WordPress.com’s 2013 annual report for TheMidlife Second Wife is chock-full of interesting statistics, including a revealing bit of information about the noted writer Malcolm Gladwell. Intrigued? Click the link below to find out just what the author of The Tipping Point has to do with little old me. (I was surprised, too.)
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 27,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
A first-edition copy of the Nobel laureate’s poetry, inscribed to me: “To Marci—well met in Oberlin. Seamus Heaney”
I thought about writing the standard New Year’s Eve fare this year, illustrated with balloons and noisemakers, and festooned with streamers of resolutions. In a contemplative mood, I even toyed with the idea of riffing on the word “resolution” to see where the associations might take me. (You know: “I’m a writer. I resolve to write every day without fail.” That sort of thing.) But my contemplative mood took an unexpected turn. I pulled this copy of Seamus Heaney’s poems down from my shelf, and began thinking about the writers we lost this past year.
Seamus Heaney, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, died on August 30. I met him in the late 1980s; he had come to present a lecture and reading at Oberlin College, where I was a student majoring in English. (A “specialization” within the major allowed me to take creative writing workshops, where I could concentrate on my own poetry.) Members of the English and creative writing faculties were entertaining the “greatest Irish poet since Yeats” at a dinner preceding his lecture. To my astonishment and eternal gratitude, my poetry professor invited me to join them. I was the only student there.
What do I remember of that dinner? There were perhaps six of us, seated at a round table in a windowed corner of the Oberlin Inn. I remember drinking a glass of white wine with whatever it was that I ate. Seamus Heaney regaled us with wonderful stories. Another of my professors talked about reading Danté in the Italian with an esteemed emeritus.
You have to remember: I was an older student, probably 31 or 32. My parents never went to college. I hadn’t even read an English translation of Danté yet. But one thing was clear to me: I had come a long way from the darkened movie theater where I saw Educating Rita and resolved to return to school.
My professor had told Seamus Heaney something of my story: married student with a young son, commuting every day to classes from a neighboring town, writing poetry that they all thought showed promise. I know this because at the book signing following the lecture, the greatest Irish poet since Yeats told me. “I think what you’re doing is wonderful,” he said. And then he signed two books for me.
Rest in peace, Seamus Heaney. I hope you’re enjoying many fine meals in the sweet hereafter, and that Yeats and Danté are among your table companions.
If your 12- or 13-year-old child or grandchild were being bullied, would you want her to hear a YA author–one who had herself been bullied–speak about hope and survival? Even if she wrote a novel about bullying that had the word “ass” in the title?
Students in the seventh and eighth grade at Cumberland Middle School in Virginia missed out on the chance to hear award-winning author Meg Medina address them at a school-sponsored anti-bullying event–one to which she had been enthusiastically invited–because of the title of her highly praised new novel, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass (Candlewick Press). The book features bullying as its central theme, and occasionally uses language that Medina–and a bullying expert–say kids use to torment their victims.
Medina, of Richmond, was invited in March by the principal of Cumberland Middle School to speak in advance of National Bullying Prevention Month in October. Less than three weeks before the September 17 event, he sent her an email canceling her talk. The reason? Concern over how some members of the community might react to her book’s title. Ironically, September 22 is the start of Banned Book Week sponsored by the American Library Association.
The drumbeat of concern was actually rumbling for a few days. Prior to receiving the principal’s summary cancellation, a school official sent Medina a message, asking — at the principal’s request — that she refrain from mentioning the full title of her book, not use “offensive language,” and not show the book’s cover.
Here is an excerpt from Medina’s response to the school, which she posted on her website’s blog:
For me to come to your school and distance myself from my work feels disrespectful of me as an author, but worse, it feels dishonest in dealing with the students, most especially those who are on the receiving end of harassment that already makes them feel ashamed. If I refuse to even name my book or tell them that the title comes from hearing those awful words firsthand, I would only be adding to that shame. … I believe that one way we adults can help is to acknowledge the reality of what our kids are experiencing…
Medina did suggest a compromise. Perhaps the school could send a letter home to the parents about her upcoming appearance and her books? Parents who would find the material offensive could opt out.
No deal. The door slammed shut after the Labor Day weekend.
When asked if she had intended to read from Yaqui Delgado during her presentation at Cumberland, she says: “I don’t typically read from my books when I do school visits. If anything, I’ll read a page. I speak about writing, and the kinds of books I write — books with strong Latina characters. I tell the kids what my books are, and that I write for all age groups, and then I launch into the focus of the session.”
The title of Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass comes from the novel’s opening line, a message delivered by Yaqui Delgado’s lackey to Piddy Sanchez, the book’s 15-year-old protagonist. Piddy is new at the school. She has no idea who Yaqui Delgado is or why she wants to hurt her. The book, praised in the Washington Post as “richly developed” and “unflinching,” includes a harrowing example of cyber-bullying.
YA Author Meg Medina
The child of Cuban immigrants, Medina grew up in Queens, where for two years, starting in the seventh grade, she endured the trauma of bullying. She calls that time a “fight for my dignity.” It is “the shard of experience” that inspired Yaqui Delgado.
The Issue of Censorship
Acacia O’Connor coördinates the Kids’ Right to Read Project in New York City for the National Coalition Against Censorship and its joint sponsor, the American Booksellers’ Foundation. She says that the NCAC is seeing many instances of censorship of late, particularly with respect to uses of profanity. “We work on a new case about once a week,” she says. “Since August 1st of this year, ten new challenges or issues involving schools and libraries have come to our attention.” O’Connor recently wrote about Medina’s situation on the NCAC blog:
At the heart of [cancellations such as Medina’s] lies the belief that we can clean up the world by erasing the parts some people dislike.
O’Connor says that author Judy Blume, a NCAC board member, brought the Medina-Cumberland County Schools issue to her attention, calling Blume a “guardian angel” to YA authors who are going through these controversies.
“I think it’s regrettable that there has been so much lead-up and enthusiasm surrounding [Medina’s] talk,” says O’Connor, “especially with her expertise and familiarity with the topic of bullying. It’s unfortunate that students won’t be able to hear her wonderful message because of a misunderstanding over the use of a particular … word.”
A Bullying Expert Weighs In Dr. Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist and Bunker Professor of Education in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, is a national expert on bullying. He directs the Youth Violence Project at UVA and serves as a program director of Youth-Nex, the university’s Center to Promote Effective Youth Development. He first met Meg Medina when he was asked to comment on her book as part of a panel for the Virginia Festival of the Book.
“One of the biggest barriers to helping victims of bullying is their reluctance to seek help,” says Cornell–a reluctance born out of fear. “Adults are often blind to the presence of bullying, and our bullying prevention programs often fail to reach students who are in trouble. Medina’s book is a terrific illustration of these problems and has the potential to reach young people who need assistance and otherwise would not receive it.”
Cornell understands that the wording of Medina’s title might be troubling to some parents and teachers, but he hopes that they won’t judge the book by its cover–that they will take the time to read it. “I think [the title] reflects the reality of how many young people speak to one another.” He calls Medina’s book “a good source of insight” for parents and teachers who might not appreciate the way that bullying pervades youth culture, or how limited prevention programs can be.
Praise from Reviewers
In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews called Yaqui Delgado “a nuanced, heart-wrenching and ultimately empowering story about bullying.”
School Library Journal even had a word to say about the book’s cover in its starred review:
Lots of action with a realistic setting, dialogue, relationships, problems, and solutions make this book a winner. The cover–a blue locker with graffiti for the title–will attract reluctant readers. The content will keep them reading to the end and wanting more.
Judging a Book by its Cover
The book’s cover, however, was what Cumberland County school officials were judging. That, and a promotional trailer.
Requests for an interview with Dr. Amy Griffin, Cumberland County Superintendent of Schools, went unanswered. Her only on-the-record comments appear in Richmond Magazine’sblog and a statement that she sent to Richmond television station WRIC, in which Griffin notes concern about the title of Medina’s book and “inappropriate language” used in the promotional trailer.
In the Richmond Magazine blog, Griffin is quoted as saying: “[Medina’s book] really more to me seemed to address high school and inner city.”
One final, tragic note: On September 13, four days before Medina would have given her presentation at Cumberland Middle School, the New York Timesreported on yet another bullying-related suicide. Students had relentlessly taunted and cyber-bullied Rebecca Sedwick, urging her to kill herself. She did as they suggested, jumping to her death from a platform at a cement factory. Rebecca was 12 years old. She lived in Lakeland, Florida. She was in middle school, as were her tormentors.
In the early 1970s, when I was in high school, a boy in my class had an older sister who worked for Glamour magazine. She edited its wickedly fascinating “Dos and Don’ts” column, with its pictures of ordinary young women going about their lives in various stages of street-scene activity. Unbeknownst to them, they were about to become anonymously immortalized as representing either sartorial savvy or a cautionary tale. If a face happened to be included in a photograph, black bars strategically placed across the eyes shielded one’s identity, sparing any number of poor girls the humiliation of being caught in broad daylight wearing ankle-strapped platform shoes with palazzo pants that were, sadly, too short. And with a panty-line to boot.
Believe me, having that kind of second-degree proximity to a fashion arbiter did make me think twice before getting dressed for school in the morning.
There’s little evidence in my own photographic archives to suggest that I had a terrible sense of style, or was prone to making serial fashion mistakes. In fact, I like to think that I was something of a snappy dresser, despite coming of age in the 1970s. Yes, I once purchased a belted polyester pantsuit, and I wore it with ankle-strap platform shoes. No, no pictures of the atrocity exist.
I did, however, come across this photo. What’s so wrong with it? you might ask. Well, quite a lot, actually.
The real fashion mistake here, aside from the tight curls that looked as though Harpo Marx dipped his head into a bowl of India ink, is the fact that this woman is not dressing for who she was.
Can’t blame her, really; she didn’t even know who she was.
The bridge in the backdrop of this studio portrait is fake. Even the pearls. And yes, the dress was polyester.
It was 1983, and she had dressed to play a role—the role of a certain kind of wife, a certain kind of woman. She was just starting to become who she was going to be…who she was meant to be. But she wasn’t there yet.
The word “corporate” comes to mind. This is a corporate look, whereas the woman fastened into it has a creative temperament. There was a poet and writer inside, struggling to get out, but it would be a year or so before the chrysalis would crack.
It was a film that would do it. She had recently seen Educating Rita, in which a character (played by Julie Walters) undergoes a metamorphosis through the study of literature, helped along with the tutorial guidance of Michael Caine’s character. Rita’s costume changes chart her evolution from tarty hairdresser—a streak of pink in her blond hair to match the color of her smock—to bohemian college student, dressed in studied earth tones, her hair allowed its natural brown. At the end of the film, Rita’s transformation is complete. Frank, her professor, presents her with a graduation gift: a dress. He bought it, he says, with “an educated woman” in mind.
“What kind of education were you giving her?” Rita jokingly asks.
I suppose the point of all this is that nothing represents our true selves better than our clothes. They are fashion markers charting the evolution of our growth and (at the risk of getting all New-Age-y), our self-actualization. In truth, the woman you see pictured here wasn’t representing herself falsely after all. Like Rita, her dress just hadn’t caught up yet with her education.
Have you heard the news? I’m now a blogger for the Huffington Post!
My essay about how I met John on Match.com appeared this week on what is known in the trade as HP’s “vertical”—HuffPost/50. The first day it ran, I received nearly 600 visits to the blog. Yowza!
As always, I couldn’t do it and I wouldn’t be here it if weren’t for you.
If you have a moment, I’d love it if you could visit the HP site and like the article on Facebook, or tweet it, or leave a comment. In the wonderful world of digital publishing, that sort of activity makes a tremendous difference. Thank you in advance for your extra support!
So happy to see that my friend Judy Krell Freedman, pictured above, made the list with me!
There was no phone call. There was no email notification. There was only me, taking a brain vacation to scroll through the Top 100 Tweets about Liz & Dick on my iPhone while cooking dinner. Then, at the top of the phone, a Facebook alert appeared: one of my blogging colleagues had mentioned me in a post. A moment later, a second alert, from another colleague, arrived. And then several more, in rapid succession. I noticed the word “congrats” was being bandied about.
What was going on?
I interrupted my mindless stroll through the snark about Lindsay Lohan to check Facebook, where I found this news:
I don’t know how this happens, especially with so many excellent writers—many of whom I admire—blogging for the post-50 set. I count quite a lot of them among my friends. You can find some of them on my blogroll, and I encourage you to visit any of them the next time you’re here.
What I do know is that I’m humbled by this honor—and recognition by the Huffington Post is an honor. HuffPost, after all, is the first commercially-run digital media outlet to win a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Pulitzers aside, I imagine this recognition must be what it feels like to win a MacArthur fellowship—you know, those “genius” grants where you’ve no idea you’ve even been nominated, but one day you receive a phone call that changes your life.
Yes. This feels that big to me. And once again, dear readers, I must share this with you. Thank you for joining me on this adventure!
My thanks also go out to those at the Huffington Post who are responsible for giving the Midlife Second Wife the surprise of her life. I’ll work very hard to ensure that I’ve earned your recognition.
What a week this has been! You might recall that on Monday, I posted an essay called “To Marci, On Your 20th Birthday,” which I wrote as part of a “blog hop” sponsored by Generation Fabulous, an amazing Facebook group to which I’m honored to belong. (We lovingly call it GenFab.) If you haven’t had a chance to read that post yet, please do, and please check out the posts by my GenFab compatriots. There’s a lot of collected wisdom there, and it seems that the Huffington Post agrees. Three Huffington Post sections—HuffPost Women, HuffPost50, and HuffPost Healthy Living—as well as HuffPostLiving’s Facebook page, featured 14 of us in an article about our blog hop. (You can find my quote on the second panel of the Huffington Post slideshow.)
The question—”What Advice Would You Give Your 20-Year-old Self?”—is really striking a chord with readers: people all over are sharing and commenting. I’d love to give readers of “The Midlife Second Wife” a chance to weigh in on the topic. So tell me:
Nothing but myself?….My selves. After so long, this answer. As if I had always known I steer the boat in, simply.
— from “Integrity” by Adrienne Rich
Marci, you don’t know me. I’m your 56-year-old self. Or maybe you do know me a little—after all, we’re part of the same person.
There’s so much I wish I could tell you on this, your 20th birthday. I wish I could prepare you for what’s to come. Actually, perhaps you don’t need my help; in retrospect, I—I mean we—handled some of the difficult things quite well. Interestingly, it was often the little things that tripped us up.
Right now you are at cross-purposes with yourself. You are working full-time as a legal secretary when so many others from high school are away at college. In fact, you are working too hard; you’re also putting in a lot of part-time hours at Casual Corner, that new retail store at the mall. I know, I know—the 20% discount is wonderful. And once a fashionista, always a fashionista. But I wish you were in a position to take an extra night class at the community college, instead of working two jobs. I know you need the money; you’re helping our mother, with whom you still live—often at each other’s throats.
It will take you many years to understand why she was so fearful and distrustful of life, and why her fears influenced many of the decisions we would make. Her life will be instructive, though: it will teach you what the poet Adrienne Rich will, in just a few years, call a “wild patience.” You must trust me on this.
You haven’t discovered Adrienne Rich yet, but you will. In fact, I’d advise you to seek her out now—don’t wait until you’re at Oberlin College. Yes, you’ll get there. It will take a while, but you’ll do it.
Right now you’re taking two classes—one in English composition, the other in journalism. You think you want to be a writer. You should hold on more tightly to this dream. I know that if I encourage you to change even the smallest thing about your life—to decide just one thing differently—the course of our lives will change. I’m not sure I want you to do that, because I’m coming from a very good place. There has been more sweet than sour in our lives—it has been a good life. No, what I would like you to do is believe in yourself more.
I remember how your thinking used to go:
Fulfilling, exciting careers are for other people, not for me. It’s useless to dream that I’ll be something more than I am, or do something bigger with my life; I’m destined to live in this town forever.
Marci, if you only knew. Please don’t dismiss your dream. Hold on to it. I cannot lie to you: although your dream will indeed be deferred, your “wild patience” will take you far; it will inspire you to pursue your dream again. You will finish college. You will write. You will also marry, and become a mother to a wonderful baby boy.
You will not remain married, but you will discover a strength you didn’t believe you had by living on your own for the first time in your life. You will have a career you never thought possible. You will meet a new man, fall in love, and marry again.
I don’t know if I should tell you any more—I especially don’t know if I should tell you about the bad things that will happen—the sour that seems to always accompany the sweet. Let me just go back to that idea of a wild patience: it will give you strength. It will fill you with passion and resolve. It will be your salvation.
And don’t worry: I’ll be in the boat with you. We’ll steer it in to shore together.
NOTES: The idea of writing to my 20-year-old self came from Chloe of the Mountain, founder of a wonderful blogging network to which I belong called “Generation Fabulous” (GenFab for short). Today, GenFab started something known as a “blog hop.” We’re all writing to our younger selves and sharing the collective wisdom. You can read the other posts on this topic by clicking this link.
Marci Rich is not related to the late poet Adrienne Rich.
I wrote an essay—the first of many I will write—about my mother’s slide into the quicksand and darkness of dementia. I published it on my blog, and the editors of BlogHer honored it with a Voice of the Year Award for 2012. I’m proud of this, but not solely for the reason you might think. I’m proud of this essay because it exists, because I was able to write it at all. I managed to descend into that frightening pit of despair and start to tell my mother’s story, to return her voice to her, to leave something of her to this world that she left 12 years ago. This was not an easy thing to do, and I will have to do it again and again and again, until her story is fully told, until her voice is finally heard. It will be difficult, and I know there will be times I’ll be afraid to continue.
She was an intensely private person, but in this respect I think she would want me to keep going. She would want people to know, because, sadly, she was one among millions who have disappeared into the maw of Alzheimer’s, and who will continue to disappear until a cure can be found. Maybe if enough stories get told, if enough attention is paid, something that might be enough will be done, and the disease (the irony of my word choice isn’t lost on me) will itself become a memory. It happened with smallpox. It could happen again.
According to Alzheimer’s Disease Research, a program of the American Health Assistance Foundation, more than 5.4 million Americans are believed to have Alzheimer’s disease; by 2050, as the U.S. population ages, this number could increase to 15 million. There are nearly 36 million people living with dementia worldwide, and this number is likely to increase to more than 115 million by 2050.
The essay, “‘Have You Met My Daughter?’ My Mother, Her Alzheimer’s and Me,” is one of 80 essays representing 80 bloggers included in the Voices of the Year anthology, published by BlogHer in conjunction with Open Road Media.
The anthology will be available for download (from Amazon and iTunes) on Oct. 30, but advance orders are available now. Here’s what Amazon says about BlogHer and the book:
BlogHer is a unique media company created by women, for women, and—most importantly—with women, women like those whose voices you’ll read in this collection. Each year, BlogHer—the largest network of women who blog—hosts an initiative to identify the very best work from across the blogosphere. Submitted by the community, selected by a committee, and presented at the world’s largest blogging conference, the pieces presented here have it all because women live it all—online and off. Humor. Inspiration. Food. Family. Style. Sex. Politics. Tech. Career. Dreams. BlogHer’s Voices of the Year reminds us of the transformative power of blogs to connect us all via powerful storytelling.
My thanks to Elisa, Lisa, and Jory—the co-founders of BlogHer—for envisioning this project, and to Donna Schwartz Mills, a member of BlogHer’s conference programming team, for helping to administrate it. I’m humbled by the honor, and honored that my mother’s story will reach a wider audience.
The founder of the social media consultancy Digital Royalty has a new book out tomorrow, Oct. 2. On Sunday she was a guest of Melissa Harris-Perry’s on MSNBC, talking with other panelists about the influence of social media on politics, and the change-agent behind the sports and social media phenomenon covered in a Forbes article. And today (winking here) she’s making her second appearance on my blog. What a whirl!
As you know, I met Amy Jo at the BlogHer 12 conference in New York City. And here I must digress to tell you that I felt an immediate bond with her when she shared her experience of finding a lump in her breast the size of a golf ball. As a survivor of thyroid cancer, I’ve become hard-wired to relate on a deeper human level with those who have either had cancer or a cancer scare. As someone I admire once said, we become members of a club no one ever wanted to join. And it’s something of a paradox, because once admitted to the club, you want to remain a member in good standing, if you know what I mean. Amy Jo’s honesty—her fearlessness—in sharing her experience speaks to the very essence of what is so intrinsically valuable about social media: honesty. Being real. Or as Amy says in her book, “showing some skin.”
So I’m sitting in the Pathfinder session, listening to Amy discuss innovation, intention, ideas, influence, and inspiration—and writing as quickly as I can to take down what she is saying: “Coloring outside the lines without crossing the lines.” Sharing the corporate mission statement of Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh: “Be real and use your best judgment.” Explaining the value of “Random Acts of Shaqness.” (You must read this book. And yes, she’s referring to Shaquille O’Neal.)
In the midst of my flurried note-taking I had an epiphany: As a blogger, I’m ipso facto on social media. But I wasn’t really on social media. It was quickly becoming apparent that I had much to learn and I’d better get cracking. And that’s why I’m reading her excellent book, and why I want to tell you about it. I think that it’s a game changer for any public persona, corporation, brand, organization, or entity not yet on board with the new rules of the game. For those already using social media to enhance their relevancy, it will provide an entertaining and enlightening overview of where they have been. I suspect even they will learn things they didn’t already know.
On paper (in pixels?) it doesn’t seem as though I’d be such a social media newbie. I began writing content for Web 1.0 back in 1998 on behalf of Oberlin College. I was wired in for the advent of email, and only just slightly behind the curve on Facebook and LinkedIn, although I caught up fairly quickly. I did a bit of blogging and video interviews, and even composed tweets during our 2.0 phase. And yet I hovered there. It wasn’t until starting my own blog in August 2011 that I truly recognized the importance of communicating regularly and with intention across diverse social media platforms. I’m sure one reason is because I’m now working for myself, and so I feel a sense of urgency. But I am also a writer who blogs. And like every other writer who blogs, I want people to read me. How does a blogger find readers? On social media. Duh.
And so I advanced on the board from Facebook and LinkedIn until I reached Twitter. I opened my own account (kind of feeling the way I did when I first opened a checking account); passed “Go,” and in a year attracted more than 400 followers. (This is more than double what I had before the BlogHer conference, which shows you how much I learned in a very short time). These past weeks I’ve slowly begun to build my presence on Pinterest and Google+. This weekend I wrote my bio for Huffington Post and figured out how to upload a video to YouTube and connect it to what you’re reading now. Just today I sent out my first Instagram. (It’s fitting, on many levels, that it was a photo of Amy Jo’s appearance on the Melissa Harris-Perry show.)
@AmyJoMartin discussing social media & politics on @MSNBC’s @MHPerry #TeamRenegades http://instagr.am/p/QNA_tOSDze/ (Amy Jo is on the left.)
When you start a blog, and hope for it to be meaningful and authentic and actually read by people, it soon becomes apparent that it’s not enough just to hit “publish.” Bloggers control their own distribution. Those who take what they do seriously are not just members of the media, they are also the means of the media—the studios and the control rooms and the printing presses and the distribution houses. It’s exhausting, quite frankly—especially if you’re a team of one. Even a renegade team of one. Even a renegade team of one with an awesome husband to help with things like shooting the video you’re about to see.
This is why Amy Jo’s book is important to me. As a team of one, I have to think about economies of scale. If I spend three hours writing a blog post and only 30 people see it, I’ve just poured four minutes of my life for each of those 30 people. If 300 people see it, I’m starting to get some traction and make some impact for the time I’ve invested. If 3,000 people see it, well, you can do the math. The greatest impression one of my post’s has had was last November, when WordPress featured an essay of mine on ‘Freshly Pressed’ and more than 5,000 people read it over a two-day period. That truly felt relevant. That’s what a writer hopes for.
Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here. Every one of my readers is valuable to me. Whether 30 people visit a post or 3,000—each reader means something to me. Each has invested his or her own time in reading what I had to write. Economies of scale work both ways, after all. That’s why I hope I’m providing interesting, informative, and entertaining content for you.
Time is money, as they say. And I’m as busy as the next person—I also run a business and freelance. So these things inevitably begin to matter, especially if your blog is part of the foundation of your livelihood.
Amy Jo learned something early on about the time factor, and she has shared the anecdote widely—in a TEDx talk, at conferences, and in her book. Her former boss, who wasn’t wild about all of this social media business, challenged her by sliding a sheet of paper across her desk. On it were written three words:
Work. Family. Self.
“Choose,” her boss told her. “You can’t have all three.”
Since Amy ultimately left that employer and formed her own business, I naturally wondered if she ever did have to end up choosing. I asked her about it, and she replied via email:
“Since founding Digital Royalty a few years ago, I have been able to design my own day, whether that means working late at night while on the elliptical machine, or taking a conference call from a mountaintop. Through creating Digital Royalty, and especially Digital Royalty University, I have been able to find my Royal Bliss. That’s what balance is to me. It’s not a perfect equilibrium. It’s finding that sweet spot, where your purpose, passion, and skill collide.”
I love that, don’t you? The “sweet spot where purpose, passion, and skill collide.” That’s what balance is. And now, before this post gets too unbalanced by growing too long, I think it’s time to let everyone know who won a signed galley copy of Amy Jo’s book. Watch this video to find out!
A note about the contest: The winner was drawn from the Facebook fans of The Midlife Second Wife. A drawing held Friday evening, Sept. 28, did not yield a winner because I was unable to reach the person whose name was drawn despite two attempts via Facebook. A subsequent drawing, represented in the above video, was held Sunday afternoon, Sept. 30. Out of fairness to my fans, members of my family were excluded from this drawing. I should also note that I received a signed galley copy of Renegades Write the Rules for the giveaway, as well as a free download for my Kindle. Other than that, I received no compensation to write about the book.
If you would like to like the Midlife Second Wife on Facebook, click the embedded link at the start of this note. You can also follow me on Twitter: @midlife2wife. Thank you for your support!
The Midlife Second Wife ™ 