Barracuda

One of the first cases I handled on my own as a new lawyer was a lawsuit between adjacent property owners. The word "neighbor" could not be used to describe their situation.

My clients lived out in the country on about 25 acres. They leased 20 acres of their land to a farmer, who accessed the portion he leased and farmed via a dirt road. The access road ran along, but very near, the outside edge of my clients' land. The owner of the adjacent property sued to prevent my clients and their lessee (the farmer) from using the road, such as it was, because it would interfere with their septic system which ran under the tract and on my clients' property. They claimed ownership of that portion of the property in which their septic system was located by a legal concept known as adverse possession.

I was nearly a year out of law school. Adverse possession is covered in depth in first year Real Property Law and is a popular topic for essay questions on the bar exam.  Since the majority of the cases referenced in the textbooks largely dated from previous centuries, I never dreamed I'd actually have to litigate one. Nonetheless, when I met with my new clients for the first time and reviewed the complaint with which they had been served, I was able to recite the requirements from memory: "open, obvious and exclusive possession of the property, adverse to the owners' interests, for a period of at least 21 years."

They were impressed with my knowledge. I was flabbergasted that I actually had a live adverse possession case.  I crafted a counterclaim for trespass and we were off to an auspicious beginning. I visited their farm and took pictures. I researched the law. I reviewed the allegations with my clients at length. I even interviewed someone at the health department to learn about septic systems.

It was quite clear to me, based upon the facts, that adverse possession simply couldn't be proven in this instance. Unfortunately, the plaintiffs and their lawyer had obtained a temporary restraining order, preventing my clients from clearing and using the roadway and it was spring planting season. Their farmer tenant was getting anxious. I'd need to get that set aside as soon as possible or my clients would lose their lease income.

The day for the first appearance arrived, warm and sunny. My clients met me at my office and we walked the two blocks to the courthouse for a hearing on the temporary restraining order. I was, shall we say, over-prepared. I had a binder tabbed with sections for each witness, copies of exhibits, outlines of questions and copies of all of the relevant case law. It might have been a capital murder case as far as I was concerned. Not yet a year beyond the bar exam, I knew the rules of evidence and civil procedure backwards and forwards, inside and out.

Once we arrived at the courthouse, a crumbling 1880's Gothic Victorian on the town square, I checked in with the judge's bailiff to let him know we were ready. My clients pointed out our adversaries, sitting on a nearby bench in the hallway. I had tried to contact the opposing attorney to discuss resolving the case, but he never returned my calls, so I had yet to meet him.  I approached him now, easily identifiable as the only other person in a suit, and extended my hand in greeting.

"Hi. I'm Meg Pauken. I represent Mr. and Mrs. X."

He looked me up and down with raised eyebrows and exaggerated movements as if I were a sideshow freak. This took effort on his part since I was easily 6 inches taller than he was, without my 3 inch heels.

"I'll see you inside, counselor," he oozed, not even looking me in the eye.

With that, he turned back toward his clients as if I were not there.

Someone had made a very grave error in judgement that day.

The bailiff invited the attorneys to come into the judge's chambers prior to the hearing. The judge, a well-respected and fair-minded man, turned to us and asked if we had discussed settlement.

"No, Your Honor, we have received no offers of settlement," I replied.

He turned to the plaintiffs' attorney, "Why not? Is there any possibility this can be resolved by agreement?"

"Certainly. I have a deed drafted and if her clients will just sign over the property my clients have already acquired by adverse possession, we can be done and we won't need to waste your time with a hearing."

"Your honor, this is the first I have heard his offer, but I can't recommend it to my clients given the facts and the law. If he has any other ideas, I'd be happy to listen."

"No. That is all we are prepared to discuss," he said smugly.

"Can we at least resolve the temporary restraining order?" the judge asked.

"I don't see how," my opponent barked, "since she is so unreasonable. I am sorry we have to take up the court's time, Your Honor."

"Well, then, let's get on with it, counselors," he said as he rose.

The case was called and we entered the courtroom. I unpacked my binders and rule book onto the counsel table reserved for the defense and seated my clients alongside me. I had not done this on my own before and I was a bit nervous, but more than that I was just pissed. I had experienced condescending behavior from older attorneys before and I was determined that this time it would not continue.

Little Napoleon put the Mister of his clients on the stand and went through questions designed to show that they would be "irreparably damaged" if my folks used the dirt road and that they had established the elements of adverse possession of the property.

I objected to leading questions, irrelevant questions and questions that elicited hearsay.

"Sustained,"

"Sustained,"

"Sustained, again. Counselor, you might want to rephrase your questions."

Someone was getting rattled.

It was harder to tell whose face was redder, Little Napoleon's or his client's. Until I started my cross-examination. At that point Little Napoleon's face turned purple.

It seems his clients had failed to tell him a few things, things backed up by photographs and letters, things that completely undermined his entire case. Whoopsie.

When I was finished with the Mister, the judge asked Little Napoleon if he had any other witnesses.

"Not at this time, but I'd like a recess to call a couple of others, Your Honor," he asked, in a nonchalant voice that suggested he expected this request to go unchallenged.

"Your Honor, I have to ask you to deny that request. My clients are being greatly harmed by the temporary restraining order currently in place. Time is of the essence since it is spring planting season and the plaintiff should have been prepared to prove his case today. Additionally, Your Honor, I would like to make a motion to dismiss his entire case since, based upon his own client's testimony, there is no way he can prove the elements of adverse possession no matter who else he calls as a witness."

Someone was now apoplectic.

"She has a point, you know. I don't think you can make your case based on what I have heard. Are you prepared to argue the legal elements?" The judge looked us both over.

Little Napoleon swallowed hard, his Adam's apple barely visible in what must have once been a wrestler's neck.

"Your Honor, I have a brief already prepared that I can submit, but I would be happy to summarize the state of the law in Ohio right now, if that would be helpful," I said.

Little Napoleon rolled his eyes.

The judge looked at him pointedly.

"I am going to deny Plaintiffs' request for a recess. Proceed."

"Well, I guess we are being forced to rest, your Honor."

"Miss Pauken? Are you ready to proceed?"

"Your Honor, I would like to renew my motion to dismiss."

I made a brief argument to the court describing the law of adverse possession and pointing out the lack of facts to support the claims made by the Plaintiffs. At the end of my argument, the Plaintiffs' attorney argued something, but I am not sure what, exactly, because the adrenaline in my system was causing a roar in my ears that made actually listening to him nearly impossible.

"Motion granted. Case dismissed."

Holy shit. I just won.

"Excuse me, Your Honor, you do realize we have a counter-claim for trespass that remains?" I asked.

"You do?" He shuffled through his file. "Of course. Bailiff, set the remaining claim for a pretrial in two weeks."

The judge stood and then exited the courtroom.

I was shaking. What had just happened? I returned to the counsel table and packed up my things. I very quietly told my clients we would discuss our next steps back at the office.

Bulging briefcase at my side, I approached my opponent and once again extended my hand with a smile.

"Mr. _____, I guess I'll be seeing you again in a couple of weeks."

Once again, he refused to return the courtesy.

"You know what you are? You are nothing but a barracuda," he hissed at me before spinning around to follow his clients out of the courtroom.

And now I had my personal theme song.

Old Men Talking

Early on in my legal career, I did time, significant time, in the trenches known as "Asbestos Litigation". This litigation was HUGE. Thousands upon thousands of cases occurred simultaneously all over the country.

Back then, I worked for a defense firm that represented a couple of manufacturers of asbestos products.  My job (among many others) was to attend the depositions of workers making claims against the companies we represented.  I asked them questions and tried to get them to commit under oath that their exposure was limited to certain places and times and to specific types of asbestos products, with the goal of excluding our clients from liability. I was good at it; good at establishing rapport and getting them to open up and give descriptive answers to my questions.

As a tiny cog in the machinery of this industry-spawned industry, I sat, day after day, in conference rooms with ten or fifteen other lawyers, a court reporter and the plaintiff in exotic locations like Parkersburg, West Virginia and Canton, Ohio.

The plaintiff was usually a man in his 70's or 80's, most often in a flannel shirt neatly tucked into jeans or khaki pants; sometimes in a suit; nearly always visibly nervous. Many were attached to oxygen tanks. They universally removed their caps upon entering the room, with hands that were callused from years of real work.

During his deposition, each man answered questions under oath about his work history, health history and social habits. Generally one lawyer took the lead and then each lawyer would be given an opportunity to ask questions pertinent to his or her client. The plaintiff's own lawyer was present and would occasionally interject with an objection to a question or request for a break. Each deposition lasted nearly a full day.

The rules of this game were well-known to the regular players, but not to the plaintiffs. They all seemed surprised by the collegiality amongst the lawyers and the ease with which we rattled off our questions. They may not have realized we did this every day, for months on end.

The majority of these men had worked out of union halls and were sent to jobs all over the region. Two weeks here, two months there. Many of them had small, battered notebooks in which they had kept track of their jobs over a lifetime of work. Lines of old-fashioned script in different inks covered the pages, along with various smudges, smears and blotches of coffee.

They were pipe fitters, bricklayers, carpenters and laborers. There was a definite hierarchy among them in the real world, but within the confines of a usually windowless conference room, each man was, for perhaps the first time ever, the most important person in the room. Highly educated and well-paid lawyers by the score listened, raptly, as they told their stories. Heroic stories about industrial accidents that nearly killed them, about handling toxic materials with no protection whatsoever, about strikes and labor disputes, about reporting to the union hall each morning hoping for an assignment.

They described their work, adding excruciating levels of detail when asked, baffled that with all of our education, we didn't understand the process of mixing mortar or fitting steam pipes. They would shake their heads in pity at our incomprehensible ignorance, not realizing that our questions were traps we might catch them in later.

I was often the only female in the room other than the court reporter. Most of the lawyers were young men who felt the need to preen before the crowd and were (in my opinion) unnecessarily harsh in their questioning. I usually waited to be the last one to ask my questions rather than join in their jockeying for position.

I know I wasn't supposed to, but I really liked the majority of these gentlemen. Because that's what they were. Not all, but most. I looked them in the eye when they answered, scribbling my notes between questions. I tried hard to keep it friendly and conversational.

They tried hard to maintain their dignity.

"Sexual relations with my wife? That's none of your goddamn business!"

And they were honest.

"Yes, ma'am, I did smoke cigarettes. I was about 12 when I started and I never should have. We didn't know any better back then."

"I smoked Lucky Strikes. No filter."

"No, ma'am, I never did ask for a dust mask to wear. There wasn't none around and we had a job to do. You didn't cause problems if you wanted regular work and I had a family and all."

They built power plants along the Ohio River; factories in Cleveland, Parkersburg and Charleston; hospitals, schools and bridges. Structures we rely upon to this day. They got sick doing it and now were forced to sue for compensation for their injuries. Injuries that were indisputably caused by asbestos, asbestos they couldn't have encountered in their personal lives. Injuries that took away the retirement that they most definitely earned.

These men had lived hard lives and it showed in their red-rimmed eyes, their lined faces and their shaking hands. Yet they didn't complain; not really. They let the medical records speak for themselves. What they did was tell their stories; stories about life as they knew it and lived it. And as far as they were concerned, it had been a good life. They made good money on those union jobs; supported families and proudly spoke of sending kids to college.

When it was all done, all the questions asked and answered, I thanked them. I thanked them for telling us their stories and giving us an opportunity to hear from them directly. I extended my hand to shake theirs. Most often, I received a handshake and a nod in return.

The other lawyers ribbed me about that after the plaintiff and his lawyer left the room.

"Why are you thanking them? They are the ones suing us!"

"Because they are human beings, that's why, you ass."

And then I would escape to my car, feeling sick to my stomach, tears escaping down my cheeks, before collecting myself and driving off to prepare for the next day's stories.

Pressing the Reset Button

I hate New Year's resolutions. I quit making them a number of years ago. It seemed so contrived to accept an arbitrary date as the reason to make changes in my life, today.

New Year's is to exercise equipment, gym memberships and weight-loss shakes as Valentine's Day is to chocolate, flowers and lingerie. Is their proximity in time coincidental? I think not. By mid-February all those who were shamed into starvation diets and self-flagellation-by-treadmill are ready for some comfort, and for good reason.

I understand the need to review and to plan; to set goals and deadlines. I have attended Franklin Covey workshops and I enjoyed them. Nothing makes my heart sing like fresh office supplies and filling in a blank calendar. However, I bristle at anyone suggesting that a particular date is better than any other on which to launch oneself into a new habit. The Muse strikes when she will, calendar be damned!

I am usually struck by the Personal Annual Review Muse near my birthday. I think about my favorite moments from the previous year; what I'd like to do more of; what is no longer serving me. The Goal Setting Muse tends to inspire me as the seasons change.

Last winter, I started practicing yoga again after a lengthy hiatus. I was thinking a lot about my upcoming milestone birthday and reflecting about the kind of life I wanted to be living. I was able to shift my internal dialogue a bit, away from shaming towards loving.

Despite my good intentions, I was sidetracked by knee pain, general busyness and oh, buying, selling and renovating a house or two. Little things. Nothing very time consuming.

Instead of berating myself for "failing" once again to stick with fitness, I did a very yogi-like thing: I let those thoughts pass by with the certainty that delay was, in this instance, not equivalent to failure. I knew my mind had shifted and that I'd pick it back up once things settled down a bit.

It took until mid-September, but once the girls headed back to school and the kitchen renovation noise became intolerable, I started going to the YMCA. I had investigated some fancier gyms, but they were just too much: overwhelming in every possible way.

My weight had climbed to my highest ever non-pregnant level, but it wasn't about the number on the scale. When we moved last summer, I realized how weak I had become - I couldn't lift and move boxes like I used to do. That bothered me much more than my weight. There were things I wanted to do - canoeing, gardening, cycling - and my out-of-shape-ness was holding me back.

The first time I went, it was with both girls.They were required to have an "orientation", so I went off in another direction while they worked with a member of the staff. I was ready to get started. Surprisingly, it felt good. It felt good to push myself and sweat and see what I was capable of.

The very next day, I went back, this time with Hombre. Again, it felt good. I went back the next day, and the next and the next and the next.

I did my own thing. I found a machine that I really liked - sort of an elliptical, but more like running in its movement. (I think it's called an AMT?) I started tracking my distance and calories burned. I added weight training; one day upper body, the next day, lower body; every day abs and back. Then I tried the rowing machine and I liked it, too. I listened to Pandora on my iPod, bouncing along to Katy Perry, P!nk and Alanis Morrisette. Sometimes I ran on the treadmill. I started to see familiar faces who smiled and nodded as they, too, went about their own routines.

As I gained momentum, something flipped inside my psyche. I stopped looking at exercise as my punishment for being fat and I started seeing it as something I was doing FOR myself, not TO myself.  I loved seeing my muscles develop. I noticed changes in the way my clothes fit. I ran farther and farther (without going anywhere) and lifted more and more weight. I started to think about signing up for a 5k, when Hombre pointed out to me that I was already running farther than that every day. 

Suddenly, I had all kinds of energy. I was bouncing off the walls, singing, dancing and I was so very full of joy. I felt like the me I used to be. I talked to my doctor and put in place a plan to taper off of the antidepressant I had started taking way back in 2002 for postpartum depression. (I had tried to stop a couple of times before, unsuccessfully.)

Along the way, something else happened: I brought sexy back.
(Apologies to Justin Timberlake.)

That was probably the most surprising part of my transformation: I started feeling sexy again. I bought a few new pieces of clothing with a bit of va-va-va-voom. I liked what I saw in the mirror. I was no longer embarrassed about the view afforded to the men on stationary bikes behind me as I ran.   I began to actually believe the compliments Hombre (has always) heaped upon me. I was not thin, but I felt sexy.

By my 50th birthday in late November, I had lost a little more than twenty pounds, but more than that, I lost the self-consciousness and self-hatred I have carried around, well-hidden, since before I was even a teenager. Somehow I was able to press the reset button and reboot my self-esteem.

When our house caught fire in early January, my routine was thrown off. We have been relying on prepared foods and restaurants meals too much. I haven't been to the YMCA since January 10th because our hotel is about 45 minutes away from it. There has been "stress snacking."

What I have not done is succumb to the "all or nothing" thinking in which I used to engage. Before, I was either on plan or off plan; 100% successful or a rank failure. Now I am more patient. I have squeezed in workouts in the hotel fitness room whenever I have been able. I have been going to yoga classes regularly, since the studio is more convenient than the YMCA. I'm trying to make the best choices I can from the options before me, knowing that my health is a long-term, big-picture process and our current situation is just a curve in the road. (Mix metaphors much?)

I'm not worried about backsliding, because I am different now: reset, rebooted and delightfully mid-century modern.

No Reason

It has become ritual among many to state with certainty every time a curve ball is thrown or a stick is thrust into the spokes of one's wheel,

"Everything happens for a reason."

I don't. I don't say it and I don't believe it. If I believed it, I would have to believe that someone or something was pulling the strings of my life. Someone other than me. And I don't believe that. I don't believe that life is like The Hunger Games, with a games master planting obstacles for me to surmount. I see life as a melange of (primarily) the results of our own choices and intentions, seasoned with a sprinkle of other folks' actions and swirled with a healthy dollop of randomness.

I understand the desire to seek meaning out of tragedy and I am not offended when my wonderful and caring friends and family tell me, "Everything happens for a reason." I recognize their love and concern and gratefully accept it, even if I don't share their philosophy. I don't think I am superior in my approach, it's just that the notion of a life manipulated by some "other" has little meaning for me. It brings me no peace to believe that there is a god somewhere who throws hurricanes and blizzards around so that we can all learn a lesson. I take no comfort in searching for the greater good behind a friend's death from cancer.

For me, the meaning that comes from these events is in how we react and what we learn from them. And that can't be determined before the event takes place, only after, sometimes long after. Accepting that life has a randomness and refusing to allow that randomness to embitter oneself, THAT is the reason for those tragic things that happen.

So here I sit, at Panera, typing away on my laptop after the house fire. We had smoke detectors with working batteries that awoke us in the wee hours of Sunday morning. We had the furnace inspected, filters changed, duct work cleaned. We left no candles burning nor unattended pots on the stove top. We used only licensed electricians for work on the house since we bought it. We had a home inspection before we purchased it last May. There was no reason that this fire happened. None. It was random. Of course, there was a cause, but nothing we did that could have prevented it.

Which is not to say that we cannot learn from this. We will learn humility, by accepting offers of help. We will learn gratitude, by remembering that what is truly important was not destroyed. We will learn resilience, by hanging on tightly to each other as we navigate the next few uncertain weeks. We will practice compassion and humor and love.

We will accept that there are things outside our control and we will live fearlessly in spite of that.

Questing by Quiz for the Quintessential Moi

When I was a teen, I lived and died by the advice rendered in Seventeen magazine. Far more than a mere fashion mag or teen idol rag, Seventeen dispensed advice regarding skincare ("de-fuzzing"), friendships, school, college AND boys. Its weightiest and most oft-repeated maxim:

"Be yourself."

Easy enough if you KNOW who you are, but at 13, 14, 15, and right on up through her 20's, who knows with any certainty who they are? Who I was depended very much upon my audience and I can't think I'm the only girl who felt that way. I had friends across the spectrum from nerds to cheerleaders to jocks to bad girls. I was a little bit of each of those (except cheerleader). How could I be myself if I didn't know who I really was? When I was a little bit of everything?

Seventeen had a solution to my identity angst: quizzes.  I took them all.

"What your favorite color says about you."
"What your favorite music says about you."
"Your favorite fashion trend demystified."
"Find your perfect college."

And so on.

I read my horoscope religiously and consulted the Ouija board whenever I could find a partner who wasn't freaked out by it. I read tarot cards for myself and anyone else who was interested. I analyzed handwriting and read palms. Phrenology was about the only sort of divination I didn't dabble in. I was determined to find the answers. I wanted certainty.

Now I know that certainty is just an illusion, but then it was the mirage in the desert that I kept desperately seeking, by any available means.

Those interest and aptitude surveys the guidance office had you take? I typically scored high in every category except clerical. Didn't help me much.

I did not grow out of this phase when I left my teens behind, says the woman who changed her major every single semester until her senior year in college. I did not have trouble settling on a major because I couldn't find a fit, mind you, but because I loved (almost) every class I took. Everything was interesting to me.

From the quizzes in Seventeen, I graduated to Cosmo, with its "adult" quizzes and annual Bedside Astrologer. I remember snapping up that January issue as soon as it hit the stands and settling in with my girlfriends and a supply of beer and wine coolers for an evening of gut-splitting laughter. References to its lurid descriptions would arise (pun fully intended) frequently afterward. I always hung onto it to assess every would-be beau all year long. My friends appreciated the service I provided by vetting potential suitors in bars. I brazenly asked the zodiac sign of every man we met and then referenced his Cosmo "performance index," which I had committed to memory.

I still love a good quiz, although I struggle to reconcile them all.

How can I be the same Myers-Briggs (ENTJ) as Lady Mary Crowley, yet be Rizzo in Grease? Dido the suicidal Queen of Carthage and Elrond the King of the Elves? Baffling, I tell you.

What struck me on my most recent birthday, besides the tsunami of love from friends and family, was how I feel so comfortable in my skin and with who I am, right now. I'm not worried about tomorrow, because I assume, based upon a lifetime of experience, that I'll chase new interests and change my hair at least 100 times in the next 50 years.

I'm comfortable just being myself, without apology or explanation. In fact, I think getting older is a lot like a chef's reduction. You become more intensely yourself with each passing year, as the extraneous and non-essential habits and traits evaporate, concentrating your essence.

If I had known this when I was 14,  maybe I would have worried less about having the answer. I don't know that I'd have believed it, though. Age truly has its benefits.

A Love Story

“Sometimes the one who is running from the Life / Death / Life nature insists on thinking of love as a boon only. Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings - all in the same relationship.”

- Clarissa Pinkola 

Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories 

of the Wild Woman Archetype 

Hombre and I will have been married Twenty-Two (22) years on November 2.  (Yes, I was a child bride.) We have known each other for thirty (30) years. He is the president of my fan club, and I am the president of his. I cannot imagine a life without him in it.

We met in September 1983, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He was a freshman; I was a sophomore. I was a resident assistant in a freshman women's dorm. Each of our "corridors" was paired with a corridor in a freshman men's dorm. The two groups were to engage in social activities on a smaller scale to help the freshman make friends and adjust to college life. He was in my "exchange corridor" and he caught my eye right away.

Hombre was tall and slim, with a swimmer's body and a baby face. He had thick, dark hair, dimples and a twinkle in his hazel eyes. I was dating someone at the time, so although we flirted (outrageously, I'm sure), it went no further. We saw each other often around campus and at various social events. There was always an energy between us that made him seem more familiar to me than our interactions warranted. Each time we interacted, I had the sense that something was meant to happen between us, but the timing was never right -  either he was dating someone, or I was dating someone or getting over someone or had recently sworn off men altogether. I vaguely recall a few impromptu make-out sessions. We just never got it together.

By my senior year, our contact was only occasional, though friendly and flirtatious. I graduated a year before he did. We did not keep in touch after I graduated. My new job, in sales for Procter & Gamble, took me to Oklahoma. I loathed sales and did not fit the mold at P&G. I promptly took the LSAT and applied to law school.

In the meantime, Hombre was in a serious relationship and moving forward with his own life. He, too, took a job in sales upon his graduation and moved to Cincinnati. As he settled there, I moved back to Ohio to start law school in Cleveland. In our oddly parallel lives, we each were in love with people to whom we were completely unsuited. Not only were we in love, but we were each engaged to be married.

I had met someone mid-way through my first year in law school who swept me off my feet. It was a tumultuous, passionate and somewhat obsessive relationship. When it ended, abruptly, toward the end of my final year in law school, it was to the relief of my friends and family, though it was devastating for me. The wedding dress and invitations had been ordered, the church reserved and the deposits made. I had not applied to take the Ohio bar exam, since I had planned to move to Florida.

At nearly the same time, Hombre's fiancee showed a marked lack of appreciation for his wonderfulness  and they broke up, too. By then he had been transferred to Youngstown, Ohio, all unbeknownst to me.

I really hated Florida and had no desire to move there, but I had missed the deadline for the Ohio bar exam by many months. I had large student loans looming and no job in sight. I wrote a tear-stained letter to the Supreme Court of Ohio, pleading for a dispensation to sit for the exam. I started studying without knowing when I'd be tested: July or the upcoming February. I smoked and drank to excess.

I cried a lot (in private) and finally reached the conclusion that although the break up had been painful, my ex was not the love of my life. I realized in a moment of punch-in-the-stomach clarity, that we had never really even been friends; he didn't seem to actually like me, but rather the idea of me that he had created. He was uncomfortable with my loquacious, outgoing self, becoming possessive and jealous at every social event we attended. I realized that the problem had not been me; it had been us. It dawned on me that there must be someone out there who actually wanted a girlfriend who didn't hang on his arm; who would venture off with others at a social event; who had a life (and mind) of her own.

Two weeks before the date for the bar exam, I received notification that I would be permitted to sit for it. I loaded up on cigarettes and coffee and studied around the clock, while applying for jobs everywhere from Athens, Ohio to Anchorage, Alaska. I even considered the military. My growing stack of rejection letters was a fire hazard in the tiny attic apartment I lived in.

The three-day bar exam itself was as you would expect: grueling, stressful and yet oddly exhilarating. As soon as it was behind me, I gave up my apartment and house-sat for a couple of months. My brother and sister-in-law graciously stored my belongings in their basement. I found a job as a cocktail waitress, since law jobs in 1990 were scarce. I was a terrible cocktail waitress - so completely unqualified that I was forced to substitute charm for experience. At least the tips were good.

Finally, in mid-September, I saw a listing for a small firm looking for an entry-level litigator. The fact that it was in Warren, Ohio, was beside the point. They were as desperate as I was, by all appearances: a couple of older attorneys who no longer wanted to go to court and deal with the stress and work involved in litigation. I never considered not accepting their offer.

I moved to Warren the first week in October and plunged into work; researching, writing, going to court and learning how to operate a Dictaphone. Warren was a small town full of good old boys, so I was somewhat of a novelty around the courthouse. I only ever spotted one other female attorney at the courthouse and she was not at all friendly. The town had been heavily invested in steel and was well-rusted by 1990. There were not many young people who chose to live there if they had other options. I drove back to Cleveland every weekend to see my friends, at least those who hadn't moved away for work.

On Tuesday, October 30, my boss insisted I accompany him to a local Chamber of Commerce "mixer". It was time, he said, for me to begin networking so I could develop my own book of business. I walked into a hotel conference room filled with people and immediately spotted the only other person in the place who was under 60: my Hombre.

We greeted each other with enthusiastic, "What are you doing here?"s and "What have you been up to?"s and quickly made plans to have a drink together after the event, as I was being introduced around by my boss and couldn't linger.

We sat awkwardly sipping our wine at a hi-top table in a dark and cavernous hotel bar for only a few moments before our stories came tumbling out. I found out that Hombre lived just a few miles away from Warren, so we were practically neighbors. I found out that his experience with the local social scene was pretty similar to mine, although he had more stories to tell, having lived there for several years. I also learned that Hombre had survived his own heartbreak.  He, too, realized that it had been a mismatch. She was too introverted; too clingy. He said he wanted a woman who was independent: "someone who will take off and socialize at a party and let me do the same thing; someone who has a life and friends of her own."

With a wee bit of panic, I realized he was talking about me.

We talked until closing time and made plans to go out to dinner on Friday night, the day I would learn whether or not I had passed the bar exam. He called me Friday to confirm and was genuinely pleased and excited by my good news. He took me to a Japanese steak house that night and completely won me over with his skillful use of chopsticks and his unabashed enjoyment of the entire hibachi chef performance. He took me on a tour of his local haunts before we headed back to my place.

There was no fighting the chemistry, and we didn't bother trying to. Perhaps it all went a little fast, but we were not children, after all.

Our courtship consisted of long evenings spent playing Scrabble and Yahtzee;  rented movies and cooking dinner together, since we were both flat broke. We'd go out for walks in the snow and take long drives, exploring the countryside, talking incessantly.

Hombre had, until I surfaced, planned to relocate to Atlanta where his brother lived. He initially pretended that this was still his plan, but I was not fooled. I was not even worried about it. I just knew.  He travelled there once or twice over the next couple of months with my full support. I didn't tell him that I knew we would be together forever; he had to figure that out for himself. Since we had forever, I could afford to be patient.

We moved in together Memorial Day weekend, 1991. He proposed to me in front of my entire, very large family, on July 11, 1991. We married on November 2, 1991, a year to the day from our first date.

In our life together, we have called 8 places "home." We have, between us, worked at 18 different places of employment. We have only ever had joint bank accounts. We have traveled together all over the United States and to Europe.

We struggled with infertility for many years and then we joyfully added two daughters into our family.

We have supported each other through times of downsizing, unemployment, career change and soul searching. We have challenged each other to be better people.

We have fully and unequivocally shared the responsibilities of raising our children, each of us taking off stints from work to care for them.

We have gone through periods of financial stress and periods of abundance.

We have enjoyed each other's company, laughed at inside jokes and humored each other.

We have buried and mourned three of our four parents.

We have fought and made up; we have debated and compromised, but mostly we have just kept on talking; talking until we reached a place, a solution, where we could both be happy.

There have been unhappy times; times when we struggled with incorporating our individual selves into the "we;" times when our priorities were not the same.

Every time we have come through a challenging period, I swear it has made our bond stronger.

I have felt it again recently: a further opening up and deepening between us, due, I think, to our recent soul-searching together for the lifestyle that would best reflect our values and then our mutual efforts to bring it about.

Just the other night Hombre asked me why I looked so happy.

I said, "I think I am falling in love with you all over again."

His answering smile lit up the room.

All Good

It's all good.

The purging, the cleaning, the sorting, the selling, the packing, the moving.

The renovating: not as good, but improving.

In May we were slightly crazy, as often we are. We bought a house before we had listed ours for sale. We did this having watched friends weather the real estate crash and lose everything. We did this with a scary health issue looming (No worries; it turned out to be nothing.) We did this despite all conventional wisdom to the contrary because it felt like the right thing to do.

Hombre and I came from totally different places to the same conclusion with breathtaking speed. It seems that he had been thinking of selling the house and moving for quite some time. He had made comments to that effect, but I was resistant. I didn't think he was serious. I wanted so badly to make our house work for us, but once I opened my mind to his logic, I quickly became convinced that he was right. Once my mind is made up, the deed is done.

Over the course of one week, we read The Not So Big House and its various related books. We analyzed our needs and desires for a different space. We spent hours on the internet looking at real estate listings. We had our parameters, the biggest that we remain in the same school district. We took off on a Sunday afternoon to look at houses.

Hombre really liked the first one. I did not. We both hated the second one. We called realtors to inquire about several that looked promising, only to be told that they were "under contract" or in foreclosure proceedings and over-liened. Many drive-bys resulted in options scratched from the list.

The third house we saw that first Sunday in May was a surprise. I had pooh-poohed it after looking at pictures online. Because of it's perfect location, abutting the school campus, I agreed to have a look.

There were signs right away that it was a fit: the hand-painted flowers on the mailbox; the tire swing; the certified wildlife habitat designation; the open, sunny back yard, and the spectacular trees. I could see right away where my clothesline would go, where I would plant gardens and build a grape arbor.  It reminded me of a cottage in the woods, the way the hand-laid flagstone walk wove through the foliage to the front porch.

The house itself was significantly smaller than our current house. We quickly assessed the spaces against our needs: bedrooms, bathrooms, homework and office areas. We walked outside to find a very private deck and pool. We walked through the woods at the back of the property.

I looked at Hombre and said, "I think I could live here."

"I'm so glad you said that! I could, too."

"So what do we do now?"

"Let's talk about it."

We called the kids and told them we'd be home later. We went to a restaurant with our iPads and papers and had a glass of wine. We were flying solo this time. No realtor to suggest a price nor negotiate for us. We used Zillow and Trulia to research comparable sales and market value. Our plan was to go back and see it one more time, Monday evening, and then to make an offer, which we did. Our big surprise was that the sellers accepted that very first offer.

"Holy shit. We are really doing this. I guess we had better tell the girls."

We had debated bringing the girls to see it first, but we were not sure they would be on board with our plan. They knew we were looking for a house and that we would be moving, but we had only just explained that to them and they were still digesting the idea. Their current dynamic seems to be automatically disagreeing with each other out of principle.  Our best guess about their reactions was that one would like it, one wouldn't and we already knew we planned to put an offer in. The decision was ultimately ours to make and we decided that we would rather have both girls upset with us in the short term than to have one feeling like her wishes were disregarded and the other "winning."

When we told them, they were angry. Incredulous. Outraged, even.

I could live with that.

We took them with us to see the house on the day of the inspections. In just a few days, lilacs had begun blooming all around the house. They were oblivious. To our surprise, neither one took to it. B couldn't stay inside for long, because of the overwhelming dander from the owners' three cats and from the copious bunny fur floating from the cage in the kitchen. I sent them both outside to explore the trails that led to their school. That helped, along with the prospect of a pool in the back yard.

As soon as the inspection was done, we headed home to start purging our belongings. The neighborhood garage sale, always a big event, was on the calendar in six days. We had much excess to get rid of. We were giving up around 1,000 square feet of living space and halving the size of our lower level/basement as well. Good bye, formal dining room. Good bye, formal living room. Good bye, guest room. Good bye, sleeper-sofa sectional. Good bye, ugly hand-me-down furniture.

All this streamlining was exhausting and yet oddly exhilarating. Hombre was antsy to get our house listed. I did not want to list it until we had cleaned and staged it. On Sunday night, beaten down by his urging and pooped from the weekend sales, I succumbed.

"Fine. List it as, 'For Sale by Owner' on Zillow. See what happens. If we don't get any action in a couple of weeks, we'll have an open house and then list it with a realtor."

We posted the same pictures that had been online when we bought the house three years ago.

12 hours later we had a request to see the house. We put them off as delicately as possible until later that week. We did the best we could with the cleaning and staging on such short notice, but it did not look like I wanted it to look. Hombre met the couple at the house. He said they weren't there long. He was not very optimistic.

The next day, the husband called with a couple of questions, which I answered, and then he said,

"We'd like to put an offer on the house, but I'm not sure how to go about it because we don't have a realtor."

"Usually, the buyer provides the contract, but I am a lawyer and I have a form contract here, if that works. I'll email it to you to have a look. Let me know what you think and we'll work from there."

(Holy shit. We are really doing this.)

I put together a contract and emailed it over. The next day, it was emailed back, completed. The offer was low, but enough that we did not lose any money. We had no commissions to pay; no financing contingency; a couple of drippy faucets and an attic fan to repair. We accepted, changing only the closing date to give us time to do work on the new house before moving.

Did this really just happen?

The kids were out of school at the end of that week.

Swim team started.

We closed on the new place and promptly went camping for four days around Father's Day.

We decided to gut the kitchen and open up the wall between the kitchen and dining room, so we spent lots of time meeting with designers and looking at cabinets and countertops. I wrote lots of big checks.

We sent both girls away to Girl Scout camp the first week of July. I packed like a mad woman, while checking in on the painters, who were hard at work. So many friends gave up precious summer days to help us pack.

We picked the girls up from camp on Friday, did laundry and re-packed to leave for Unitarian Universalist family camp on Sunday. We had booked it shortly before the moving bug bit. We had talked about going for years. The timing couldn't have been worse. We would return on the following Saturday and the movers were scheduled for 8 a.m. on that Monday. What were we thinking?

Somehow, we had an awesome time. So much tie-dye and lefty, liberal love. It was bliss.

While we were gone, the carpets had been torn out and the wood floors installed. In order to do this properly, the kitchen demo had also been done.

This meant that we were moving into a house with no functioning kitchen. Not even a sink. We did keep the fridge and the old stove for the time being. We had no washer and dryer yet. We planned to move the washer and dryer from their previous location, just inside the back door, to the basement. Both a plumber and an electrician were needed to do the hook-ups. More checks were written.

It was kind of like camping, only with beds and flush toilets. And no clean house to come home to.

Less than a week after we moved in, B was headed to a youth leadership conference in western New York state. I drove her and four other teens to Canandaigua, because, you know, I didn't have much else to do.

Since we would be tantalizingly close to Seneca Falls, NY, I decided to take A on a little "Mama and Me" road trip! We went to the Women's Rights National Historical Park, which was very cool. We walked around the town and made friends with a local gardener and then headed off to Ithaca, home of the Moosewood Restaurant.

It was a whirlwind couple of days with my favorite 11 year old. She is the best traveling companion. The scenery was beautiful, we ate good food and talked up a storm. She discovered a love for steel drums at a funky drum shop and we made lamp work glass pendants together at the Corning Glass Museum.

B arrived home a few days later, completely exhausted and filled to the brim with good ju-ju and a renewed sense of herself.

Two short weeks later, school started.

We still don't have a kitchen, but it's on its way. The house feels like "ours" and we are settling in.

It's all good.

Crazy, chaotic, exhausting and challenging, but good.