She Listened to Her Heart

So I was thinking about today's inspiration and post for a future date but earlier this week I stumbled upon my inspiration source "She Listened to Her Heart Above All the Other Voices," by Kobi Yamada, on another blog that I follow pretty faithfully and figured that was the universe telling me to put it out there now. I guess you could say I listened to my heart that said "push publish post." For this go round the inspiration led to a draft of a fiction piece that I have been working on offline. This is just the opening but I would love any and all comments. And as always, if you are inspired by this saying, send in your efforts and I'll post my favorites.


"How do you know when he's the one?" I asked quietly.
"What?"
"I said, how do you know when he's the one?"
Sara, my oldest and closest friend, slowly turned and looked at me with with wide eyes.
"Well...when you've dressed your best friend and three dreadful cousins up in plum colored velvet and taffeta on an Indian summer day, I think that's a pretty good sign," she said, the sarcasm clear in her words.
I lifted the blusher of my veil off of my face, "I'm serious. How do you know?"
Sara grabbed me by the elbow, pushing me back into the empty vestibule. "Where is this coming from?"
"I don't know," I mumbled, looking down at the massive white bouquet in my hands. The bouquet I had obsessed over, making sure each flower was the perfect variety to match the look of my wedding and the stems wrapped delicately in a remnant from my dress in order to guarantee a perfect match.
Having been there to listen to each obsessive phone call about dress beading or gripe about seating charts, menu selections, and my future mother-in-law, Sara was clearly thrown by my sudden lack of bridal focus. She continued to stare, waiting for me to offer up more.
"I don't know, it's just the last few days I've been having these crazy thoughts. I mean all the planning and details kept me so busy and I've felt so pressured to make this wedding perfect..."
"And it is. Honey, you've planned it to a t and now it's here, along with 300 guest. Just enjoy it," she said, easing her grip on my elbow. "You're probably just exhausted but in two days you'll be on the beach in Puerto Vallarta and all of this pressure will be gone. Gosh, you had me scared there for a minute."
"What if the wedding plans aren't the issue? What if in two days I'm sitting on that beach regretting what I just did?"
"Kate, come on."
"Sara I'm serious. I thought it was the pressure of having the perfect wedding but the last few nights I haven't been able to sleep. I've been up every night racking my brain, thinking about how I ended up with Todd. I mean Todd! Sara you know better than anyone, I hated him in high school. I thought he was a complete jerk in college and yet somehow here I am in the big white dress thinking about tonight and how the thought of him touching me right now makes my skin crawl."
"People change Kate. Todd's changed. It's been a long time since high school."
"He hasn't changed. You saw him last night...he showed up to our rehearsal drunk and looking like a frat boy with all his buddies. He had flip-flops and a baseball cap on for god's sake. This isn't some casual beach wedding, we've booked the Four Seasons! And you know they were drinking all day while we were at the spa."
"He was just blowing off a little steam with his buddies. I'm sure his mom's been making him crazy this week and you have been a little tense to be around. But he has changed. Once this wedding is all done things will be back the way they have been the last two years."
"Fine, if he hasn't changed then maybe I have. Maybe over the past two years I was changing to fit what everyone wanted from me," I ranted and then lowering my voice, "maybe I've settled."
Sara looked at me like I was a lunatic.
"Sara, forget everything that you know about him. Be my best friend here. I need your advice. What would you do if you were me?"
She just stared at me.
"Sara, seriously, what would you do?"
"There you are," My wedding coordinator Abby threw open the door to the vestibule, momentarily shattering the tension. "I was started to get worried about you girls." Noticing the strained look on both our faces she asked, "Is everything alright?"
"Yes," we both snapped in unison.
Sara moved in front of me blocking Abby's entrance further into the space. "Sorry, we're just having a last moment between girlfriends. Can you just give us another minute. I'm sure the string quartet has a few more tunes in their songbook. OK? Thanks," she said inching Abby backwards not allowing her to get a word in edgewise. "Wow, she's worth whatever your Daddy's paying her," Sara said, turning back to me, sarcasm returning to her voice. She stepped forward and took my hand. "OK, that was getting intense, let's just take a few breaths and get you calmed back down. Get your head back on straight."
The tension may have broken for Sara but it hadn't for me. I'm never like this but I had opened the floodgates and couldn't stop now. "You all expect me to be perfect. Everyone always looks at me to be the reasonable, responsible one. Unflappable Kate, you know her, the calm in everyone else's
She kept starting at me, her mouth opened a few times but she didn't utter a word. It's like she couldn't form them. Finally she tossed her bouquet on the ground and grabbed me by the shoulders. "OK Thelma, here's what we're going to do. You're going to go out that side door. Then I'm going to go out there and distract the wedding lady, tell her you realized you don't have your something blue or something equally devastating. While she tries to save this wedding from the something blue crisis I'll sneak out front, grab the limo and swing around to pick you up and then we'll hightail it on out of here, save you from getting hitched. Our only escape is over the cliff but you'll be spared damnation behind a white picket fence. You'll have to spend all of eternity in that dress with me and Rick the limo driver but its got to be better than being married to Todd. Say you'll go over the cliff with me Thelma...say it!" she cried, shaking me by the shoulders.
I pushed her off me. "Sara come on," I was shaking on my own now. How could she not understand what was going on with me? How could she make jokes right now?
She reached out and took my hand. "Kate, I'm just trying to get you to snap out of it. Get you past this. I didn't mean to joke around," she said. "It's just nerves honey, you're exhausted and can't think clearly and I don't want you to let one silly panic attack ruin the rest of your life. Now, I do have another plan for you though."
I looked up at her, hoping for a glimmer of recognition of how I was really feeling. A chance that she could really see me, see the emotional struggle I was having with this.
"You are going to walk down that aisle, say your vows and become Mrs. Todd Rutherford. Then I'm going to get you so drunk at the reception that you'll just pass out when you get to your hotel suite. Todd won't touch you tonight and you'll have a clear head tomorrow when you're not stuffed into your Spanx, wrapped in crinoline, and being poked in the brain by a thousand hairpins. I'm sure you'll see things differently when this spectacle is over. If you still feel confused in the morning we'll talk about it again tomorrow."
"This is your solution? Seriously? Get me so drunk that I marry a man and then hold off on consummating our marriage so I can make sure I really want to be married to my husband after all!" I ranted. "Why did I even make you my maid of honor? You're the lunatic and I'm always the rock. Your big plan is for me to marry Todd today and then decide if I love him tomorrow." I paced the tiny vestibule, barely able to take two steps either way in all of my dress. OK, this is not working. She doesn't get it, I thought. Then taking a few deep breaths to calm my hysteria. "OK, you're right," I laughed. "It's probably just nerves. I'm fine...just had to get that out of my system. I'm good now. I'm sorry Sara, you're a good friend and dutiful maid of honor. So can you just go back out and let Abby know I'm ready."
She picked up her bouquet, gave me a smile and a squeeze of the hand, "I'm glad you're feeling better. I knew I could shock you back into reality."
"You did Sara, you did," I said, pasting on my most collected expression.
She slipped back into the foyer and I turned to look for the most discreet exit. Sara may have shocked me out of my crazed stated but not out of the realization that I did not want to be Mrs. Todd Rutherford.

Stop the World I Want to Get Off

As I mentioned in my blog description, I'm using this forum as a writing exercise. Inspiration for the content will come in the form of favorite quotes, cliches, sayings, etc., at least for now. For my first post I turned to the title of a Broadway musical from the 60's "Stop the World - I Want to Get Off", by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.

For ten years I have carried a dirty little secret.

I want to get laid off.

OK, maybe not today, but over the past decade of my post 9/11 career in advertising I have been overcome with the desire on many occasions to run screaming from my office. I’ve reveled in the thought of the weight of the everyday world lifting off my shoulders. Sometimes when I really let my fantasies go I can actually feel the physical unburdening.

However, the reality is I’m a chicken who desperately clings to the stability of my 9 to 5 or 8 to 10 or let’s face it 24/7 depending on the role, while languishing in the idea of freedom. On days when my professional world is really getting to me the Dixie Chicks “Wide Open Spaces” plays in heavy rotation on my iPod. I’m not even really a country fan and the lyrics aren’t perfect but those Chicks do know how to embed a feeling of being carefree into my heart, something I lose sight of in the mix of the daily grind.

Let me pause to remind you that this is a dirty little secret and the dirty is knowing that this is an incredibly selfish and immature thing to wish for particularly in the economic times we as a world and my industry have faced. Countless friends and relatives have seen their career and stability vanish from under them in the form of a pink slip. It also hits close to home in literal terms with my husband experiencing a lay-off in the past as well.

I don’t take the reality of joblessness lightly and really do like my position so I don’t actually want to get laid off, today’s world can just be overwhelmingly chaotic some days. Our world has changed so much over the past ten years and we’ve all been forced to spin the wheel faster and faster everyday.

In large part I blame the unrest on the complete access to colleagues, friends, family, even strangers. By nature I’m not a phone person; that was not a teenage battle that I waged. Ironically I’ve chosen a career that thrives on constant communication much of which is done on the phone of course or these days via WebEx or Skype. And no longer is there a true end of the day or vacation. Does an out of office message even matter when everyone calls my cell directly anyway? I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone, loving the access it provides to information I want and hating data that is foisted upon me unsolicited and at absurd hours of the day in the three screen world in which we live.

When does it stop? When do I think? How do I find much less hear my own voice through the cacophony of noise all around us? For years the answer that sprung into my head was “I want to get laid off!” in some way viewing this as an out or break from the world, ignoring the brutal reality of actually losing the job and the security that goes with that.

Instead what I want is to stop the world and get off for a minute. I want to get quiet and recentered in myself without even the slightest chance that I will be interrupted by a digital ring, buzz, or chime.

I liken it to the playground merry-go-round we played on as kids. Much like life it’s rusty, wobbly and makes a lot of noise as it goes around and there’s always some kid standing on the edge, spinning it around, forcing you to go faster than you’re comfortable with. Me, I’m the kid on my knees, head down, holding on to the rail for dear life, screaming at the playground bully to make the ride stop for just one minute. If they will just let me off for now, I’ll get back on the ride again but first I have got to see straight.

So I’m going to try to disconnect more and clear out the noise. Leave the TV off and enjoy the silence. Shut the phone all the way down so I can’t be tempted by the flashing screen or vibration when a message comes through. Reflect on messages as they come through rather than thoughtlessly reacting to get it out of my inbox. Read, write, and get to just my own voice in my head. I can’t stop the world but I can at least try to quiet mine.

Ironic given that this thought is being written in a blog, I get the joke.