Goodbye Ovaries: Thoughts on Choices Other Than Children

After years of pain, I will say good-by to my ovaries and uterus in a few days.  It’s major surgery, and had a doctor suggested it six months ago, I would have had heart palpitations.  Now I’m ready.  Especially after that Friday where I thought the 4-hour pain pill I’d taken over twelve hours before had worn off (certainly the amount of pain suggested it had) and drank wine with dinner.  Bad, bad idea. 

Recently I told an acquaintance about the surgery and said other options existed, but because the pain had become disabling and I didn’t want children, this made the most sense.  His first response?  “You can always adopt.”  Well, sure, I could, except for the part where I don’t want children.

As a kid, I assumed I’d have children because nearly every adult I knew did.  In my twenties, I still assumed that, though I imagined it would occur at some vague future date that never grew any closer.  At 33, I dated a man I thought I would marry.  Matt and I discussed how much we might enjoy having children and how much we might enjoy not having children.  We decided to reserve a year or two together for just the two of us, then let the chips fall where they may.  Kids – great!  No kids – great! 

Matt and I broke up when I was 35.  I still felt the same.  What I wanted was a happy life, with children or without.  Five years later, my view changed.  I’d created a full, happy life, with two careers (writing and law), significant volunteer commitments, a close network of friends and family, and a home I loved.  I didn’t feel the desire to switch gears and spend the next twenty years focusing on bearing and raising children.

Sometimes I wondered if I lacked something essential because I didn’t feel devastated not being a parent.  Books and TV shows depict “childless” women in their thirties as lonely and depressed.  Also, many people express or imply I can’t be happy with my lifestyle.  Often the same person will ask me again and again if I regret not having kids.  This tempts me to ask if that person regrets having children.  The fact that I don’t do so raises an interesting point in itself.  Why is it considered okay to ask me about my personal reproductive choices, yet taboo to ask a parent the same question? 

From grade school on, my friend Julie knew she didn’t want kids.  In her twenties, she tried to get her tubes tied.  Her OB-GYN refused to do it.  She was too young, she was single, she’d never had a baby.  Julie kept asking.  By the time she reached her thirties, she must have wondered – really?  How old exactly do I need to be to be credited with knowing my own mind about whether I want to reproduce?  Finally, when she was 40 and married, a surgeon agreed to do the procedure. 

In part, I understand a doctor’s hesitancy to perform surgery that results in permanent birth control.  People do change their minds, and it’s difficult if not impossible to reverse.  But so is having a child.    

Another statement I hear is that it’s selfish to choose not to have children.  This puzzles me.  Because I have no kids, I can generally donate more time and money than many parents can to charitable causes.  Also, as a household of one, I put less wear and tear on streets and highways than does a household of 2-6 people.  On the average I pollute less and use fewer public services (such as libraries, police, or ambulance), and I don’t take advantage of public schools.  Yet every year I pay significantly more in taxes than do the households with the same income that use more services, as adults with dependent children lower their tax bills through deductions or credits.  Not only do I publicly help finance other people’s children, I do so privately as well, through decades of gifts at baby showers, baptisms, birthdays, and, eventually, weddings.  I don’t mind any of this.  One thing I agree with Hillary Clinton about is it takes a village to raise a child, and I believe our world is better when children can access education, food, and healthcare.  I also love being part of my nieces and nephews lives in particular, and enjoy celebrating their milestones as much as I can.  What seems strange to me, though, is that some people consider me selfish for doing these things.

The explanation most often given for the selfish label is that non-parents spend more money on leisure.  We often can afford to travel, attend the theater, visit fine dining restaurants, or ski more often than parents with similar incomes.  Again, this puzzles me.  Yes, I may be doing more of some things that I find fun, but I am not experiencing the joys of parenting that parents tell me they experience.  If I am selfish for doing what I enjoy, aren’t they equally selfish for doing what they enjoy?  I actually don’t think either of us is selfish, we just followed different life paths.  I don’t see any reason to denigrate or question parents’ choices, I simply don’t understand why some parents want to denigrate mine.

Why write about this?  It’s a very personal issue, as is my upcoming surgery.  But the personal really is the political.  Our nation struggles daily over abortion, contraception and women’s roles.  That our culture regularly questions an individual woman’s competence to decide whether to become pregnant, or to know whether she’s happy with her life path if that path means not having children, can’t help but inform the larger debate over women’s rights and women’s roles.  To insist that I don’t know my own mind or feelings when I say I am happy focusing on pursuits other than child-rearing implies the only real or valuable role for a woman is that of mother. 

I don’t have a perfect wrap up for this post or an answer to all the questions about women’s roles that are still being examined in our country.  But for now I’ll paraphrase Jane Austen and suggest that when a woman is asked about her reproductive choices, the questioner ought to pay her the compliment of believing her sincere, and see her as a rational woman speaking the truth from her heart.

A 2014 update -- A couple of my friends now have grandchildren & are enjoying that immensely, and I've realized that is one thing I'm sorry I missed by not having kids (though of course that doesn't guarantee grandchildren). My mom and dad had great fun with the grandkids (my brothers' children), as did I. But I'm happy with my overall decision. Interestingly, today I ran across a list I made years ago, probably when I was about 36 or 37, of the pros and cons of not having kids. The pro list was very long and anticipated all the things I enjoy about my life as it is. The con list (favoring having children) had only 3 items. The first was not having grandchildren. I hadn't realized I'd ever considered that. It's nice to know I had a pretty good sense of the pluses and minuses personal to me about children


Lisa M. Lilly is an the author of THE AWAKENING series, which is about a young woman whose mysterious pregnancy may bring the world its first female messiah -- or trigger the Apocalypse.

THE AWAKENING is available at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CDXXY0

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-awakening-lisa-lilly/1104252756?ean=2940012849618

Why I Love V.I.

A while back I suggested my book group read Tunnel Vision, one of Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawki novels. In that novel, V.I., one of the first modern female private eyes, investigates a seemingly shady charitable organization. Along with solving more than one mystery, V.I. attempts to help a homeless woman and her children. As is often the case, V.I.’s methods are unconventional, and she distrusts authority. 

I thought the social issues the book raises would be great to discuss. So I was shocked when instead, group members could not get past that they didn’t like V.I. Not like V.I.? I started reading Sara Paretsky’s novels in the late 80s. Since then, through financial ups and downs and despite the purchase of a Kindle, Sara Paretsky is the one author whose books I always buy in hardback the first day they come out. But my friends found V.I. Warshawski too abrasive, too combative, and too apt to think she knows what’s best. 

So, why do I love V.I.? 

V.I. is V.I., not Victoria Iphigenia: From the first book on, V.I. goes by V.I. in part because so often in the 80s (and beyond) people addressed women by first names in business even when their male counterparts were “Mr.” I identified with this, having worked full time at an office while I pursued fiction writing on the side. I earned a degree in Writing/English, and the company I worked for through college loved me and offered me a full time job – as a file/data entry clerk. A recent male college grad with the same degree and no job experience was hired at the same time – as a media writer. And, oh, yes, first names for the women supervisors, “Mr.” for the men.

V.I. has friends who disagree with her: One thing that bothered my book group colleagues is that V.I.’s friends are very hard on her in Tunnel Vision. Lottie, a doctor, gives free medical care to the homeless family V.I. attempts to aid, but upbraids V.I. for refusing to call the authorities about the family. V.I.’s other friends are angry when her investigation threatens to tank their business deal. I like that V.I. is sure enough of herself to have friends who think differently than she does and who say so. It’s easy to have friends who always tell us how great we are, and of course that’s part of why we need and want friends. But it takes a strong, confident person to respect and keep friends who disagree. 

V.I. has friends:  I get so tired of reading books where single women characters are portrayed as having lonely, empty lives solely because they are single. In one mystery I read by another author, the main character comments on how she has no pets, has never decorated her apartment, and doesn’t even own a plant because she’s never married. She looks longingly at a nice restaurant and thinks how great it would be to go there but she hasn’t had a date in five years. By this time, I thought, what, the restaurant prohibits two women friends from dining together? Only couples allowed? And, good lord, go buy some plants already. Or does the nursery and craft store make you show a wedding ring before you can get a ficus? I love that V.I. has good friends she’s known for years, is always meeting new people, has a family-like relationship with her neighbor Mr. Contreras, and is as devoted to her cousin Petra – who is often annoying but finally seems to be maturing – as if Petra were her daughter. And V.I. not only has friends, she is fiercely loyal to them. When Mr. Contreras worries about paying his real estate taxes, she vows to help him, despite not knowing how she’ll pay her own bills. Which brings me to my next reason to love V.I:

V.I. has a real life: V.I. not only must solve mysteries, but run her business. When her office floods, she has to figure out how to sort through the paperwork and restore her computers.  When she gets in trouble with the law, she calls her lawyer, then needs to pay his bill. She has clients who pay well but make unreasonable demands. She has clients whose cases she takes to heart who can’t pay her a cent. And she has dogs to run and feed every day. 

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V.I. has a healthy view of romantic relationships: Over the years and the mysteries, V.I. has had a few serious relationships and has been single for long periods. Sara Paretsky describes so well the pluses and drawbacks of being single. The joy of making your own choices and fashioning your life around what works best for you, the beauty of solitude, the practical difficulties of being single in a world of couples (like when V.I. comments on how her refrigerator is empty because no one shopped), and the occasional loneliness and longing for a connection with a romantic partner. Also, V.I. knows how to be in a relationship without losing her sense of who she is, and she has friends who can do the same. 

V.I. cares about social issues: Perhaps this topic should be “Sara Paretsky cares about social issues.” Sara Paretsky’s books always address larger issues, such as women’s roles in society, how we treat the mentally ill, homelessness, abortion. This may lose some readers who don’t agree with her views. But whether or not I agree with Paretsky, she always tells a story that matters.

I know she’s a fictional character, but V.I. Warshawski challenges me to take chances and do my best. Seeing V.I. work for herself all these years helped prompt me to start my own solo law practice after years at a large firm. And her creator, Sara Paretsky, inspired me to write the kind of book I like to read – a thriller with a female protagonist, despite that most thrillers are by and about men. Every time I read a new Sara Paretsky book, it pushes me to try to create characters readers will love the way I love V.I. Author/philosopher Ayn Rand once described the proper purpose of fiction as depicting life as it might be and ought to be.  For me, V.I. is what a good friend – and a good person – might be and ought to be, and I hope always will be.

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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of occult thrillers THE AWAKENING (Book 1) and THE UNBELIEVERS (Book 2 of The Awakening series), short story collection THE TOWER FORMERLY SEARS AND TWO OTHER TALES OF URBAN HORROR, and numerous poems, short stories, and articles. She is also an attorney.

Follow her on Twitter:  @lisamlilly

Check out The Awakening series.

Falling is Part of the Practice

Every morning (okay, about 5 mornings out of 7), I practice yoga.  It’s the only exercise I’ve managed to stick with.  I think it’s because I can do it in my pajamas.  I’ve tried joining health clubs, but as soon as I need to take any extra step to work out, like pack a workout bag, go somewhere special, or put on gym shoes, the odds of it actually happening plummet.   Rolling out the yoga mat in my living room, though, I can manage.

I also love that yoga is so laid back.  I’ve taken a few classes, I’ve practiced on my own, and for the last four years I’ve relied on a set of DVDs.  In one of the sequences with a challenging – for me anyway – balancing pose, the narrator says not to worry about falling because “falling is part of the practice.”

What a wonderful philosophy.  Author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series, Robert Kiyosaki, says that one of the reasons schools are so bad at helping people succeed is that they teach us to be afraid to fail or make mistakes.  We are rewarded for doing well on tests, we learn to despair over wrong answers.  And while this at times might motivate us to learn, it also discourages us from trying new things.  If you’ve never done something before, odds are, you’re going to make mistakes.  You might even fail. 

About five years ago, I decided I wanted to start my own law practice.  I’d been working at a large firm for seven years, and I liked it, but I wanted to be my own boss.  A lot of lawyers I knew wanted to do the same.  The biggest thing stopping them was fear.  And there are a lot of things to fear – not being able to find enough business to pay the rent, not knowing what you’re doing well enough to be out there by yourself, not being able to find another job if your firm goes under.  Which is to say, the big fear is failure, and having to admit it to yourself and others.  If you never take a chance, you can always think that if and when you do, it will be fabulous. 

I see this in my writing life, too.  Some gifted writers never submit their work anywhere, or independently publish it, for fear of rejection.  If they never put their writing in front of anyone, no one can ever tell them it’s no good.

Over the years, I’ve made lots of mistakes.  And I have a file cabinet and several email folders full of rejections.  One of my favorites is for my novel The Awakening, which I eventually independently published through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  An editor at a women’s fiction publishing house told me, “I don’t think anyone wants to read about babies being killed,” though no babies are killed in the book.  Another favorite, for an entirely different reason, is a detailed email from an editor at a publishing house that publishes thrillers.  He read the entire manuscript, and while he didn’t offer to publish it, he did take time to tell me what he liked and what he didn’t like, and he particularly said I needed to pick up the pace.  I thought he was wrong.  I set the book aside for different reasons, mainly that I did open my own law practice.  I made plenty of mistakes, including trying to pitch for business without preparing enough for the meeting, and taking on cases that couldn’t possibly pay for themselves.  Even so, the practice has been running successfully for three and a half years.  I love being my own boss, I enjoy my what I do, and overall I work fewer hours and still earn a good living, which is exactly what I wanted.

When people didn’t hire me in my law practice, which I could have seen as a failure, I always learned something valuable.  Sometimes it was that a certain type of case or company wasn’t a good fit for me, so I shouldn't spend more time pursuing that kind of work.  Other times, I needed to improve how I presented myself.  Sometimes a client hired me, and I later realized we'd both made a mistake.  Not every lawyer, regardless of legal skills, is right for every client.  As to writing, collecting all those rejections meant my work was out there, which meant I did get pieces published, including short stories, poems, and legal articles.  From the women’s fiction editor, I learned that women’s fiction is not my target market.  And when I picked up my manuscript again after my years “off” to get my practice well underway, I realized the editor who published thrillers was right.  I needed to pick up the pace.  I used his comments as a guide and revised and cut, often editing out favorite passages.  (I read once that in suspense or thriller novels, any time the character sits and thinks, it should be cut.  Good advice.)   Imagine how thrilled I was to see Amazon readers calling my book a “page-turner.”   I’m convinced I wouldn’t be getting those reviews now if I hadn’t gotten that rejection.

Before I published through Amazon, I thought about sending the revised manuscript back to the editor who’d commented, if I could track him down.  But I’d read a lot about authors who did well publishing independently, and I decided to take a chance.  I’ve been happy so far going it on my own in my law firm, so why not try with my writing as well?   How will that ultimately work out?  I’ll let you know.  In the meantime, I’ll keep writing and handling my cases and, no doubt, sometimes falling.  It’s all part of the practice.

Lisa M. Lilly

Author of The Awakening ($2.99)

A mysterious pregnancy. A disturbing stranger. The fate of the world.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CDXXY0

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-awakening-lisa-lilly/1104252756?ean=2940012849618

It's Not The Coffee

It started during my first year at a large law firm in Chicago’s Sears Tower.  The Starbucks there, furnished with gleaming wood tables and chairs and a few armchairs to one side, occupies a corner of the Tower’s first floor.  I usually worked weekdays from about 7:45 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. with a half hour lunch at my desk, then another four to six hours on the weekends.  I don't drink coffee, but when I was especially busy, I stopped in Starbucks in the morning.  I drank Chai Lattes, loving the sweet, foamy taste, while I stole 15 minutes out of the day to read for fun rather than for work.  Sometimes that was the only time I relaxed the entire week.  The partners rarely wandered into Starbucks, and most associate attorneys, unlike me, preferred starting later and working later than I did.  Now when I pass through the Sears Tower (or the Willis Tower as it’s currently called), I peek into Starbucks, remembering how lovely those few moments felt.  And feeling relieved I rarely have that kind of schedule now.

Now I have my own law practice.  When I started it, I resolutely marched past each Starbucks in my path.  I’d set aside funds to keep me going until my practice got on its feet, but I felt too cautious to spend on unnecessary drinks.  When I got my first check from my first client, though, I deposited it in the bank across from my office, then walked to Starbucks on Monroe and LaSalle and ordered a Chai Latte for the first time in months.  So sweet and pumpkin-spicy.  That’s still my choice when I’ve finished a grueling project, had a particularly good month, or hit a sales goal for my novel, but it’s never quite matched how wonderful it tasted that day. 

Starbucks is also my expanded office.  I share a suite with 3 other attorneys, two of whom tend to shout across the hall to one another.  That isn’t so bad, but when they talk in the office next to mine, they seem unaware that they are only two feet from one another and speak at the same volume they use for across-the-hall conversations.  For the first time in my life, I understand the phrase “I can’t hear myself think.”  If both are in and are conversing, I’ll often print whatever brief I’m drafting or cases I’m reading and walk to a Starbucks to work.  And I have a choice of views – the one in the Chase Bank building looks out on the plaza with Chagall’s Four Seasons wall and offers a bubbling fountain in summer and sparks of holiday lights in winter.  The one on LaSalle doesn’t have the same type of view, but I love the outdoor seating in the summer and most of the spring and fall.  This is especially nice for me because when I worked in the Sears Tower I rarely actually went outside the Tower until I left for the night.

I use Starbucks as a second home office, too.  The one near my home has a long table with connections for laptops.  While I usually like writing in silence, now and then I just want to be around other people.  Even if I don’t talk with anyone, I hear their voices and don’t feel so much like I’m closeted away alone writing while everyone else is out in the world.  Sometimes, too, I concentrate better with activity around me.  Also, in my own study at home, I start thinking that maybe I ought to do something about the laundry overflowing onto the closet floor, or pay attention to my parakeet (who likes to run across the keyboard), or make those phone calls I’ve been neglecting.  At Starbucks, I can’t do any of those things.  It’s me and the laptop, and the words flow through my fingers onto the screen without pause.  My favorite times are when I’m so absorbed in the story and characters that when someone asks if they can use the chair next to me, I’m startled because I’ve forgotten I was in a coffee place rather than in whatever scene I’m focused on.

I’ve never worked at Starbucks.  And I don’t own stock in it, but sometimes I think I should.  Because the people who run it seem to have found a key to what makes a successful business.  It’s not so much the product offered that generates sales, it’s how it makes people feel.  So it makes sense to me that what I love to do most of all in Starbucks is read.  The books I love are the ones where I feel what the characters feel, love them or hate them, root for them or grip the book cover for fear their dangerous plans will succeed.  They’re books that, when I close them, I feel a sense of loss and wish I could start all over again without remembering what happened, so I can experience everything anew.  I buy the book for the experience, just as I go to Starbucks for the experience, not the coffee. 

That being said, a Chai Latte to go is pretty good, too.

Lisa M. Lilly

Author of The Awakening  ($2.99)

Will Tara Spencer give birth to the first female messiah?  Or trigger the Apocalypse?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CDXXY0

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-awakening-lisa-lilly/1104252756?ean=2940012849618

Joss Whedon and The Power of Myth

I read Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth years before the first Buffy episode aired on TV.  I’d just begun reading about the origins of religion and was struggling with learning that the gospels were not as historically accurate as I’d been taught.  Intellectually, I grasped Campbell’s message that just because the stories or myths we are told did not literally happen does not take away their value.  (I’m very roughly paraphrasing.  It’s been a long time since I read it.)  But my many disagreements with the Catholic Church, including over its treatment of women, left me less ready to find the underlying meaning in the stories.  And my only other association with what I considered myths were books of Greek and Roman myths I’d read in high school.  I enjoyed them, but didn’t see much to emulate there or much that would help me in life, other than the lesson that the gods will mess with you whenever they can out of sheer caprice or to forward their own interests.  Years later, a cousin gave me a book of myths geared toward women (Women Who Run With the Wolves).  But those stories did not speak to me.  I found them a little too abstract and purposefully deep.  Plus, very much an urban dweller, I found it difficult to relate to some of the tales, which seemed to have little connection to my day to day life.

Then came Buffy.  At first, the mythological aspects didn’t really hit me.  Obviously, I knew they were there – a chosen one, the only girl in the world to fight the demons and save the world.  But I’ve always liked stories with a great deal on the line, often with ordinary people in extraordinary and even supernatural experiences.  That’s what I enjoy reading and writing.  Still, the first couple years I watched Buffy I didn’t think much about that.  I was working full time and attending law school in the evenings.  All I knew was for 45 minutes once a week – when Chicago’s WGN didn’t pre-empt the show for a Cubs game – I escaped to another world.

I rewatched the series on DVD and listened to the commentaries, and I thought more about the themes, even as I still loved mix of humor and horror, quips and authentic emotion.  When my 11-year-old niece died of a brain tumor, for many weeks I woke during the dead of night.  Unable to sleep, I watched Buffy episodes until I fell asleep on the couch.   I did the same years later when my parents were killed by an intoxicated driver.  It brought me the comfort.  I liked the main characters.  I knew what would happen at the end of each episode.  And the series offered some meaning in a chaotic world.  Not the meaning that some type of God would make everything right when so clearly it wasn’t.  But the meaning that there are things worth living for and fighting for, no matter how much is out of our control, how much suffering there is in the world, or how senseless evil seems.

Buffy’s themes (and later Angel’s and Firefly’s) particularly struck a chord for me because I am not religious, yet I feel that doing good in the world and doing the right thing is important, even essential, to life.  Before Joss’s shows, I couldn’t quite articulate the source of what was right without religion. 

In the series, Buffy is told she’s the chosen one, but there’s no threat or promise of hell or heaven to induce her to act.  She can choose not to slay.  And in the end of Season 1, she does.  In the face of a prophecy that she will die if she goes underground to stop an evil vampire – the Master – from rising, she quits.   

After she decides this, her best girlfriend Willow walks into a schoolroom where vampires killed students she knew, smearing blood all over.  Willow says something like, “It felt like it was their world, not ours.”  Buffy tells her friend not to worry.  Buffy then goes to meet the Master.  He kills her, but her friends revive her, and she ultimately vanquishes him.  Nothing required Buffy to take up the mantle of protector again, but she didn’t want to live in the world that would otherwise belong to the vampires and monsters, didn’t want to abandon her friends when there was any chance, however slight, she could change things. 

The next season, Buffy fears her efforts are fruitless when her mother points out that no matter how many vampires Buffy slays, more always appear.  She doesn’t have a master plan, she can’t stop the evil.  Are they running out of vampires? Joyce asks.  Buffy’s partner in the fight, Angel, tells a depressed Buffy that they don’t fight because they’ll win.  They fight because there are things worth fighting for.

To me, this seems to be the only answer.  In our world, there will be fatal brain tumors, racism, drunk drivers killing themselves and others.  There will be lesser and yet still painful things to live with – loss of love, struggles with (or without) money, career obstacles.  We fight not because we know we’ll win, not because this world will ever be perfect, but because there are things worth fighting for.  People we love, causes that matter, small ways we can make the world a little bit better, or at least try to.  As Spike says in the Buffy musical – life isn’t bliss, life is just this, it’s living.  And, like Buffy, even if something or someone else tells us there’s no point, we can act in ways designed to create the world we want to live in.

Lisa M. Lilly

Author of The Awakening  ($2.99)

Will Tara Spencer’s mysterious pregnancy bring the world its first female messiah?  Or trigger the Apocalypse?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CDXXY0

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-awakening-lisa-lilly/1104252756?ean=2940012849618

See Jane Get Married

The past three years have been busy, maybe a little too busy.  I started my own law firm, published my “first” novel (first published -- I wrote several before this one), and stood up in two traditional weddings. 

After eight years as a lawyer, I decided to start my own practice and spent a year planning it.  Two friends who’d gone on their own right out of law school offered a huge amount of advice and encouragement.  Some people I’d only met once or twice did things like taking me to lunch during my first months when money was tight, inviting me to speak at events that could result in business or contacts for me, and suggesting me to clients when matters arose in my area. 

My friend Jane surprised me.  A lawyer herself, I’d thought she’d be interested in what was involved in opening the firm and/or would celebrate with me, and she worked only a couple miles away.  But it was a busy time for her, and plans to come by for a few hours as I moved into my new space turned instead into a date to hang artwork on my office walls, which got rescheduled indefinitely.  I hung the paintings a month or so later.  Eventually she stopped by once to see my office suite.  Jane’s been a wonderful friend over the years, and I chalked up the lack of any particular notice of this part of my life as reflecting that she had no plans to do anything similar.  Overall, the people most interested in what I was doing were those who dreamed of working for themselves, just as for years I’d peppered solo lawyers and businesspeople I knew with questions about how they’d started out.

Similarly, when my first novel came out this summer, some friends bought it immediately and called or emailed to tell me it had them up all night reading  – something every writer loves to hear.  Others wished me well, but never mentioned buying or reading the book.  Not everyone loves to read or is fascinated by the writing process, and I never expected all my friends to share my lifelong passion.

When my mom was alive, I used to joke that I could win the Nobel Prize and she’d still say, “don’t you think it’s time you got married?”  Until the two weddings I mentioned, though, one of which was Jane’s, I hadn’t had much experience with traditional weddings.  So I didn’t realize how popular culture carries out my mother’s viewpoint.      

While career achievements require no formal recognition under the etiquette rules, being in a wedding party generally demands substantial time and money, even during a recession.  (One website I read had no sympathy for those who’ve fallen on hard times, sternly advising that if you’re not sure you can afford the financial commitment, you must respectfully decline to be a bridesmaid at the outset.)  In addition to buying and wearing the requisite never-to-be-worn again dresses and shoes, bridesmaids attend and sometimes help plan and pay for multiple showers (organized by categories such as bride’s family vs. groom’s family vs. parents’ friends vs. bride-and-groom friends) and numerous other pre-wedding events, such as engagement parties, housewarmings (if the couple moves in together before the wedding), bachelorette outings, and shopping/spa days.  (I personally drew the line at running a 5K wearing matching T-shirts.) 

Happily, my writing and law practice have gone well, so I didn’t need to back out of my bridesmaid commitments.  As I scanned down bridal gift registries over the last couple years, though, I couldn’t help thinking how lovely it would be to register for a business shower.  Imagine instead of spending reserve funds or borrowing to launch a new firm, simply registering for a deluxe scanner here, a computer table there, and the latest release of QuickBooks.  Or, for a writer, requesting a graphic designer’s services for cover art, free website development, or gift cards toward creating a book trailer.  And what if instead of your business incurring the expense of hosting open houses and networking events to make contacts, friends and family got together and threw a year’s worth of parties for you so everyone would know about and support your new endeavor?  Or even if every friend or family member who sends a congratulations card for an engagement or attends a shower and wedding made a similar showing of support when a woman opened an art gallery?  Not only might there be more women pursuing satisfying careers, the whole economy might get a boost from all those new businesses.

Alas, when I mentioned these ideas to a male friend, he said, “What have you been smoking?  A business shower?  That’s crazy.”

Crazy maybe, but a girl can dream.

Lisa M. Lilly
Author of The Awakening

Tara Spencer’s mysterious pregnancy alters her life forever.  Will it also change the fate of the world?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005CDXXY0

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-awakening-lisa-lilly/1104252756?ean=2940012849618

How Buffy and Joss Whedon Helped Me Understand My Mother

When I turned 21, I got my ears pierced.  Most of my friends had pierced theirs in high school or even grade school.  When I came home, my mother – who was 42 years older than me and grew up in a different time – frowned and said, “Only cheap women pierce their ears.” 

For much of my life, I believed the difficulties my mother and I had relating to one another were due to the over forty-year age difference between us.  Most of my friends had grandparents who were my parents’ ages.  Now I feel like our disconnect was less that the world changed so much during the those forty-plus years, and more my difficulty seeing my mother as a anyone other than a mother, and my mother’s trouble seeing me as anyone other than her daughter.

Joss Whedon helped me with that, and I will always be grateful to him.  First, his shows revolve around the family we choose being as important and as nurturing, if not more so, than the family to whom we belong by birth.  Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, all choose to bond and be there for one another literally to the death.  Same for Angel’s friends and the crew of Serenity.  Giles is more of a father to Buffy than her father was, at least during the time period that we see her.

I found this reassuring.  Our culture still tends to equate family values with only one type of family – mom, dad, children.  Joss’s shows told me I am not the only one who sometimes feels out of place within my given family, who might rather be with my friends than at the relatives’ Thanksgiving Day.  (“That’s nice that you opened your own law firm, dear.  Did you hear Susie married a millionaire?  Maybe someday you’ll meet someone like him.”)  So instead of trying get my parents to be different types of people, and vice versa, why not seek out the support and friendship I hoped for through other friends and mentors? 

At the same time, Joss helped me appreciate the family I had.  I was in my late twenties when Buffy came on the air, probably closer to the age of Joyce – Buffy’s mother – than to Buffy.  Sometimes Joyce had no idea what was going on in Buffy’s life or heart.  And sometimes Joyce said exactly the wrong thing to Buffy (for instance, that Buffy’s thing, whatever it was, got her kicked out of school, or that she wanted a normal daughter and what she got was a slayer).  Yet, I felt certain Joyce loved Buffy with all her heart.

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Even Giles works against Buffy at times.  In Season 7, he keeps Buffy busy training while another of Buffy’s supposed allies is trying to kill her one-time lover and strongest ally Spike.  In another episode of the same season, Giles joins with Buffy’s other friends in undermining her role as leader and banishing her from her own home.  Buffy makes her own mistakes through the show, including taking Giles for granted and pushing him to the edges of her life, and ignoring his (good) advice.  Nonetheless, they love each other.

At the end of Season 2, Joyce tells Buffy if she walks out the door, not to come back.  Buffy leaves because she needs to save the world.  And Buffy takes Joyce at her word, boarding a bus out of town and not returning for many months.  On her return, to justify running away, Buffy says that Joyce told her not to come back.  And Joyce says, “Well, guess what, Mom’s not perfect.  I handled it badly.” 

That moment resonated with me.  My mother and I had a falling out when I was in my twenties, mainly over my religious views, or lack thereof, that lasted years.  I couldn’t understand how my mother’s religious views could be more important to her than me.  Perhaps she felt the same about me.

A decade later and about twelve years before my mother died, I watched Joyce and Buffy and it hit me that my mother, like Joyce and like me, was a person, not just a mother.  A women with her own fears, doubts, issues and flaws.  Someone who might say or do something out of anger or fear or self-doubt and regret it later.

I explore these themes in my own writing.  How parents and children react to one other when their convictions and their missions in life conflict.  What happens when we just can’t accept what someone we love says or the path that person takes, no matter how much we want to support that person.

Joss Whedon didn’t give me the answers to how to handle these types of conflicts, or provide the perfect recipe for family relationships.  But he did give me characters I admire who meant to act for the best and sometimes didn’t, who didn’t want to hurt one another and sometimes did, and who loved one another and were good people for all of that.

So, Joss, if I knew you, I would say thank you.  Thank you for helping me feel that choosing my circle of family meant just as much as anyone else’s traditional family.  And for helping see my mom, before her death, as a whole person, not solely my mother.  And, finally, for helping me realize that just because someone who loves me is not perfect or cannot always meet me half way – and just because I disappoint someone by who I am or what I do – does not mean the love is any less.

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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the occult thrillers The Awakening and The Unbelievers, Books 1 and 2 in the Awakening series. A short film of the title story of her collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror was recently produced under the title Willis Tower. If you'd like to be notified of new releases and read reviews on M.O.S.T. (Mystery, Occult, Suspense, Thriller), click here to join her emaillist.