My day job is in the fitness industry, specifically coaching at Orangetheory Fitness. I’ve been doing that a little over a year now. It’s a one-hour, full body, high intensity workout that utilizes various equipment such as a treadmill and water rower. Today’s workout involved a lot of rowing, and as my scatterbrained mind works, I got that song “Row row row your boat gently down the streeeeeeam…”stuck in my head. From there, I starting thinking about being on a boat and how much fun that can be. As I left work this morning, I fumbled in my purse for my keys and felt for my keychain in that black hole of a handbag I’ve been meaning to clean out. I finally felt the keychain and pulled it out.

My keychain is a red plastic pull tab from an old life vest.

That keychain is meant to remind me about some great life advice I got from one of my former supervisors at the Secret Service. (Don’t worry. I’m getting somewhere with this.) His advice involved a boat, specifically the Titanic. I will forever wish I could remember the exact words he used and the context in which he used them, but the idea itself has had a big impact on my life.

He said something like this:

If your life ever feels like you’re just rearranging the chairs on the Titanic to stay afloat, then it’s probably time to pull the tab on your life vest and get the hell off the boat. It makes no sense to go down with a sinking ship.

This advice went a long way a few years ago when I had to figuratively “pull the tab” and get out of my life as I knew it. In our own way, most of us know what it’s like to feel like life has gotten out of control like a ship that’s slowly sinking, one catastrophic “iceberg” away from total destruction. The facts remain, though. Even though everything I knew about my life was familiar yet incredibly toxic, it was scarier for me to leave it all than stay on that toxic sinking ship. There’s still risk in bailing on one’s current life, and don’t we all like guarantees of survival? We just don’t always have that guarantee when a big decision is looming.

But once I left my old life behind, I realized I could leave it behind. I really wasn’t stuck like I thought, and I was stronger than I gave myself credit for. No one was coming to rescue me. I needed to make the choices myself. Sure, I was desperate, and that has a way of summoning courage. But I took action, and that was the first step to getting to a safer place.

As I drove home from work today, I realized something: I am more likely to take action NOW than I ever was before. By that I mean I am quicker to check in with myself when things don’t seem right. I’m quicker to speak up and less afraid to make changes. Don’t get me wrong. The fear is still there, but it took a lot of big changes and big decisions for me to realize they’re necessary to progress.

The lesser evil truly is staying put because it’s more comfortable.

Inaction in a critical moment is a choice. Action is also a choice, and knowing when to act versus stay put is nothing anyone could teach me in a book. I needed to experience it myself. I know that now. The nerd in me likes to prepare and have answers.

But sometimes life experience is the only teacher that can educate me about myself.

We use phrases like, “Nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.” In reality, my life was already preparing me. Today, I have that reminder on my keychain. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I like reminders (“Selah” tattoos, keychains, etc.). I can’t (and don’t want to) forget to take action in my life. As long as I constantly surround myself with reminders, I feel like I’m better about sensing a rocking boat in my life before it becomes a sinking ship in need of an emergency getaway.

Someone asked me recently if I was happy. I didn’t know how to respond at first but resisted the urge to default to the easy “I don’t know.” I’m happy knowing I’m a better person today than I was a few years ago. I’m impatient with my life though. In my mind, I should be a better woman than I am. I shouldn’t let certain situations or people bother me so much. I thought you were beyond that, I’ll chastise myself. I’m unhappy with how long growth and healing has taken. But I’m still rowing (I mean, moving) forward. There will be more storms along the way that will rock my life’s boat. That’s to be expected.

I’m no sailor, but I’d venture to guess recognizing an approaching storm early allows for adjustments to avoid the worst of it. It’s not all smooth sailing, as they say, but thankfully life is a good teacher with subtle reminders to keep me on track.

And when I screw up along the way again, there’s strength to be found in “pulling the tab” and taking action when it really counts.

Embracing the typos till next Monday,

Mel

March 15, 2021

The MySpace Series: Part One

Last week, I was searching for an email to prepare for a podcast interview. The keyword search produced a handful of emails, one of which had the subject line “myspace blog posts” and myself as the sender/recipient.

Apparently, a few years back (or eleven), I copied all of my old MySpace blogs from college into an email (probably before I deleted everything on MySpace). I don’t remember sending this email, nor do I remember writing any of the posts.

As I read through them, I realized I’ve matured a lot since then, but I also realized I might need to revisit some of the “wisdom” my young adult mind was spouting on MySpace.

I guess I’ve been blogging badly longer than I thought.

March 8, 2021

The Way Up

Well, I’ve had to make some more big changes in my life. For the last month and a half, I’ve been burning the midnight oil, stuck between finishing up the old and getting started with the new. For the first time in a long time, I fell behind on the things that matter to me a lot, and it’s not like me to let that happen. The Type-A in me was (and still is) horrified.

January 11, 2021

The Little Things

Last week was quite a week, wasn’t it? I found myself saying aloud, “What is happening?”

What is happening? A lot, to say the least, and enough to leave anyone in a state of sadness and despair. What a mess. An important, troubling mess that needs sorting and fixing. Anyone on all sides of the table can probably agree with that.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s to come, both for me and for the country. I think I, like many, secretly hoped for clarity and change as the New Year rolled around. A clear path to the future.

When I know I need to make a change, I delay the decisions and hope for a “sign” that it’s the correct one before I make it. I’m sure many can relate to that. Big decisions are scary. Change is scary. But risk is necessary sometimes. Like I’ve been saying for a long time, I can’t move forward without getting uncomfortable.

But a sign would be nice, sometimes.

I suppose clarity and answers are often present if we stop and listen long enough to see them. There’s something to be learned everywhere, even if it’s in the little things.

That’s what I want to share today… a few little things.

December 28, 2020

Notes to Self

Last week I went through my Book Box, a big decorative box I used to store book drafts and ideas when I was writing Agent Innocent. Talk about a trip down memory lane. Wow. Those early book drafts were rough, not to mention very angry and depressing.

I was happy to send most of the contents of the box to the shredder.

I had forgotten, however, about some of the random contents I’d tucked away in there.

Sprinkled throughout the Book Box were post-it notes with quotes in my loopy cursive, torn pieces of paper with scribbled quotes from movies or television shows, and torn pages from magazines with quotes on them.

As I read these, I smiled, picturing myself in my little one-bedroom West LA apartment scribbling quotes and notes in the wee hours of the morning. The night owl in me was alive and well those days.

In my final Bad Blog of 2020, I’m going to go back to those late-night notes and share a few of them here. I remember the circumstances and reasons for some of them. Others I don’t. Either way, it was good for me to revisit them, and I hope some of them are encouraging to you as well.

Here they are!

December 14, 2020

12,000 Steps

“Why are we like this?” Ah, we’ve asked this question many times.

I thought about the days of old, the ones before Apple Watches and activity trackers came into my life. I thought of the college days when my pink flip phone took crappy pictures and I had to hit the 7 button four times to type an S when sending a text. I trained for half and full marathons like this and had no idea what my pace was during these long runs. I just made a route ahead of time so I knew I’d gone the distance and didn’t worry so much about pace. It was about the experience, not the inner competition with a watch.

November 23, 2020

Throwing Stones

As a kid, I liked to collect pretty rocks. The shinier the better. The more misshapen the better. Sometimes I’d even find a dull looking rock and crack it in half with a hammer to see if the inside was shiny. I’d be delighted if the insides sparkled.

Today I still have pretty rocks, and, to some, random rocks around my house might look a little peculiar. But, then again, I’ve never claimed to be “normal” so perhaps visitors chalk it up to my eclectic taste in décor.

I came by some of these stones while living in West Los Angeles. Others were picked up after I moved to the Midwest.

The new rocks are healing stones.

(Now relax, family and friends. I have not taken to worshipping inanimate objects and I’m not delving into devil worship.)

November 16, 2020

Character and Characters

I’ve decided to write a novel. Well, perhaps I should rephrase. I’ve had a trilogy “planned” for about three years now. I just haven’t done anything about it. I recently figured out why that might be the case.

I’ve had this grand plan to write an exciting story with the “usual” Secret Service assassination (or assassination attempt), complete with a complex execution plan and a hyper-observant batch of agents saving the day at the very last millisecond. Also, it wouldn’t be complete if the first book didn’t end on an extreme cliffhanger where someone has died and we won’t know who until the second book.

I had a general outline of the story for each book. I just needed to write it.

But I didn’t write it.

Every time I sat down to write the story, I failed.

November 9, 2020

September 12, 2001

This election was the first time I voted at an actual polling location. Since election days were usually travel days for me in the Secret Service, I was always an absentee voter. This time, I participated in early voting at a local shopping mall. I was excited as I stood in line. It felt like my first time voting. I sat in the little booth smiling like a little kid as I filled in my bubbles, smirking at the fact that Kanye West was actually an option on the ballot. I thought it was joke when others mentioned it. Guess not. I grinned from ear to ear as the lady stamped my ballot and handed me the “I Voted” sticker. #American

“I don’t want to talk about the election. I stay away from political topics.”

This is usually my answer when people ask me about politics, and, specifically, this election. I think this country has morphed into a place where those conversations are unlikely to remain civil, especially if they occur on the Internet where anyone and everyone behind a keyboard can become a rude, sniveling pile of hate to one another.

Spotting a Sinking Ship