I just finished a gem of a book: Writing Down the Bones; Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. Maybe its title sounds a bit hokey to you? (It did to me too.) No matter. I needed a little hand-holding and bought the book. And devoured it.

Here’s the deal. I am, finally, after lazing around in a litany of life’s best excuses, rolling up my sleeves and writing my second book. It feels amazing. Just yesterday, I had this moment when I wrote something, a tiny paragraph, a small cluster of clumsy words, and I said aloud in the empty room, I think I am in love with this story. Now, for a self-critical bozo like me, this was a good moment. And it passed, of course.

(I was reminded, yesterday, of writing the final chapter of Life After Yes. Those pages? They came from somewhere deep, writing themselves, tumbling out of me. I was crying when I finished. It was one of the most profound things I have ever experienced.)

So. I am excited. To be writing, really writing, again. But I am also scared. Not scared that my writing won’t be any good, or that I won’t sell my manuscript (I am scared of these things too, of course), but scared of losing control. Because for me (for all of us?) writing, good and true writing, is about losing control.

What if someone is afraid of losing control?

Natalie Goldberg, the author, answers this question in the book’s afterward. Her answer shook me.

To be alive, we have to deal with the loss of control. Falling in love is a loss of control. When we die or someone we love dies, it’s a tremendous loss of control. And what’s nice about writing practice is it’s a measured way to dip yourself into that huge vast emptiness, that loss of control, and then pull yourself out so you can feel safe again. You put down your pen for a while and go take a walk. Then you dip yourself in. Sort of in degrees.

Yes. Life entails a loss of control. We try so hard to orchestrate and organize, to predict and plan, but really so much is out of our hands. And so we must deal with this feeling. This feeling of flux and flow. This feeling of careening. But it’s not just this. Not just a sober reality we must come to terms with. No.

Losing control (and, with it, self) can be glorious. Just yesterday, Sister C and I had this wonderful conversation about passion and life. We concluded that, at bottom, we are all searching for that thing. That thing that takes us away. That makes us forget ourselves. That thing? That is living.

And so. On this good Tuesday morning, I sit here. Scared and aware. Scared that I will face the blank screen once more later this morning, the screen that will suck me in. And away. Aware that it is just this, this golden loss of control, that makes writing – and living – so meaningful.

May we all find that something, little or big, professional or personal, that makes us lose control. Let’s all dip in.

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• Do you agree that being alive entails dealing with inevitable loss of control?
• When have you felt least in control?
• Have you experienced the joy of losing yourself in something?
• Are you afraid of losing control? Why or why not?
  
• Do you think it is possible to lose control in a controlled way?
• Do you also enjoy books on writing?

Vocations which we wanted to pursue, and didn’t,

bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.

Honore De Balzac

Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like if I was still practicing law. If I was still clicking away in marble corridors between conference rooms. If I was still wearing pinstripes and pearls. Would I be happy? Would I have found my place, my way, my voice? Would I be respected, revered, even feared? Would my heart and head and home be different places than they are today?

What if I had never made the leap? What if I had never listened to that voice, soft at the time, that said: You want to write? What if I had stayed there, in that tall building, at my desk piled high with documents that numbed me? What then? Would my swelling need to tell stories have faded away? Would I have forgotten my slow-forming dream to write books? Would I have shelved my deepest urge to weave words into tapestries unique and universal?

I don’t know. But I don’t think so.

I imagine that my desire to do something different, to be something different, would have seeped, a glorious gray or deep bloody red, over the black and white life I tried to convince myself of. I imagine that words and sentences and stories would have crept their way into my mind, burrowing in beautifully, until I paid them some attention.

I don’t know.

Where do dreams and desires go when we deny them? Where do the parts of us we can’t pursue end up? What happens to the whole of existence, the fabric of our being, when there is so much bleeding?

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• Have there been vocations you wanted to pursue and didn’t?
  
• Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you’d taken a different path?
  
• Do you think that dreams and desires disregarded (because of fear, prudence, etc) come back to haunt us?
• Do you think identity is one part the being of who we are and one part the bleeding of colors of who we could have been?
  

We sit at our favorite table in the back of Alice’s Tea Cup, our favorite weekend breakfast spot. Per usual, the girls wear the sparkly fairy wings they were given on the way in. Their porcelain cheeks glisten with fairy dust that has been known to cure skinned knees. Toddler nibbles her banana bread, moist and brown. Baby gobbles her blackberries. Husband and I hold court, sipping green tea, waiting for our poached eggs to arrive. It is the portrait of Saturday morning civilization.

Until.

Until there is a grating crescendo in the normal brunch symphony. A droning voice breaks through din of controlled chaos at our table. Two words carry.

“Ivy League… blah blah blah… Ivy League… blah blah blah… Ivy League.”

Now, Husband and I are usually pretty good at tuning others out, at focusing on each other and the girls, but this becomes too much. We stop talking. And listen.

“I once worked at Polo. Can you believe it? I know. I was a polo shirt specialist. I knew everything about those shirts and everyone was so impressed, so impressed, but I was like… I am wasting my education. I shouldn’t be here. I mean I am applying to Ivy League law schools. I mean, really…”

Husband and I smile at each other. Sip away. Break banana bread into tiny bits for Baby.

“I mean, honestly, the only thing that is truly wrong about living in Tribeca and I have the hardest time getting to Bergdorf’s. It’s really a pain.”

At this, I turn to look. I can’t help it. I see him. He’s on the smaller side. Has meticulously-plucked brows. He wears, yes, a Polo shirt. He runs his hands through one of those long/shaggy/preppy lacrosse-player-haircuts. His wife, blond, pleasant-looking, clutches her swollen belly. She is very pregnant. I look away.

“Ugh. We have to go look at cabinets after this. Shoot me, right? They cost as much as a BMW but are not even cool. Ugh. Oh, honey! Remember when we went on that purse hunt? When we had to cajole that Chanel bag out of that guy at Barney’s???”

At this, Baby, now supporting an amazing blackberry goatee, swivels in her highchair and gives the obnoxious man a good old piercing baby stare. Apparently, the guy sees her doing this.

“Everyone stop moving. Stop talking. We are being watched.”

He is not smiling as he says this. He must be kidding.

I don’t think he is.

“Jesus, babies freak me out.”

I’m sure this is lovely for his pregnant wife to hear. And for my Baby to hear.

“I just wish I was a lawyer in the old days. Honey, remember when you had your associates run out and buy you jeans? Little suckers. Those were the days.”

They are lawyers. All four of them. The other couple says something about working in the Public Defender’s Office, but I can’t really hear them because they speak at a Normal Person Decibel.

“Well, you should at least move to the South or to the Midwest. Where there is actually some crime. Hell, there’s nothing going on there, but at least there are murders. Hell, those places are practically known for their murders.”

Husband and I stare at each other in disbelief. Our eggs have arrived. Our waitress rolls her eyes and mutters so sorry before slipping away. And Husband and I smile. At her before she goes. At each other. At our girls who giggle in oblivion. Baby turns around to stare some more. Again, the man makes some crack about the sheer horror of being observed by a one-year-old.

“Well, this is blogworthy,” I say to Husband. “This guy should be a character in my next book. He’s that bad.”

Truth be told, he would not be a good character in a book because he is a caricature. A living and breathing and horrendous cliche.

And then Husband takes the words right out of my mouth.

“I have to get a picture of this guy,” Husband says. He pulls out his iPhone, fiddles with it, and pretends to help Baby with her food.

He gets a good shot. A perfect shot.

A shot which I immediately envision posting on my blog. How perfect!

(But then I come to my boring old senses and decide that I will not do this because I am a good girl and I have no interest in going the snark route on this blog. Because I have no interest in posting an actual picture of an actual person who was just trying to enjoy a subdued brunch of tea and scones on a Saturday morning. Right.)

As he and his party pay the check, Mr. Obnoxious continues to blabber on about everything offensive.

Ivy League!… Chanel!… I am basically just a sperm donor!… The South? Yuck!… Did I mention I played lacrosse in college?… I am a lawyer!… Ivy League!

Talk about Ivy League insecurities.

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Describe the most obnoxious person you’ve ever encountered. Come on. No holding back. Tell me. (Even if it’s me. Hey, I blab from time to time about the Ivy League – witness this post. Maybe I am just a milder version of this monster? Uh oh.) Do you have an impression of Ivy Leaguers (or New Yorkers or Americans or lawyers) that is at all like this terrible guy? Do you think that people act this way because they are profoundly insecure or because they are missing some socialization chip? Do you think people like this have any clue how obnoxious they are? Is acting like this an intentional, attention-seeking ploy?

ILI DAILY CHARMS

* {Wonderful musing on the exquisite escalator that is parenthood} The Moving Staircase from Being Rudri.

* {”Striving for balance is a losing game”} The Suck Factor of Life Balance, + Passion as a Cure to Stress from White Hot Truth.

* {Always ask the big questions – even about blogging} Why We Read Blogs from An Attitude Adjustment.

* {What inspires you to blog?} Inspiration: My Journey in Blogging from Coffees and Commutes

* {”Part of evolving is our capacity for reinvention”} Who Do Think You Are? from The Halfway Point

I am the product of an elite education. Dalton. Yale. Columbia Law.

The point of this post is not to remind you of my scholastic pedigree. No. The point is a lot more complicated. And decidedly more vulnerable. The point is hazy, but it exists. And here I sit squinting, trying to see it. Because this blogging gig? It’s not just about hawking my words and sentences. No. It’s about excavating my own neuroses. It’s about analyzing my own anxiety.

And I know better. I know that I am Me. That I am knee-deep in said neuroses and awash in said anxiety and no matter how hard I try, I probably won’t be able to arrive at an objective diagnosis. Of course not. But that won’t stop me from trying. I like a good challenge.

And I know better. That it’s one thing to have an exquisite education and glittering opportunities and incomparable connections. But it is another thing to talk about these things. And yet another to put them in writing. These are things to be thankful for, but things that should not be discussed. No. These are trappings of privilege. And privilege is a taboo subject.

Never talk about privilege.

You know what? Like so many of you, I am a bit sick of should. I am a bit perplexed by social strictures that seem a bit stiff. I am interested in honesty, in universality, in cracks. And I have cracks. They aren’t even tiny. They are big and bold and jagged. Stuffed with genuine worry, authentic questions, and notable insecurities. So maybe I am being imprudent here, but I am going to talk about the cracks.

I loved the schools I attended. Loved. And maybe this is not customary. But my experience was positive at each alma mater. I remember particular teachers. Particular books. Particular papers I wrote. Particular seminar discussions. My school days were bright and busy and, frankly, I miss them sometimes.

At school, I worked hard. Hard enough to get A’s and a sprinkling of lesser grades that made me sweat. Hard enough to graduate with an accolade or honor here and there. Hard enough to make that resume shine. Hard enough that graduation days were rich celebrations, beautiful bridges between one great place and the next. Hard enough that at the end of it all, I passed a very hard and miserable exam, and landed gracefully at a high wattage Manhattan law firm.

And at that law firm, I did just fine. I was an efficient and ebullient cog in a well-oiled machine. I got decent reviews. I got along well with my colleagues. And then I fled. And fast.

And now. Now I am home. And working. And mothering. And writing.

And worrying.

Worrying about a lot of things because this is a parent’s job. But worried from time to time about one thing in particular that I have been prudent enough not to articulate to myself. Or to the masses.

Until now.

Sometimes, I worry that I have wasted my education. And I know this might seem silly. Or even offensive. But sometimes I feel that with my particular degrees from my particular alma maters I should be doing more. That I should be doing something more meaningful. That I should be helping more people, or solving environmental or political crises, or rising in the ranks at some major uber-powerful institution that does good things. Sometimes, I worry that I took plum spots at stellar schools that could have been filled by others who were a bit more hungry and a bit more ambitious to alter the flawed landscape of our world, to fix the problems that need fixing, to amount to some more conventional glossy greatness.

This is why I gave this blog its name. Because though Ivy, I’m quite insecure. (Maybe because I am Ivy, I am particularly insecure because I am particularly aware of, and strangled by, shoulds?)

This is why I am treading tricky trenches here. Risking something. Talking a bit more openly.

Because as time passes, my own worries are becoming less opaque and I want to explore them. Because I think that in tracing the contours of my own insecurity, I am surprisingly gaining confidence. I think I am beginning to believe that my education hasn’t been wasted, but has been put to very good use.

I learned to write at these fine schools. I learned to think at these fine schools. I learned to ask questions at these fine schools.

Maybe that’s why I am willing to go there. To that raw and risky place of things not to discuss. To utter sentiments that might provoke. To ruffle pretty and peaceful feathers.

Maybe that’s why I am willing to come here. To this safe haven. To confess shards of complicated truth. To expose cracks.

Because I am finally realizing that I worked so hard, that I continue to work so hard, for a reason.

The reason? This.

This life. This family. These words. This story and its infinite and unfolding chapters.

Or maybe I have wasted it all and I am making big, bad excuses that are clever and well-told.

But I don’t think so. I don’t.

Not anymore.

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• Looking back, how do you feel about your education? Overall, was it a positive or negative experience or somewhere in between?
  
• Do you think you have made the most of your opportunities or do you sometimes wonder? Do you think you have succeeded because of your education or despite it?
  
• Do you ever have this sinking and shaky feeling that you have wasted something? Time? Love? An opportunity – educational or personal or romantic?
• Do you think that someone with two Ivy League degrees should be engaged in something more “serious” than raising kids and weaving self-indulgent words?

ILI DAILY CHARMS

* “You are not your stats.” A sage reminder for bloggers and non-bloggers alike from Megan Jordan at Velveteen Mind.

* What good are dreams? Big question and beautiful words courtesy of Big Little Wolf of Daily Plate of Crazy.

* Is there a solace in silence? How do you manifest your rage? Deep questions that will make your brain buzz from Ronna Detrick of Renegade Conversations.

Today Sister C sits for the first day of the New York Bar Exam. And I am nauseous. Not nauseous because I am worried she won’t pass. I think she will. Nauseous because I remember that exam all too well. Nauseous because those were two of the most torturous days of my youngish life.

And she hasn’t passed yet, but I am already so proud. I am proud because C has been studying hard, pulling late nights, and she has a young baby. Baby Bulldog is just six months old and C has been logging endless hours learning the bland intricacies of New York law (blech) when she could have been tickling tiny toes. I am proud because I know this hasn’t been easy.

So, yes. She got pregnant in law school. And gave birth a few months after graduation. Many would say that she should have graduated and taken the bar exam with her peers this past July. Many would say that she should have gotten the career rolling before popping out a delectably cute son. Many would say she did things out of order. That it should have been Bar before Baby and not the reverse.

But I disagree.

And not just because she is my sister and I love her to tiny pieces. I disagree on more objective, principled grounds. I think this society of ours is far too obsessed with its schedule of shoulds. Who says it is always better to firm up a career before starting a family? Who says we shouldn’t sometimes do things at the same time? Who says it is always better to wait?

Many people would say that Sister C should have waited. But you know what? She had the courage not to. When Dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks before Sister C’s wedding, things changed. Our Donnelley world shifted. I think, I know, Sister C realized like I did that life has cruel limits, that days are unpredictably numbered. I think, I know, she realized that family is it. And so, she went for it. She battled morning sickness while studying at school. She donned a polyester cap and gown in her final trimester. She spent several weeks at a law firm before welcoming her little guy.

And today. Today, she will kiss her little boy goodbye and go sit at a desk somewhere in this fine city and fill in tiny bubbles and take a big step toward a big future that is blindingly bright, but unknown. And when the long day is over, she will go home. To her man. To her baby. To her family.

And then tomorrow, she will do it again. And then it will be over, mercifully over, and I will take her out. And we will celebrate. We will go to the right kind of bar and sip a tall glass of wine. We will talk about babies. About family. About futures. We will talk about life. How, like the bar exam, it is multiple choice. But how in life, there is more than one right answer.

We will clink glasses and smile.

Two lawyers. One past. One future.

Two sisters. Always.

Two moms. Forever.

And I will say then what I write now. That I am deeply proud of her. For being exquisitely brave. For doing things in her own way. In her own order. For blazing her own trail. For having a baby, an impossibly sweet baby, before taking that exam.

For not waiting.

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Leave a comment and wish Sister C good luck! Do you agree that there is no such thing as out of order when it comes to life? That there is no objective schedule of achievement we should heed? Do you think that having a child before cultivating a career is brave or foolish? What are you waiting for?

ILI Daily Charms

* Do we lose ourselves in marriage? Stephanie Klein seems to think so. Click over to read her raw and searching post on the fate of self in the sea of commitment.

* Are pictures enough? Becca from Drama for Mama serves up a timely reminder that blogging isn’t such an empty endeavor and easy catharsis after all. Maybe there is a profound purpose in memorializing moments that might otherwise fade.

* Do therapists mess up their kids? Yes, according to Bruce over at Privilege of Parenting. But Bruce assures us that, “we ALL mess up our kids in our own unique ways.” Cheerio!