Mom in the Mirror

Striving for imbalance

Balancing is a circus act. It's walking on a tightrope or riding a unicycle or twirling plates at the end of a long stick resting on a short nose. Balancing is an act.

But I'm not a circus performer, just a mother, wife, daughter and friend trying to maintain my sanity, health and home. Balance looks like the problem and the solution. It is a mathematical unknown.

As Jennifer Louden writes in the October issue of body+soul magazine, "We think that by conforming to the ideal -- working 7.5 hours, exercising 20.3 minutes, spending 2.4 quality hours with children or elderly parents or community -- we'll achieve that perfect measure of peace."

Instead, we achieve the opposite -- stress -- because it is impossible to balance a scale that is too heavy. It tips over.

So, we must start removing what is weighing us down.

"Balance is, at its essence, about choice," Louden says. "It's the fluid, often heartbreaking process of choosing, moment by moment, where to spend your most precious resources: your energy and your time."

You can balance a meal and you can balance a checkbook, but you can't balance a life. We must be willing to live with imbalance.

We must have the courage to choose this over that, here over there, no over yes. We must have the clarity to do what matters most (spending time making and eating a healthy meal) and risk that the rest (that pile of thank you notes) will remain undone. We must have the calm to keep moving forward, rather than looking back.

"In order to achieve a balanced life, we must be a bit unbalanced -- by doing only what really matters," says Richard Koch.

It isn't about having it all (in just the right amounts), it's about choosing wisely.

I remember walking across the beam as a young girl during gym class. Back then, balance required carefully putting one foot in front of the other, without falling.

As an adult, I'm still trying to stay on the narrowing beam. The drop below looks more frightening than ever. What's down there? Failure. Falling means failing. It means being off-center, out-of-synch, lonely and disconnected.

The best gymnasts are exceptionally graceful on the beam, the rest of us look like we're trying too hard. Probably because many of us are.

What if we tried a little less hard? What if we threw our younger and older selves a rope so that we could hop down safely?

The best kind of balance allows us to carry ourselves proudly, without collapsing under the enormity of the burdens that press down, like a stack of Oxford English Dictionaries on our heads.

This kind of balance is about focus and priorities. It silences those competing inner voices that pile "should" upon "should" -- "I should exercise"; "I should call my in-laws"; "I should volunteer at my son's school."

When we remove the "should"s and tip the scales in favor of what is most essential, we gain a quiet certainty, the confidence that we're doing exactly what we want and need.

Even when all is not right with the world, all is alright.

And, on balance, that is enough.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

How smart do we need to be?

My 9-year-old son Colter loves to make me feel stupid. All he has to do is ask, "Mommy, what's a rhombus?" and I'm reminded of my limitations.

Like me, Colter enjoys his intelligence. But lately I've been wondering whether being smart is as advantageous as we think.

When I was my son's age -- and later a teenager -- I too believed the '60s slogan "Knowledge is power." I accumulated as much of both as I could. I was book smart and street smart, determined to make my way in the world armed with information.

But it turns out that determination, more than my grades or test scores, may have been responsible for where I've gone and what I've done.

In a New Yorker essay about Ivy League admissions, writer Malcolm Gladwell described the relationship between initial inclinations, "getting in," and subsequent success. He writes, "For most students, the general rule seems to be that if you are a hardworking and intelligent person you'll end up doing well regardless of where you went to school."

So why am I still paying off student loans? Because finding a community where I belonged felt priceless to me.

I recently returned to that community, my alma mater -- Barnard College, where the median math SAT score is 660, the verbal is 690 and graduates include eight Pulitzer Prize winners. I found myself surrounded once again by smart, strong, sarcastic women making all kinds of choices. They have gray hair and purple hair. They live in cities and in deserts. They are cardiologists and mothers.

By any measure, they are successful. But how did they become so?

According to Gladwell's reporting, native intelligence isn't enough.

"Being a smart child isn't a particularly good predictor of success in later life," he wrote. " 'Non-intellective' factors -- like motivation and social skills -- probably matter more."

We all know people who are very nice or politically savvy and manage to do very well for themselves, even though they may not be as capable as we'd expect.

Part of the problem may be our definitions. When we say someone is smart, we mean many different things. We may mean that she is articulate or skilled. We may mean he is clever or well-read. We may mean all of those and well-rounded, too.

The idea that success may hinge on balancing multiple ways of knowing allows for creativity, intuition, emotional literacy and more.

It explains people who compete phenomenally well at board games (like Trivial Pursuit) but not so well in the boardroom. We fault them for that because we value intelligence as a status symbol, more interested in what it gets us -- an impeccable degree, an important title, an impressive income -- than what it gives us.

Are we creating monsters with multiple titles?

At what point can I put down The New Yorker and and watch "Grey's Anatomy" without feeling guilty?

There's no question that intelligence can sometimes be a disadvantage. As a young woman, I was too intense, too intimidating and too ambitious for myself and my peers, I imagine. I hadn't grown into my brain or my potential.

While I believed that knowledge was power, I also felt that ignorance was bliss. It seemed the smarter I was, the unhappier I became.

And then there was all the stuff I didn't know -- I switched schools at least a half-dozen times between third and eighth grades, leaving me with educational gaps in art history, musical theory and biology. These days, my husband helps our son with science and social studies homework, while I pay close attention.

But if intelligence is the ability to think clearly and critically, wisdom is knowing how much we have to learn.

Life tests us, but it doesn't quiz us. You can't cram for work. Or study the Cliffs Notes to parenthood.

We make mistakes. We succeed and we fail. We live and we love and we learn. In the end, we hope to wake up smarter today than yesterday.

And that's all I need to know.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

I hate holidays

Holidays are hard.

The easiest for me may be Yom Kippur, the time of year when Jews like me officially dedicate ourselves to feeling guilty. I'm good at that!

But the Hallmark holiday expectations of the fall and winter really bother me. I'm sure there are people who spend these special times with friends and family, having great food and fun. But in my world, holidays are stressful and largely unsatisfying.

Take Halloween. There's no real meaning in the day for my family -- I'm not even sure why we mark All Hallow's Eve -- just a conversation that begins in September about costumes and candy.

We've gone pumpkin picking, made costumes and hung creepy lights. Each year it's more or less the same.

My introverted son reluctantly knocks on doors and asks total strangers for treats. Sometimes he goes to prime neighborhoods with friends, other times he sticks closer to home. Either way, he only lasts a half-hour -- maximum -- from the time he leaves the house to the time he dumps his load on the floor and starts sorting.

His favorites are usually the candies we bought to give away. So, why can't I just get him some gummy bears and be done with it?

Then there's Thanksgiving. Ever since I turned 18 and went away to college, I've faced the annual question: Are you coming home?

First I must set aside my irritation that I haven't lived in Chicago for 22 years and yet it's still considered "home" -- even by me, sometimes.

Next, there's the travel. It isn't just the crowds and inconvenience, it's the expense of flying me, my husband and our son halfway across the country. We've always stayed in the city with my parents, so there's no hotel cost, but we compensate by shopping and eating out extravagantly while we're there.

We typically cram all kinds of museums and outings into a very short trip and then see my extended family once, on Thanksgiving Day. I love my family -- aunts, uncles, cousins, their children -- but there's not much opportunity to really connect if the only time I see them is when we're scarfing down appetizers and stuffing ourselves around tables large enough to accommodate dozens.

I usually move from conversation to conversation, talking to everyone briefly, catching up on the superficial developments since I saw them last (the year before, if I'm lucky). Just when I feel like I'm really getting to know them again, the night is over, the trip is winding down, and all my intentions to stay in touch via e-mail and phone are like a depressing holiday hangover.

Since my father died a few years, it's only become more difficult. I feel much more inclined to wrap myself in the warmth of my extended family and yet less able to because of my geographic and emotional distance from them.

And finally, there's Chanukah and Christmas. I'm Jewish, my husband is not. So we celebrate both.

Twice the happiness? Theoretically. But in reality, it's just twice the anxiety.

In general, we blend traditions fine. And I especially love the holiday music. But every year since our son has been in school, there have been culture clashes. This year he's in chorus, and for the winter concert they'll be dressing up in elf costumes and singing "Follow the Shepherd" and other religious songs. To appease us, his chorus teacher has added one Chanukah song. I'll enjoy my son's performance (except when he's mouthing words he doesn't want to sing), but not the feeling of being marginalized.

And now that we live in a different state than my husband's family, there's the Christmas version of the Thanksgiving question: Will we be coming home? (Home in this case means North Carolina, where I lived for 15 years and my husband lived for 25 years.)

We face the same challenges with this holiday as we did with Thanksgiving -- the travel, the expense, the crammed agenda with little chance of building on the important relationships with people who live states away now. More frustration, less satisfaction.

Don't misunderstand, there are special days in the life of my family, many of them. You just might not be able to tell when they are by the dates on the calendar.

So, for now, I look forward to New Year's, because it means I can relax for a while.

At least until Groundhog Day.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

When underachieving is good enough

I'm a type A personality with a son who is happy to come in second.

What's strange is that I'm happy for him.

I don't mind that he played on a basketball team that lost all but one game last season. He really enjoyed and appreciated that single victory. He earned it.

I don't mind that he's not the most popular or the best dressed. He has several friends at school and wears clothes that are comfortable and affordable. I like that he's not label-conscious or overly concerned with what others think of him.

My son is a great student. He gets As and Bs, which means he's been on the honor roll every semester and is eligible to join the safety patrol or the school TV station when he's in fifth grade next year. He's also in the gifted program.

But he's not on the principal's list (straight As), and that's OK with both of us.

After a few years of piano lessons, he plays simple songs fluidly, but he's no prodigy. He started taking guitar because he enjoys it more.

This isn't about laziness or a lack of discipline or settling for mediocrity. It's about excelling where you can and enjoying everything else.

Don't get me wrong, Colter is competitive. He likes to beat his father at chess and checkers and any other board or card game he plays. He doesn't like to lose, but he knows that losing is part of the game, something I didn't come to terms with until I was in my ... well, I'm working on it.

I grew up feeling intense pressure to excel -- get good grades, get into a good college, get a good job, earn a good salary.

My life (and my parents' approval) seemed to depend on it. And I never felt I was achieving enough. Until I realized all the accomplishments were empty without the joy of work that mattered and the love of family and friends.

I didn't want my son to feel that same pressure, that same emptiness.

So he's getting a good education, but it's not the best money can buy. I know someone who drives two hours a day so that her children can go to a particular school. I won't do that.

Maybe this is selfish. My parents sacrificed so I could have the best of everything -- the best house in the best neighborhood, the best schools, every advantage. And I expected I would want and do no less for my child. But then he came along, and I saw things differently.

My son would rather spend time at home with me than spend hours being driven to a school farther away that might be better for him.

He was thrilled to be elected an alternate to student government. Last year he received only one vote for the same office. This year, he received more than any other boy in the class except the boy who won (a friend of his).

That's progress. And that's what he likes. He's all about improvement.

He says, "I just want to be good at the things I'm good at."

He's also smart enough to know that in life, we come in second a lot. Only one person wins, but many of us place.

What's best for him is not necessarily the best of everything.

He's my son and I love him. He's learning to love himself, win or lose. That's good enough for me. And I have to believe it will be good enough for him.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

Are you a yay-sayer or a naysayer?

If I could change one thing about myself, I would say "yes" more often.

I'm the type of person who says "no" without thinking. Ask me anything and my first response will be negative. I verbally close the door before anyone can do more than poke a head tentatively around the corner. In fact, "no" doesn't just close the door on an idea or thought, it slams the door. Hard.

I've always admired people whose first instinct is to say yes. I had a boss in college who believed it was always easier to say "yes" than to say "no." For her, it was. For me, not at all.

I know I've missed out on a lot of opportunities because I never even consider them. I've missed out on a lot of fun, I'm sure. And yet I can't help myself. I am cautious, and so is "no." It sounds like "whoa," and it has that effect. It slows progress or stops it in its tracks (some trains barrel toward you no matter what signal lights you throw).

"No" protects against change, against danger. No is safe. Yes is more reckless. It's like saying, "Guess." Saying yes requires that I commit to something with or without information. And I like information.

I don't think it's coincidental that "no" and "know" are homonyms. The less I know, the more likely I am to say "no." The more I know, the more likely I am to say "yes."

Wanna drink? No.

Want a soda? Maybe.

Want a root beer? Yes!

But I'm learning to work with my limitations. Just after I hear myself say "no," I reconsider. Do I know enough to decide? Are there possibilities beyond "yes" and "no"? Do I want to change my mind?

I wasn't always such a naysayer. In fact, I think I became one because I said yes too much. As a child and then as a young woman, I felt bound by other people's expectations. No was not a part of my vocabulary.

This meant I found myself trying to get out of plans I never wanted to make and commitments I hoped never to honor. I remember wishing I would get sick just so I wouldn't have to babysit or go out with someone whose company I really didn't enjoy.

Once I realized that saying yes created more problems than it solved, I learned to help people find alternatives (like, "I have a friend who can babysit, do you want me to see if she's available?") Eventually, I learned how to just say no. And I've been saying it ever since. The problem is, somewhere along the way I forgot how to say yes.

And it's worrying me.

Because the yay-sayers are happier, I've noticed. Especially as they age. My mother said yes to everything: Travel to Paris without my husband or children? Sign me up! Go back to school and become the first college graduate in my family? Enroll me! Move to Florida to recover from a broken leg? Why not?

As her child, I paid the price for her enthusiasm. My life was constantly disrupted by her wishes and whims. But as an adult, I hear her say -- now that she's in her 70s -- how happy she is and how fulfilled. She lived a full life and did most everything she wanted (including plenty she shouldn't have). In contrast, I have other relatives who, like me, are more critical and judgmental, more tentative in spite of our best efforts to remain open-minded. As they age they become more frustrated. After a lifetime of shoulds, we want to say yes, but we don't know how or to what or even when.

And perhaps that's the key. Instead of being a naysayer or a yay-sayer, it's worth learning when to say yes and when to say how and when to say maybe and when to say, soon or another time or "not right now."

No keeps life at a distance, it protects us; yes engages and exposes us. "No" is afraid of the future. Yes is a way of saying, I'm not sure what will happen next but I'm willing to find out.

So, the question is: Am I brave?

Hell, yes.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

The grass is (almost) never greener

The last place we look for happiness is in our own backyards, where the grass is generally greener than we know.

I was reminded of this last week when I went to a neighborhood pool by myself and met the mother of two toddlers. When she heard I had a husband and son at home, she wanted to know how I scored some solitude. I told her it was easy, my 9-year-old preferred playing GameCube to swimming with me. So, while she was coveting my time alone I was coveting her time with family.

Before I realized that she didn't even trust her husband to watch their kids at the pool, I told her my husband was usually the one home with our child anyway, cooking, supervising homework, driving to and from guitar lessons. I could see my husband's reflection in her eyes, and he looked good.

Well, of course he did. I didn't mention the snoring, the piles of dishes and laundry in our house, the daily frustrations of life as a family. Why would I? A girl can dream, can't she?

And we do. We imagine that other people's husbands have more hair and less stomach. Other people's children are so well-behaved. Other people's friends seem tirelessly selfless and funny.

But the next time you're coveting your neighbor's life, just remember that from the other side of the fence, your life looks pretty good, too.

Yes, there are some dead spots -- some spots, as my husband says, where the grass just won't grow. And there are those with green thumbs, who can grow anything, anytime, anywhere. But for most of us, our grass is as green as any.

I've known people who were rich, thin and miserable. I've known others who were poor, fat and happy. Happiness knows no weight or income. Happiness knows no before or after -- after the bills are paid, after the children are at school, after... After all, happiness waits for nothing and no one.

So while it's true that the Declaration of Independence gives us the right to pursue happiness, it doesn't guarantee we'll catch it. In fact, it appears that it might be in our long-term best interest for happiness to remain just out of reach.

In his book, "Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile," British psychologist Daniel Nettle writes, "Evolution hasn't set us up for the attainment of happiness, merely its pursuit."

In a review of his book, Elizabeth Svoboda explains:

...in happiness, as in just about every other area, the Lake Wobegon effect -- that epitome of irrationality -- is much in evidence. When middle-aged study subjects were asked to assess their satisfaction with life on a scale of 1 to 10, more than 90 percent chose 5 or above, with the average response hovering around 8. These results, Nettle believes, reflect both people's need to feel that they're above the norm and their evolution-driven sense that things can always improve just a little. "Whatever the circumstances, there should be a small, nagging gap between our present contentment and a conceivably possible super-contentment," he writes. "Into this vital chink swarm peddlers of nostalgia, spiritual systems, drugs, and all kinds of consumer goods."

Evolution says we're always looking forward to what's next, but happiness isn't in the future. It's here and now.

Happiness lives at the house next door, and the one next to that. And seen from the proper angle, in the best light, it's right in your own backyard.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

Who moved my chi?

I was born a city girl and I will die a city girl. In between, I have become a small-town mom.

I first noticed this about myself during dinner a few weeks ago, when I announced to my family that I was eating flowers. Actually, it was an artichoke, but it had leaves.

My son said, "Mommy, you're a nature girl!"

I was horrified.

No, I'm not, I told him. Nature girls wear no makeup; they have curly, graying hair. And they eat vegetables.

Guilty, guilty, and reluctantly guilty.

But how can that be? Where, oh where has my city soul gone?

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. We went to the zoo, the Art Institute, the Museum of Science and Industry. I spent time at my dad's business in the blue-collar neighborhood of Bridgeport and tasted the flavor of real Italian meatballs, Greek olives, steamed hot dogs in poppy seed buns.

When I was 13, we moved into the city, and I found new energy in the theatre, the bookstores, the buses. I thrived on having access to anything, anytime. I loved the rhythm of the streets and the anonymity -- the sense that everything matters and nothing matters.

When it was time to choose a college, there was only one place for me: New York City. My four years there were filled with the ultimate urban experience. I traded buses for subways, Second City for Broadway, and Lincoln Park for Central Park. I lived just south of Harlem and saw the island from Cloisters to Wall Street. I even ventured out to a borough or two.

But with bachelor's degree in hand, I decided to leave New York. After hopping over a homeless person one too many times, I worried my heart was hardening.

So I went to graduate school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a college town, just down the road from a capital city.

It wasn't Chicago or New York, but it was home. I was ready to slow down a little. And even though I would never grow roses, I did hope to stop and smell them more often.

Once I got married and had a son, I realized that the benefits of a simpler life outweighed my longing for the rush of activity. I was content with fewer restaurants, more pottery places, and a rebalanced life.

Mostly.

As my son grew, and we saw city friends and family during visits over the years, I started to worry.

Was I raising my son at a disadvantage? Sure we went to the occasional museum to see dinosaurs and Space exhibits. And traveling troupes came through to put on shows that had long ago left larger cities or grown old in them. But it wasn't the cultural gap that made me anxious.

It wasn't even the diversity gap, although I wondered whether my son would appreciate differences as much as I'd like. What would it mean if the sights and sounds of Chinatown remained foreign to him? The Lower East Side? The skyscrapers?

Even if I dismissed some of my concerns as superficial, there was still this most persistent fear: the achievement gap.

Most city kids I know are hipper, wiser and faster than my son. They're likely to rise to the top in various fields and become the kids against whom he will compete for spots in college, work, life. They'll probably be the ones hiring or firing him in about 15 years.

Will they understand his wry wit, recognize and respect the intelligence behind his slow smile?

I don't know. I hope so.

I hope that their exposure to all walks and talks of life has done more than render them street smart, cynical and sophisticated. I hope that it enables them to postpone snobbery and the prejudgments that most of us immediately form.

I hope.

Because the truth is, my son is not a city kid. He is easily overwhelmed and overstimulated, a homebody rather than an adventurer.

And I am not a city parent. Even if we could afford to live in D.C. or Boston, I'd have a hard time giving my son the kind of freedom my parents gave me, the kind he'd need to really enjoy and benefit from city life. And I'd rather he enter adulthood still innocent of life's harder edges.

So, we live in a small town, a few blocks south of Main Street. We walk to the community center, where my son plays basketball. We walk to the ice cream shop, where we sit outside by the train tracks and eat. We walk to the library, where the new books arrive regularly enough.

Sometimes, we even go to the pier and look out over Tampa Bay at the stingrays and sharks below and the sky above.

It's a view I've never seen anywhere else.

These days, cities are great places to visit. I just wouldn't want to live there.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

A meditation on meditation

It's Friday night at 7:30, and I am in a room with about a dozen other people hoping to relax.

I am trying to recover from the trauma of turning 40 earlier this week. It works -- as soon as I notice that I appear to be the youngest person in the room, I feel better.

Why do we need to pay for the privilege of relaxing? Why do we need classes to teach us what should come naturally? Why do we need massages and aromatherapy and CDs that play sounds we wouldn't really hear in a rainforest?

Why can't we just relax?

The meditation teacher is a beautiful older woman with the kind of long gray hair and clear eyes I hope to have when I'm her age, whatever ageless age she is. She wears comfortable cotton clothes, and her serenity fills the room.

She offers lavender mist to spray on my forehead. It sells for $8 a bottle. The cost of relaxing: how much am I willing to pay?

Soon we are all on our mats, gently drifting into an altered state.

And then I hear it.

A clock is ticking. Loudly. This is no internal clock trying to find its relaxation rhythm. This is a wall clock, several feet from me, that is louder than anything I've ever heard before.

Perhaps I'm in a heightened state of awareness and my senses are more acute. Perhaps it will drive me insane (I think of Charlotte in "Sex and the City" who could not "find her center" during an infertility acupuncture session because the noises of New York overwhelmed her).

I try to breathe along with the clock, to use the clock.

Why is relaxation such hard work?

I focus on the other sounds -- is that construction going on across the street? I listen to the instructor, who has a calm, peaceful voice. She's telling me where to put my hands. Wait. She wants me to put them where? Can she say that at a family spa?

Suddenly, the music stops. I cannot relax without the music. I need those subtle cicadas and waterfalls and wandering minstrels.

I remind myself to pay attention to my thoughts, to any mind tricks I may be playing on myself. But I've got nothing. Is that a good sign? Maybe the absence of thought is a sign of relaxation. Or is it a sign of idiocy?

I feel cold, which must mean I'm doing this right. Before class they handed out robes (which I declined), warning us that a fully relaxed body is chilled, like white wine. I think they turned on the air conditioner.

I get back to breathing and realize I've lost my rhythm. I feel as I did in Lamaze class when they tried to convince me that some well-timed "hoo-hoo-hoo"s and "he-he-he"s would get me through childbirth without medication. Ha!

I wonder: How have I survived this long without learning how to breathe?

Just when I think I might be drifting into a state of harmony with the earth, the earth erupts. It's snoring.

No, wait, that's the woman next to me. And then a man across the room. That too is a sign of relaxation, I'm told. And all this time I thought my husband had sinus problems.

Tomorrow, I'll try yoga.

How do you relax?

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

Life is hard and then you graduate

My son graduated from third grade recently.

The year ended with successes unexpected in scale. We figured he passed Florida's standardized tests (the FCATs), but on the last day of school we learned he scored in the 99th percentile for the country.

We expected good grades (he's been getting As and Bs all year), but were surprised when his teacher -- who had limited her comments to a sentence or two in previous grading periods -- wrote a warm and positive paragraph praising him.

And we knew he'd won the yearlong checkers tournament in his gifted class, but the trophy he brought home with his name engraved was unexpectedly huge and heavy.

This was all critically important because the few weeks before the school year ended were disappointing and frustrating for Colter. He was pushed and kneed by one boy and teased by some girls. He was just starting to feel really different and wrong when he and his peers were given cause to celebrate his talents, instead.

So as summer began, we thought we were in for better times. We reminded him that he'd have a different teacher next year, a different class, different challenges. We reminded him he'd meet new kids at camp. And then he did.

Some of them were immediate friends. Others were really mean.

This turning point reminded me that just when you think the hard part is over, it really begins.

I graduated from high school on my 18th birthday, full of promise and sure that surviving my childhood and adolescence had been the most difficult part, with all that was easy ahead of me.

I was an adult now, I thought, and in college, I would have more freedom, more money, more choices.

Ha.

In college, I had more responsibilities, more debt and too many choices. But I also had more fun.

Someone once told me that you could either enjoy high school or college, not both. It turns out I was the collegiate type.

My four years of college were spent learning, growing, changing, and rarely sitting still long enough to fantasize what would follow, "If only…"

I had no sense that life would be better when X happened. X had happened. I had left home and was charging forward with my destiny.

We often think happiness requires having what we want. In fact, happiness is wanting what we have. And I wanted everything I had: strong female friends, a challenging education and work that was satisfying.

I was a big fish in a big pond.

It wasn't until graduate school -- when I overstayed my welcome in the academic world -- that I realized no matter the size of the fish or the pond, it's always possible to get lost or gobbled up.

Eventually, life is hard for most fishes in most ponds.

It's easy to look toward milestones hopefully. Once I'm in high school … in college … in "the real world" … life will be different.

And yet, life is always different, and it's always the same.

We never really start over, and we start over every day.

Kids are cruel, then adults are. Exams are difficult, then promotions are. Allowances are too small, then salaries are.

Happiness finds us in the gradual moments, the gradations, rather than the graduations. Life is in the details, the moments that seem unimportant, the seeds of today and tomorrow that were planted yesterday.

As I was writing this, I found my high school yearbook and re-discovered my favorite "quip" (quotes and bits that friends believed capture me). It was: "Mz. Editrix." At the time I was managing editor of my high school newspaper. I wore the title well. Today, I am managing editor of a different publication, and no job description fits better than the one I was given over 20 years ago.

In my college yearbook, next to my picture, appears this quote by Thoreau: "We are constantly invited to be what we are." I still believe that.

Every day is a graduation, ready to tell us what we've learned and send us on our way. At my college graduation, the school's president gave a speech I will never forget. She said, "Money and power will never ever love you back." I have always remembered that line.

It takes me here: In a school or outside of one, whatever size the pond or the fish, you just have to keep swimming.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

Living with ADHD: Three years later

It's been three years since my son was diagnosed with ADHD, three years since I wrote, "My son is getting Ritalin for his sixth birthday."

Colter is 9 years old now. So much has changed since he began taking medication to control his impulsivity. We live in a different state now, one that is warmer and provides him with more opportunity to play outside in the sunshine. He goes to a different school now, one where he is exceptional because of his intellect rather than his bad behavior. And he has new friends, who know about his undying devotion to Yu-gi-oh!, Pokemon and video games but not about his explosive temper.

When we first decided to try medication, it was because we had run out of other treatment options. We had exhausted our psychologist, ourselves, and our child, who -- we finally realized -- truly could not help the way he was behaving. We hoped the pharmaceuticals would live up to their promise. And they have.

We saw an immediate change in his behavior and have continued to see improvements ever since. He has been able to stop himself from kicking, hitting and otherwise acting out physically in anger. I never imagined I would be so thrilled to have a child who storms out of the room and slams his bedroom door, but it's such a relief after feeling physically threatened by his outbursts and truly frightened that he would hurt himself or me.

I'm not sure whether Colter knows that there is a name for his condition (he may have overhead us discussing it with doctors at some point). He does know that he takes the medicine to help him make better choices. But we have been very clear all along that he alone remains responsible for his behavior -- the pills don't make choices for him and other people don't make choices for him.

Over the years, we have noted his medication on school and camp forms, but for the most part his teachers are unaware of his diagnosis. We have them fill out questionnaires once or twice a year about his behavior, and it has been interesting to see how different teachers interpret his behavior. Several of his classroom teachers have noted that he sometimes blurts out a lot, disrupting the lesson; his gifted teachers described this same behavior more positively; They say he is "excited about learning."

It used to be that when we heard there was a problem at school we'd brace ourselves, worrying "What did he do this time?" Now when there's a problem it's more often that someone else did something to him -- bullying, pushing or otherwise trying to manipulate him. I sometimes worry that by rewiring his quick trigger reflex we may have made him more vulnerable.

But on the whole I have no doubt that Colter has grown in a way he would not have without medication. He is able to see himself, his behavior and others more clearly. Sometimes, that's painful for him. He knows he's different, and at his age different is bad. But he also knows he's trustworthy now. I can trust him to be alone in the bathroom, his bedroom, the backyard. I can trust him to make good decisions. And perhaps most importantly, he can trust himself.

I also trust myself more as a parent than I did before. While we are constantly on the lookout for new techniques and strategies we can use to help him learn and grow, I don't read as many parenting books as I used to. I've become the expert on my child.

And I enjoy parenting Colter in a way I never could before. Because I'm no longer afraid of him, I can let down my guard and relax. When my husband goes out of town, I don't worry about who I'll call if things get out of hand. Instead, I plan movies, trips to the theatre, swimming. I can be his parent instead of his warden.

I know what he's capable of, so I'm more patient when he's tired or overwhelmed or being forced by circumstances into an uncomfortable situation (like the first day at a new camp). And I'm less patient when he tries to use his "difference" as an excuse or a defense. We've never lowered our standards or let him off the hook. We do just adjust our expectations, though, and are always looking for ways to give him what he needs to succeed.

When there are problems, I can stay calm, because every time one occurs, I no longer wonder, "Will this be the day that everything falls apart?" I have confidence that this too shall pass.

And when all is right with my child, all is right with the world.

A version of this LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.