better judgment) let my mom know that I didn’t appreciate her advice. I said I thought her assessment of the situation was incorrect and that she was wrong to butt in. She said F–k you – just like that. Only spelled out in full, with exclamation points and maybe the @ symbol for good measure. I’ve come to expect a certain degree of fall out from disagreeing with the one who birthed me (the last time we dared question motherly love, she took our photos off the mantle put them away in a cardboard box) but this – this is new territory. I won’t lie. I think it’s unhinged. I have never had an argument with anyone that deteriorated into “Screw you!” Ever. A first for everything, I suppose. 

If you’ve been reading for any length of time, you’ll know that things with my mother have always been difficult – in cycles. One, we’re both strong willed. Two, like with my father, there are greater factors at work. My sister, brother and I spent our childhood being parented by two people who were terribly stressed out and suffering from, at times, severe depression. And now that I’m an adult (and I’ll be the first to admit that yes, the following statement makes me feel bad about myself), I’m running out of patience for it. Enough, already. Suicide talk from a parent is truly horrific. And it’s unbelievably disappointing that with all of the available help out there, all the hours of therapy and medication have changed nothing. NOTHING. And I want to know who’s to blame for that.

I’m angry about it. I’m angry that my parents are unstable. That their instability is going to affect their relationships with my future children. That they may not HAVE relationships with my future children. That I find much more comfort in other people’s parents because they behave normally.

My siblings and I spend hours sighing over phone lines, wondering what to do. Yes, accept the people you love for who they are. And then… what? Then don’t have weddings, because you’re tired waging wars on guilt and self pity? Don’t share information or say how you really feel? Oh my god, the amount of truth-avoiding we do! I even do it here – the one place I created to be a more thinking, feeling, expressive person – because I fear the reaction. But not today. I’m done with that crap. This is mine, and I’m taking it back.

My brother was right when he said, “This is the information age, not the feelings-suppression age.”

And today I’m feeling angry.

“House rules?” I raised my eyebrows at him and propped myself up on the couch with my sore elbow, adding a wince to the eyebrow raise. “What house rules would those be?”

“I’m the man of the house and I determine who we root for in the football!”

“The football?”

“You know what I mean.”

What did I care, Saints from Vikings? Absolutely not a bit. But when the latter scored a touchdown to tie up the game yet again, I made the mistake of letting out a, “There ya go!” with just a little too much enthusiasm. Look, I just like a close game. In playoff football – where your (fella’s) team is no longer playing off – it adds the only bit of excitement there is. And excitement I need. See also: tired of football.

“I can’t cheer for Minnesota because they beat Dallas last week?”

“Exactly.”

“But, doesn’t it sound better to say you lost to the dudes going to the Superbowl, rather than just another buncha losers who also lost to the dudes going to the Superbowl?”

“No. We hate the Vikings.”

I shook my head. But I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. If there’s no crying in baseball, there is no reason in football. I mean, after all, this is a sport where we call a 400lb Baby Huey in a jersey an athlete just because he’s too big to be pushed around by actual athletes. Which, really should be the jumping off point for all of my expectations about the game. It’d save a lot of head shaking.