It's a Sassafras Lemongrass Kinda Year!

I have a blog confession to make right from the start. I had another blog....Friends Dine Free....on that other popular blog site, but I never used it.

I had one friend read it. Yep, count it...ONE! I guess that may have been because I only invited one friend to even see it.

When I started out blogging I toyed with several titles, but they were either in use or seemed lame. I liked Sassafras Lemongrass right out of the gate. It was a bit eccentric with a whimsically off-beat undertone. Tangy with an underbite of zing. I asked my guy what he thought of the name and as much as he gets me - he just couldn't wrap his male cerebral-ness around it - so in a moment of title desperation I typed in Friends Dine Free and it was forever sealed in blogdom. Friends Dine Free seemed catchy. It was kind-of quirky and hey, I love to have friends over for a bit of nosh and a cuppa'; so it all seemed good.

The deal is...I NEVER wrote on that blog. Outside of the first entry, I do mean N-E-V-E-R. Not for not trying....I'd open my account and fiddle about with the look. Really... I just wanted an outlet. A place to let my brain and heart get out for a little jog around the block. Instead I felt pressure. You'd think I was trying to win a Newberry Award or that I needed to create a dissertation to save my soul with all the pressure I felt. It just killed the joy! Pretty soon the blog was like a symbol floating out there in megabyte world that said "great start - poor follow through".

When 2009 rolled around I made a stellar decision...I do want to blog. So...it's time to let the cat out of the bag, let the laughter roll, let the silly be OK ....I like Sassafras Lemongrass. I am not sure how a nonsensical bit-let of a phrase can make me giggle, but it does; so Sassafras it is.

I think the title is symbolic of where I am at internally these days. Sorting out so I can define the last half of my life. I am 40 this year and I feel like I am in a Robert Frost moment standing at a merge trying to figure out which road to dance down. Frankly; sometimes this makes me agitated! Looking forward sometimes requires looking back. It means staring at my choices and conceptions, missed and accurate, about me, my skills, my dreams, my relationship with God and either own em' or chuck em'.

For too long I viewed myself as a "type A" personality (not the highly obsessed, anal, incapable of relaxation part, but the highly driven part). In about the last 4 years it has been dawning on me that I don't really fit the script. I became a "type a" in order to survive my childhood.

In college I was part of a small, but elite group know as Dorm Supervisor. I am not joking when I say elite. Outside of jockdom this was "the" group to be in. The application and interview process was intensely personal and somehow I fooled em' all and got the job. We'd meet once a week as a group and call it class. We did all sorts of feel good type activities and got credit for it. Meyers-Briggs was a popular test in the day so we took it at as a group. When we got the results we broke into types.

I stood alone in my group.
My best friend stood alone in her group.

I think I was a ENTJ and she was a ENTF or visa versa. All the others - NOT JOKING -ALL were clustered into about 4 other groups. It was the first time I felt justified in feeling just slightly off center and a little different. I wanted to pull my drum out and beat it loud.

I've taken that test several times since as I've metamorphised into adulthood and I am not an ENTJ anymore. The best way to describe me is" type M" - Just Me. When I have that completely figured out I'll be walking on the other side of eternity and not really care. What I am most aware of is that typecasting can land a person in a whole lot of assumption about who they need to be and act. Great for the movies, not so good for dreaming and living authentically.

SO - join me, enjoy me or think me ridiculous, but Ms. Sassafras is here to stay (well for as long as I decide that I want to write).