The truth about people is that most of them don’t like change. I’d even go as far to say that some people run from it like a plague and even the slightest onset of evolution causes panic and sweaty palms. I am not one of those people. I change. I thrive on change. Being stagnant ruins me. My greatest fear is actually being able to correctly forecast where I will be in five years. Those who have been a witness to my life long enough can attest to the fact that from year to year my life alters in ways that takes most people years of safe, healthy evolution. I’m not saying that how I am is good, it is just how I am. I need to be growing, learning about myself, pushing myself or I will fall apart. 

So what is one to do when their life is continually shifting, yet the people in it do not shift or grow in tandem? The hard to say, harder to hear truth is that those relationships naturally dissolve. We have less to say to one another. We have less understanding of one another. People try to maintain what they know, their normalcy, and that inhibits growth. Mine and theirs.

 What I have started to see in my own life is that the people watching me shed my skin become unnerved and as I emerge as something, someone different, they start to grasp onto an idea. An understanding of who I have been in the past, a desperation for consistency in a friendship or relationship that has long been inconsistent. 

In the past five years alone I have gone through internal changes and external expansions that have left me different. The roles I have adopted, mother, wife, writer, those have left enough of an impact to unravel those who felt as if they knew me. 

My point is minor and long winded but it is this—-people are in our lives for periods of time. Lovers, friends, they each come with varying hourglasses. Their impacts potentially last longer than their presence. There is nothing shameful in outgrowing people, there is even less guilt in eventually outgrowing who you used to be. Embrace it. 

A growing trend of the new tech-savvy parenting generation is securing e-mail by the time baby comes home from the hospital. An estimated 10% of parents have registered an email address on their baby’s behalf and an astonishing 92% of children age 2 have some spectrum of web presence via YouTube, Instagram and quickly growing in popularity a baby twitter account (@sarcasticbaby @whenbabiestweet for some giggling). So if you haven’t already, get to your email host of choice and sign up the newest addition to your family email and let the creative memory making begin!

Share The Address With Family & Friends

Choose wisely and be realistic about who would genuinely like to receive updates from your child and who will only tolerate them for a brief period before marking it as spam. Rebecca, 29 from New York sent out her daughter’s first email when they arrived home from the hospital. The response was so positive that we kept it going. “Our family loves our weekly updates about Eisley. Sometimes we send it as if she wrote it but most of the time it is a collection of photos and milestones to keep distant relatives and friends from feeling as if they’re missing out.”

Snap Photos, Videos & Send

As most parents know first hand the photo opportunities our children present daily are endless. Not only are we taking more photos now than our parents ever did but with photo editing programs, our pictures are pretty close to perfect. Alyssa, 34 from Chicago complained, “with my first child we had hundreds and hundreds of printed photos, each one just adorable and a keeper. Only a few ended up in frames but the rest were shuttled around every time we moved. Who has time or energy to keep up with all those photos and organize an album or a scrapbook? If I have extra time to do those, I will but in the meantime I am loving snapping a quick shot of Aiden’s first taste of sweet potatoes and sending it to his email.”

We will still have the embarrassing photos to show our children’s future spouses, the only difference now is they will be cropped, rid of red-eye and in an email folder called “Bath time photos year 1”. Do the same for videos, first bath, first steps and first bike ride. You will be surprised at how easily these irreplaceable videos are misplaced. Start shooting now and when your little one is not so little, they will love that their first laugh is so easily accessible.

To: Baby  Love: Mom & Dad

When I found out I was pregnant, after yelling and crying and sharing the news with my husband who then did the same – I went out and bought a journal. Specifically for that period of my life with the hope that one day my son would read it and know who I was when I was getting ready for him to come into my life. Now that he is here, the journal is full of photos and snips of hair and a hospital bracelet but I still want to share the stories and experiences we have with him—-I just don’t want to have a library of journals to haul around. The first night Noah slept all the way through the night, I didn’t sleep at all. I wrote him a letter the next morning to congratulate him on such a big step but I also wrote to him that I checked on him every hour to make sure he was breathing and warm enough and comfortable. Knowing that he will read that email when he is older, among the hundreds more I am sure to send, makes me feel like even though he is still so young, he won’t miss out on these memories.

You’ve got mail!

Christina, 33 from Greenville, NC has at least 16 shoeboxes filled to the brim with birthday cards and letters from her family over the years. “I could never bring myself to get rid of them because they were all so special but I just don’t have the space to do the same with my kids unless I’m willing to admit that I’m a hoarder.” So Christina began to encourage family members to send birthday letters via email. “At this point, my kids are in elementary and middle school and they have tons of loving and encouraging emails to look through from the people who know and love them. It is very empowering and it makes them feel special.” With programs like myscriptfont and fontifier, you are even able to write using your own handwriting so you don’t miss out on the personal touch of letter writing.

They Made It All By Themselves

You might not think so right now but you will begin to run out of storing spaces for all of the hand molds, the homemade cards, the drawings that started out on the fridge but are now hiding under the mattress. These little creations will grow to astonishing numbers and though you’d love to keep them for when they grow up, casting clay just won’t hold for decades. Instead why don’t you snap a video of them making their first handprints? Start recording when they hold out their glitter covered sticky hands to present mom with a Mother’s Day card. Send the videos with a specific title you can search for years later and let those captured memories take up space in the World Wide Web, there is enough room to go around.

What Kids & Adults Should Know About St. Patrick’s Day

From the age of 3 I ran around excitedly pinching both family and strangers for their lack of green attire. When March 17^th rolled around, I began the endless search for a heaping pot of gold. Had I known then what I know now, I could have saved myself quite a bit of time peeking around corners looking for leprechauns and running out of breath chasing rainbows that never seemed to have an end.

Though the traditions are fun and have kept many of us entertained year after year as children and adults, the history of the holiday is often forgotten…or in my case, only discovered now!

Who was St. Patrick?

Though often portrayed as a caricature of a redheaded elf with a green polyester suit, the real Saint Patrick looked more like a white-haired, blue-eyed Jesus. Rumor has it that actually not born in Ireland and given the name Maewyn Succat. Clearly I am not the only one who had trouble pronouncing that name because he later changed it to Patrick when he became a priest. St. Patrick wasn’t always a saint though; he was kidnapped at the age of 16 by pirates (how’s that for a combined bedtime story and history lesson) and sold into slavery in Ireland. When he escaped, he turned his focus to Christianity and continued to spread knowledge of the faith throughout Ireland. He is rumored to have died on March 17^th and though that is yet to be proven, that date was chosen to celebrate his life.

Four-leaf Clovers and the Shamrock

A green, soft, four petal flower has become the symbol of this holiday. Historically, the shamrock was traditionally worn in Ireland as a symbol of the cross. Now it is viewed and worn as a good luck charm. Because these are so rare, the Irish believed that each clover represents a helper. 1) hope 2) happiness 3) love 4) faith.

Why do we wear green?

You might be surprised to learn that the original color of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations was blue! Over the years the color green began being associated with the Irish because of the bright lush green landscape that cascades along the emerald isle and also the color of shamrocks. What started as a simple clover placed on a lapel to show Irish pride soon evolved into head to toe green garb as a sign of identification and pride for the Irish during this celebration.

Leprechauns, who are they and what do they want?

These magical fairy people come from centuries of myths and Irish tales. They’re known to spend their days making shoes and storing all of their coins in a pot hidden at the end of a rainbow. Known for mischief making, these little guys are said to be on the hunt every March 17^th for those not wearing green. Traditionally wearing the color green is said to make one invisible to leprechauns so if you lack in green wardrobe, they’ll come after you. This is an entirely American tradition and like many American traditions, has no logical history and was solely created to keep things light and fun. A pinch is the reminder that there are leprechauns about and even the slightest hint of green will keep you invisible to them.

So while we have all come a long way from the original story of Maewyn Succat, there is still reason to celebrate. Put on your green wigs, dress head to toe in emerald, drink olive and lime tinted beverages and walk through grassy streamers and confetti covered streets. Just remember that we do all of it to honor the life of a man who, though born British, kidnapped by pirates and enslaved for years, became the icon of a country he didn’t belong to and gave them hope for centuries.  

My generation is fucked. Correction, the women of my generation are fucked. We are all held to the standards of the women both prior and post women’s liberation. And that, my friends, does not leave one feeling very liberated. The battle of the sexes is over. And guess what? No one won. Has anyone ever considered that Rosie the Riveter might not be showing off her biceps (that likely took weeks longer to form than her male companion) but preparing to punch someone in the face? Exhaustion tends to have that effect on people. 

Suzenne Venker said it best in a post she wrote for Fox News (I stumbled upon it, I swear) “Feminism didn’t result in equality between the sexes – it resulted in mass confusion.”

She is absolutely right that the same rise against the system that earned us so much freedom and respect also stripped away the respected roles a woman once owned. 

I wish that I could take care of my son 24 hours a day, make my husband a dinner from scratch and sew all the holes that appear (oddly too frequently) in his shirts. But I can’t. That isn’t true, I am an impressive cook and a capable seamstress but I won’t do it because, What is this? 1940?  It has been engrained in my mind since birth that I can do anything that men do, in fact, I might be able to do it better so why would I settle for anything less? That motherhood is seen as “anything less” is shocking to anyone who has pushed a human being out of their body, or cared for a child through a week long flu and 104* fever. It is the hardest job in the world with the smallest amount of respect in return. 

So rather than be capable of being content as a Mrs. and a mommy, I have to maintain a career, host girl’s night, know how to make a soufflé, sew back the missing buttons, force myself to go workout because god forbid I am not back in pre-baby form by the 3month postpartum mark, and keep my sex life hot. Oh and the 4 inch heels I wear with the baby bjorn? Those are just to broadcast to the world, I am doing it all. Not without daily guilt. Not without outside pressure to place my priorities in a different order. Not without constantly comparing myself to this mom or that writer or the perfect wife. Was that the point of our battle for equality? To feel like what we are doing is never enough? To hold ourselves to the same standards as men who, I’m sorry, do not and will never have the same expectations pushed on them from birth? Why are we acting like equality, is attainable. Are we forgetting the basic biological differences that change the game entirely? 

“Men and women are equal, but different. They’ve each been blessed with amazing and unique qualities that they bring to the table. Isn’t it time we stopped fussing about who brought what and simply enjoy the feast?”

Instead woman are now taking offices that men once occupied, we still cry in public (thanks to the combination of PMS and the encouragement from our parents to express our emotions) but the difference now is that men don’t offer their handkerchiefs. We occupy 48% of the chairs at a conference table but men no longer offer their seats or (sigh) stand up when we enter a room. We are pushing for equality but what defines equality? I think the opportunity to pursue what men do, equality in respect and pay for the jobs both sexes do would be an equality I am content with. But do we have to sacrifice the importance of our natural abilities? Do we have to do ALL that women do AND all that men do to be considered equal? 

If that is the case, strap on your heels and get ready because we have a long, exhausting journey ahead. 

With the help of unrelenting paparazzi and the fame appetite of any Kardashian, media has turned celebrity into an obsession. For most unhealthy obsessions, there is a treatment plan. A 12- step program or support group, at the very least a hotline, but when it comes to the unexplainable desperate need to know about a celebrity’s life, there is no treatment, only outlet after outlet to help someone get the quick fix they need.

Our culture has reached an all time low, stooping to levels that lack any dignity, leave no trace of respect and seemingly a serious disconnect from the reality that there are real people’s lives that are being affected by this perilous level of intrigue. The truth is that while a celebrity’s secrets, their shame and their sins may go for a higher price now than ever before- this fascination of fame is nothing new.

In 1932, American aviator, Charles Lindbergh’s baby was kidnapped and murdered This was clearly a time of struggle and despair for his family, yet, on the courthouse steps hundreds of strangers gathered not to show their support or their contempt for such a monstrous crime but instead to exploit. The scene appeared to be an absolute madhouse; beverages and snacks were carted through the streets. Miniature replicas of the ladder the kidnapper had used to enter the home, along with copies of the ransom note that was left were for sale only yards away from where devastated parents grieved and sought justice for the murder of their baby. Understandably, when I read that recently a paparazzo died trying to get a photo of a pop star in his Ferrari, I was barely moved, knowing that history has seen much worse devastation and our society will continue in that direction. As long as there has been fame, there are those desperate to make a dollar off of the lives and vulnerability of the famous.

There is no longer a clear line of what is acceptable and intolerable when it comes to being the first to get a story, to have the inside scoop. Fences will be climbed, trust will be broken and all boundaries will be crossed.

The closest I had ever come to fame was at the age of 7, a local news team was showcasing the city’s new pool and I was in the frame, behind the reporter, wearing a blue bathing suit. That was my three seconds of fame and it didn’t impress me enough to crave more. I have spent most of my life out of any kind of spotlight, avoiding unnecessary attention and writing under a pseudonym because the idea of people knowing me or knowing about me- it seemed uncomfortably disturbing.

Fast-forward twenty years and I find myself in a cab, on my way to meet my now husband for a date. His blue eyes and dusty blonde hair come across the screen on my taxi TV. There he was, staring out at me, saying words in the same rough voice that was making me forget all of my Christian virtues and all I could do was stare back, speechless. Though I obviously knew who he was, it wasn’t until that very moment that I realized, if this date and the next and the next went well - in time people would likely know who I was too.

Over the next weeks and months my edgy nerves were calmed by the way I saw him carry his status, his celebrity, his fame. While no, it wasn’t the daily chaos that swarms the Brad Pitts of the world (all one of them); it was a daily if not hourly reminder that his life, my life, our life - was somehow interesting to others. Since he had always maintained privacy and demanded respect for the things he held valuable, I felt safe knowing that his protection would cover me as well. I genuinely believed that what we shared would remain solely ours. But that reality was shattered rather quickly.

When we were engaged, rumors had already started to brew and weeklies came calling for a comment. Rather than bat away inaccurate gossip, he decided to announce it in his own words, in his own way. An engagement, a declaration of love, a cause for celebration was received enthusiastically by our close few and negatively by the rest. I had trapped him. I was marrying for money. I wasn’t good-looking enough for him or him for me. I was nothing but a young body and nice eyes - our marriage wouldn’t last a year. Though I have maintained my rule of never ever reading the comments, the naysayers always find a way to be heard.

The day before our wedding, an event that we had been so careful to keep special, TMZ shared the details with the world. It was embarrassing to have the most cherished day of our relationship pinned alongside ‘breaking news’: Lindsay Lohan gets coffee and Kim Kardashian wearing leather pants. How insulting and demeaning could someone be without seeming to realize it? With 350 words they stole the sacred intimacy that we so desperately needed, when we made our guest list of 20 people.

It was that moment that I realized this part of our society has no boundaries when it comes to even the slightest celebrity, there is an unrealistic and unfair demand to be informed, to be included.

I was adamant about not releasing a photo of our son when he was born. Knowing that the media would be so busy with the Blue Ivy Carters of the world and Tori Spelling’s growing spawn, I rested easy on my delivery day. Within hours, absolute fury came over me when a nurse at our hospital alerted paparazzi and People Magazine soon after we checked into the maternity ward. That breach of privacy, the capitalizing on our vulnerability seemed so dishonest. Though it took my husband and I out of our moment, out of our experience, I knew that it was and would remain a part of my new life, the readers and editors and commenters would always be the big elephant in the room.

This might be hard to imagine as US weekly’s fly off shelves everywhere and Jersey Shore’s drunken cast are made into heroes but there are some of us who value intimacy and the privacy of our families, our loves and our struggles.

Seven days after I returned home from bringing my son into this world, I was contacted for a comment on the story “Jessica Henriquez is dying of Cancer” from the Huffington Post. My breath was gone. A sickness I had kept so silent, so safe, was now being made into a story, a hero, a villain and a happy ending - a mere 1,000 words to entertain the next celeb vulture, thirsty for fresh blood. Would nothing in my life ever be sacred again? Would I wake up every morning, paying the price of notoriety without actually having made the decision to catapult myself into a career that demanded it, all because of the man I chose to love?

The funny thing about celebrity is that it is defined as being well known when the reality is that celebrities are rarely known well. With the endless inaccuracies, misquotes and false identities created for them on paper, that person is something that was created out of the monster of media imagination and sub-par story telling. There is a real human being behind that persona, behind that screen and that magazine cover- a human being who wants to do what they love or love who they choose without millions of eyes critiquing their every move and waiting to pounce at any sign of weakness. Poor little rich girl, stop complaining they’ll say. You’re not even really famous some will type, but fortunately for me – I don’t read the comments.

Ernest Hemingway said, Write drunk, edit sober – and while it seems unwise for me to follow that advice exactly during my usual 7am-2pm writing hours, I aim to follow the advice I believe he intended. I write when I am least inhibited. I write not necessarily when I have something to say but when I have something I want heard. For me, writing is my chosen career and fortunately also very therapeutic. I write when I am inspired and living in a city that was my first real love, with my ever evolving son and a continually surprising husband; it is not difficult to be inspired daily.

I write in places where I can overhear conversations, where I can listen to voices and words that inspire characters and matching emotions. Usually with coffee in hand, I write with pen on paper, despite the evidence it will leave on my knuckles that I am left handed.

As for who it is that I write for, the audience varies with each collection of words but the one consistent reader I have in mind is myself in 20 years. I hope to look back on my writing an laugh, weep and stand amazed that not only was I alive but that I lived. I want to be proud of the words I put on paper, I want to feel that I honestly represented myself and my world even if over time I change, as does the world around me. 

Like many New Yorkers, New Years Eve to me means staying close to home, close enough that I won’t have to steal a cab from the elderly or expecting. My main goal every December 31st is to try not to get thrown up on by some random that just moved to New York from his trivial Southern town where they not only have laws about when and where you can drink, but they enforce them. That guy’s liquer louge, fog horn blasting dance party heaven is my new year’s hell. Instead I opted for prix fixe on a rooftop, Jazz in the background and snoring under covers by 1:00am.

My husband and I rode the elevator, masquerade masks securely fastened, up to the rooftop of the Hotel Americano in Chelsea. The doors opened up to five or six tables lit by candles and a hip little jazz ensemble strumming and blowing away by the windows that looked out to a skyline. The food was phenomenal, each dish better than the last and paired perfectly with a wine that not only heightened the flavors but also the level of energy in the room. It was absolutely lovely and no complaint could be made as we counted down from 10 and ended our evening with 2013’s first kiss. Do you understand what I am saying? The evening was basically perfection on a platter.

So when the check arrived by way of our charming server, I grabbed for it- my treat and as I calculated a tip, it was then that my level of intoxication sank in. My head quickly ran numbers and divided digits, 20% but add an extra 10% because it is New Years… that makes $30.00. On a $900.00 check. I signed my name and off we went. I blame the extra cocktail or the fact that I was home schooled but days later, at 4am, I sat straight up in bed realizing that I’d forgotten an extra zero in that generous tip. $300 is very different from $30 and by now I am sure that waiter was making a voodoo doll resembling my masked face. That amount is the difference between making rent for the month, the deciding factor of whether you pay your electricity of buy groceries. I was paralyzed with guilt!

     I called the restaurant to right my wrong but I was told by a very hesitant receptionist that he no longer worked there. After explaining my story, she gave me his last name but nothing more.

 TERRY GRAY, WHERE ARE YOU? I have to find you and restore your faith in humanity! I have searched the highs and lows of social media (that means from Facebook to E-harmony) and I can’t seem to pin you down. Have you moved back home to that little town on the map that no one knows about? Have your dreams of making it in Manhattan been shattered due to my seeming cruelness which was really just poor education and an alcohol problem?

I am determined to find you and give you the extra 0 in your tip and hopefully let you know that there are people out there that believe in Karma and good tipping!

To all of the other versions of Terry Gray (Terri, Tery, Teri, Grey), my apologies for probably creeping you out on twitter, foursquare, instagram, linkedIn etc…

This city is tough. It is harsh and cold and unforgiving at times. Constantly surrounded by others, it can still feel like the loneliest place in the world if no one knows your name, if most people don’t even see you. Maybe this is the most difficult place to get back on your feet after the city has knocked you down again and again.

My most recent project involves me spending a lot of time with homeless people. I wish there were a different way to address them because there is so much more to who they are then the one description that they are without a consistent roof over their heads. So let me share with you some insight, a thing or two I learned spending time in the parks after sunset.

That guy, the one you had to do a double take to actually believe your eyes that he was in fact defecating in the corner of the subway station on 2^nd avenue – he is an artist. From the time he was a little boy, his mother gave him one single box of colored pencils for his birthday and he made them last two full years, wearing them down to their base. He moved to New York 12 years ago from Mobile, Alabama hoping to start selling his drawings. When I asked him what had happened to that plan, he responded, “Look around ya, what you think happened? Same thing that happened to everyone else!”  We were on a bench next to a group of men, huddled around a chess table, drinking out of paper bags and others creating beds out of today’s news.

The older gentlemen on the bus who is muttering to himself and occasionally startling other passengers with outbursts and dialogue directed at no one in particular. I had to ask, because we were all thinking it, “Sir, I’m sorry but who exactly are you talking to?” He was furious that I had interrupted a rather important conversation between himself and… “What do you mean? I’m not talking to anyone.” He responded, seemingly confused by my curiosity. “Oh, well I just thought…because you were yelling…” I trailed off. “No, no.” he smiled “I’m writing a book.” He had been sober for over three years when he made writing and story telling his anti-drug. He practices his craft on the trains, in the park, at lunch – whenever the mood strikes him. “The only way to really capture the authenticity of my characters is to become them- yell like them, talk like them, cry like them.” He explained carefully. As a writer myself, I only saw it as commitment to his art and I admit, I was a bit envious that he was able to cover any self-consciousness and let himself become so exposed in front of a city full of strangers.

She sits on the church steps a few afternoons a week – not because the religious are more likely to give but because, “it is one of the few spots in the city that gets direct sunlight and in the winter, that is the difference of whether I will be happy or sad that day.” Her sign reads Out of luck, low on hope, baby on the way. As a mother myself, I know the concerns of whether or not one is ever prepared to raise a child, but my concerns hadn’t come close to the rawness of doubt that hers had reached. She only began living on the streets six months ago when her parents kicked her out of her home in Brooklyn and vowed to never have anything to do with her again. She, a Hasidic Jew, had not only fallen in love with a black man, but she was now pregnant with his child. And he, the man who was worth giving up her old life, was nowhere to be found. “I know I should abort her. But I already know she is a she and for me, that means too much already. Maybe I should find a good home for her- maybe by the time she gets here I will have created a good home for her—- She is my daughter and unlike my parents I could never give her up.”

The year that I moved here, 2008- New York Magazine dedicated an issue to those who started in New York, the highs, the lows and the thrills.  New York City was on a short list of places where young and old, looking to take a risk, were starting over.  Looking back on my naivety, my doe-eyed wonder and my inability to stop making eye contact and smiling at everyone  - I am amazed that I am even alive to write this blog post. I wanted to share this with all of you as a reminder that this city of 8million and counting may be a melting pot of colors and language but the excitement we arrive with and the disappointments we inevitably face, those are universal.