Finally, I am acknowledging my well-developed “imposter self”. This is enabling me to re-connect with my recalcitrant reality. It has taken years to confront my well-honed imposter syndrome!

There was a time when all compliments directed at me (You look beautiful…that was a great job…I’m amazed by your courage…creativity…ability) engendered a negative “innerspeak” in me.

The judgmental and insecure Linda would quickly relegate the “complimentor” to one of three boxes:
Box 1: The person was a liar.
Box 2: The person was stupid.
Box 3: The person was tricked—by me.

Here’s a story---possibly with a lesson or a moral.

Almost fifty years ago, at the very beginning of my so-called career, I scheduled a trip to New York to meet with a prestigious gallery director. I purchased a designer suit---“Dress for Success” was a slogan that held considerable sway for this inexperienced girl-of-the-desert.
Ready, get set, go!

I was eager to be seen as a player in the mysterious and addictive world of contemporary Art---not knowing how steep the learning curve would be. My immediate goal was to appear polished and professional.

Alas, I was neither!   

I booked a room at the sophisticated (read expensive, uptown) St. Regis Hotel. When I gave my name to the (snooty?) reservation clerk, he asked, “Is that Miss or Mrs.? I wondered…Is he asking if I’m married or single?

My response? “That’s Doctor.”  Ha! What a good way NOT to answer his question!
From that first impulsive utterance of the unearned (imposter) honorific, I embraced the theatrical role of “Dr. Durham”.  It served me well for decades.

Caution: If you choose to use this confidence-creating trick, be sure to have an easy response in case you find yourself in an emergency situation.

For example: a distressed person needs immediate medical attention. You’re on a plane, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean or on a remote atoll far from civilization and you hear frantic calls from nearby witnesses, “Is there a doctor here? Can anyone perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on this dying man?”

Perhaps all eyes seem directed at you, Pretend Doctor! May I suggest a possible lawsuit-avoiding response. “I’m an entomologist---not a medical doctor.” Said apologetically. Feel free to use it.
 
The moral of this story could be: If, in making it, you use a strategy of faking it, you may end up breaking a bunch of rules and being seen or mis-seen as nobody’s fool---except your own.
​
Many times, I felt like my own fool.

Linda: For me, it's telling the truth., finding or knowing the truth. For me, truth is so
powerful, freeing, enlightening, and so entertaining. All of those things that I really like.
I think, when the truth is spoken, it hits the air in a whole different way than a lie. It
sounds different, feels different. It smells so much better than bullshit.
I used to tell my kids that the bad thing about lying wasn’t that if you get caught lying
you’ll get in trouble. The bad thing about lying is that it pollutes. You know? A lie goes
out into the room or the air...and it pollutes everything.

Sparkle: Yeah.

Linda: ...it has a kind of sick energy, and it flits around, and pollutes the environment.
And, I'm an environmentalist! A communication environmentalist. I mean, I want to clean
stuff up. Get rid of the lies. In my earliest days, I bordered on being a pathological liar. I felt totally insecure about who I really was and I wanted desperately to be something other than that. So, I invented a more interesting family and a more impressive educational background. I’m almost sure I stopped doing that a long time ago. Maybe not. I’m still trying to prove
something, or do something, or be something more or better than I am—even just in the
eyes of strangers. I’m coming to understand what that's about---that what you start out
wanting to do or prove is always different than—and not necessarily as good as---what
you end up doing or figuring out…That’s my story.

Sparkle: I found out that a lot of my problems, a lot of the reasons that I ended up doing
drugs and alcohol, had a lot to do with the fact that so many people expected so much
from me. Like you said, "Oh, Sparkle, you were always, you know, up there!"

Linda: It's true. You know, you were the beautiful, sparkling, super woman.
No one sparkled like Sparkle.

Sparkle: Right. And it's like, God, I just wanted to take a break from that. I wanted a
breather. I didn't want to have to prove myself to anybody. I didn’t think I had anything
worth proving. Not really. Nothing real. It was so much easier to be down there with
street people drinking wine under the bridge and not having, you know, not having to
prove myself or impress the other homeless people because, hey, I was just there under
the bridge drinking wine just like them. I didn't ask them if they had once been a
congressional candidate or did they ever do real estate... And they never asked me
anything like that. So, they didn't expect anything. They didn't expect anything from me.
And I could cruise I could just take it easy. I could do nothing. I didn't have to do anything.
Or be anything. Or show up all Sparkle-like.

Linda: (imitating a pretentious voice) "Oh, Sparkle, your outfit is adorable! We must have
lunch soon."

Sparkle: Right. and nobody would say, “Gee, what are you doing with yourself these days?”

Linda: Yeah.

Sparkle: And no one saw me or looked at me like, (imitating a haughty voice) “Gee, isn't
it a shame? Remember what she used to be?” And especially I didn’t want to see you, Jill.
I didn’t want to see you. Because when I saw you—you, of all people, knew what I could do.
​So, I couldn't see you. Because then, geez, you know, I'd be really depressed for days after that, Jill. You know? And, now I don't feel that way, you know. Now I don't feel that way at all.

Linda: Getting past the shame…it's important. So, like your life, your today life, is
extremely important. And being able to see that, know that, and talk about it…well,
that’s…important…that’s a breakthrough.

Sparkle: Now, I don't feel ashamed of telling anyone what I went through, right? When I
was going through it, I was ashamed. You know, because I knew that people would
think less of me, and a lot of them did.

Linda: Well, yeah.

Sparkle: I think a lot of it, too, was fear that that's all that would happen, fear that they'd
seen other people who had gone in that direction and never pulled out. And they saw
that maybe that was going to happen to me.

Linda: Yeah, where is people’s optimism about others! Also, there's this whole personal
insecurity thing that everybody has, and sometimes, bless our silly hearts, when
something bad happens to someone else, you feel a little more secure about yourself.
Sparkle Yeah. That's right. (imitating a self-righteous person) At least that didn’t happen
to me!

Linda: You know (imitating another “superior-acting” person)“…I may not have been as
beautiful as Sparkle…

Sparkle: (finishing the sentence)...but boy I'm sure not under a bridge.

(Laughter)

Right. You know, I found that attitude even in rehab centers, Jill. OK? Like, hey, I might
be an alcoholic, but I never …blah, blah. Or I might be an alcoholic, but I never did drugs.
​And I would just look them right in the face. Now I can look them right in the face
and say, “Oh, your addiction is better than mine? You know, this is ridiculous. We're all here together and we've all got something to offer to everybody else that's here.”

We both fall silent…

Sparkle: Jill, you know, I went from being a Bunny to being a bag lady--and back.

Linda: Yeah! You know, the bag lady thing has a weird sort of appeal to me…
​
Sparkle: Ha! It may not be something you would want to experience in your life.

Linda: Well, I did want to! I do want to---like I said, in a weird way. I wanted to experience it
---but as a spy.

Sparkle: Oh, yeah. Not really living it.

Linda: I wanted to dress like a bag lady.

Sparkle: Yeah, yeah, and pretend you were one, and see what it was like. But see, then
you could go home at the end of the day and take a bath and call up and have pizza
ordered in, or whatever.

Linda: Exactly. And I could tell people about the streets...

Sparkle: And you would never know, Jill. You would never really know what it was like--
unless you were out there and you could not take a bath.

Linda: Yeah.

Sparkle: Because you wouldn’t have people say, well, “why don't you just go and get a
job and better yourself?” Because, how can you get a job if you fucking can't take a
bath? And you can't iron your clothes? And then, if you do get it together and you go to
a shelter, and you iron your clothes, and you get a meal in you so you're not shaking so
badly, and you get a shower and you're clean and your clothes are pressed and you're
presentable to go for a job and you go out for a job interview and they say, "Yes, we
might have something. Where can we call you tomorrow?"

Linda: And you can't ...?

Sparkle: No, you they can’t call you. You don't have a phone! No, they can't call the
shelter. That' not allowed. Shelters aren';t allowed to take calls like that. You're not
allowed to give the shelter as a phone number. And if you do, then you're immediately
rejected for the next person that';s going to come in who has a home and has to pay
bills. Why are they going to hire some slob from off the street who obviously just wants the money to go and get a bottle of wine? And will probably just quit on them or come in
drunk.

Linda: Yeah.

Sparkle: And that's their immediate impression. They're not going to give somebody a
job if they think that. So, how is that person ever going to better themselves when they
need that job so they can stop drinking? So, they don’t stop drinking because of the position they're in, and they can't get out of the position they're in, because people think they're drinking? And they won't give them a chance to stop. Drinking is all they have.

Linda: A horrible Catch-22.

Sparkle: It is. You know, it really is. And people are very, very, you know, they're living in
these gilded ivory towers, looking down, thinking that they're safe. When it can happen
to anybody, Jill. I know. Because it happened to me.

Linda: Exactly.

Sparkle: And I've lived in mansions and had limousines and had drivers and had my
own Mercedes and all that stuff too. And I ended up under a bridge, with not even a
sleeping bag. You know, it can happen to anybody.

Some mornings, when I wake up, it takes me a minute or two to enter the day; to choose to enter the day. My dreams are so exciting and baffling. I want to engage the players, characters, and situations some more. No such luck! My dog wants to go outside; my cats want to be fed…I throw back the covers as the intriguing dream recedes. Fades. Disappears. I turn my mind to the reality of another day, another gift from the Universe. One dream world diminishes as another takes shape: 

Today!

What dreams, I wonder are still mine as I begin my octogenarian years?  What dreams are yours??

A.   Lucid Dreams
B.   Daydreams
C.   Bigger and Better Dreams
D.   Postponed Dreams
E.    Nightmares
F.    All of the Above

Do our dreams depend on where we focus our attention?

Here’s the thing: Yogi Berra was right: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

The entire future is still available.

So, what if some mornings my leg cramps for a minute! So, what if the face I face in the bathroom mirror looks momentarily unfamiliar? So what!

I splash water on that face and tell her to smile from her heart. I find some shoes. I feed the insistent cats and my patient dog…

I go outside. There it is: the air, the ground, the sky. My chickens. And the birds!

Stretch. Bend. Move. Breathe. Walk. Skip. Sing. Hum. Look. Listen…and say aloud, “I Love My Life!”
Go ahead. Risk it! Risk being optimistic, determined, grateful…

What do you want; what do you need? Where does your dream live?
Keep speaking your dream out loud. Keep thinking about it, considering it, praying for it, wanting it, going for it, trying it, starting it, finishing it, doing it…

That’s the spirit!

May we give ourselves permission to ask for what we truly want at 100 %.
​
…The trip – The book – The poem – The project – The phone call…

My personal creed for Life first developed on the playgrounds of my early childhood. By mastering the monkey bars and conquering the see-saw, I gained early confidence and uncovered nascent indications of creativity and determination.

​MONKEY BAR METAPHORS
​
On the Monkey Bars, there is an exquisite moment when it is necessary to take a swing of faith and trust one’s ability to travel onward. Let go from behind, swing forward, reach, grasp, hold, let go from behind, swing forward, reach, grasp, hold, let go…
Intent on moving forward, I choose to let go of what is or was holding me back.
Navigating Life reminds me of navigating the monkey bars. It is about rhythm, courage, intention, plus the gravity-defying aim of making one’s way across to the next place, and the next…
It’s still a good metaphor for the ever-moving me as well as for those who consider opportunity, courage, movement, and continuation to be among the most interesting and important drivers of life?
 
SEE-SAW THOUGHTS

The unorthodox see-saw maneuvering of my long-ago youth indicated an aspect of my personal style. Most kids shared the see-saw with another friend—preferably a friend of a similar weight. The two teeter-totterers would sit facing one another and go up and down, using their feet to launch themselves upward, over and over. That was not my see-saw way. No, I preferred to mount the see-saw in the middle, straddle my legs on either side of the fulcrum, stand tall, and lean my weight sharply from side to side to control the movement of the see-saw. Challenging balance. Right, left, right, left. Balance. The rule of this solitary exercise was to maneuver the see-saw back and forth, as fast as possible, pushing both sides perilously close to the ground—without bumping. Of course, sometimes, I bumped. Once I recovered my balance, I prepared for the next bump.
From those teeter-tottering playground experiences, I learned that, in big life, bumping is inevitable. Also, the act (the gift, the talent) of letting go is something to hold on to…

“The world is but a perpetual see-saw.”  Michel de Montaigne